Anand Ritz Matheran

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog. We've been busy – with exploring Mumbai, going to a wedding, and then flying to Hyderabad and seeing extended family on my Dad’s side (for the first time since my 1993 visit here). Connectivity has been hell and I finally decided to just update from my cell modem (who knows what roaming costs ...

... think of something to pass the time.

21:00

Somehow this last hour passed in a matter of minutes... about 60 I would say. Sat next to a young girl that was able to plunge her whole arm into a large bag of crisps. I keep going to the toilet over and over, always Ben & Jerrys. Body is excreting the whole experience out, ready for an intake of new when I get back. Veg Birianyi on Air India to finish this hour. Then back to the loo.

22:00

Mumbai, India awfullook

... the forest remains fairly unspoilt except for the odd grazing animals, illegal fire wood collectors and sand dredgers. It is also a bird watchers haven. Racket tailed drongoes, paradise flycatchers, woodpeckers, bulbuls, orioles, sunbirds, crested serpent eagles, are some of the many varieties easily spotted here. In the ...

after arriving at Mumbai International Airport we triedto find an official looking mode of transport that could take us to the domestic airport, Unfortunately this doesn't seem to exist in Mumbai so we jumped in a tuk tuk!. Once we were moving along the busy roads and told our driver our plan of sleeping in the airport till our morning flight to Goa, he informed us ...

... The MTDC is currently closed for renovation but if the work has not yet started in all the rooms, the Manager will let it out on request. The MTDC is not for those who seek swimming pools, discos and other such pleasures. Our first trip of this year was on the 12th of September. Matheran was engulfed in cloud, pleasantly chilly by Bombay standards. The hotel Manager informed us that it was their first ...

... for me to ineterpret for Margaret and the others. The kids are so beautiful and some of them are very intelligent. On the first day some of the class 4 students sang all the songs they knew for me and recited all the poems they had in their books. Some of them had beautiful voices and their memory was great. Margaret, Lynda and I did a health camp every morning, where many mothers and grandmothers came with their health problems. Most of them were anaemic and had aches and ...

... trip that day. Two local guides and an armed guard accompanied us. After a very short raft ride across a 'finger' of the lake, we walked through mixed forest for a few hours, enjoying enormous tall trees, birds and insects; especially a small dense patch of butterflies by the marshy lake shore, mostly Wanderers, Crows and Tigers with the odd Red Helen. The magnificent Paris Peacocks and Blue Mormons regaled us elsewhere in the forest. Our ...

... meal, I felt conflicted about the fact that AJWS was spending their money on a fancy dinner for us in Mumbai rather than using this money to fund some of the programs AJWS is supporting in India, or at least to give us a bit more in our cost-of-living stipends. As a group, we've had many conversations about the relative costs and benefits of international volunteer programs like this one, and especially about how much it costs to have us here in India, so it's kind of strange that ...

... we turned onto a nice straight bit of path, he could grab Bustino's bridle to stop him thundering off into the distance. Surely, you'd think, he could have just kept pace with mine if that happened, and headed us off. But Bustino was moonlighting with the tourists. Bustino was actually a race horse. I'm not even joking. I thought our guide, Sami, was joking when he told me, but no....Bustino has even won races... Keeping Bustino out of full gallop took every muscle ...

... unfortunately his ******** has sold in alot of countries including my own. And typical comments from friends have been along the lines of "are you seriously going into Iran"?, "what the hell would you want to go to Iran for"? The people it's stung most are Hotel owners and tour operators of Iran, and anyone that's believed the **** we've been fed on TV, resulting in travellers avoiding one of the best countries in the world to travel in. Well, thats enough politics ...