First Day in Mumbai

We found out that businesses don't open until around noon in Mumbai. I have a feeling it will be this way everywhere. We were waiting for a restaurant to open up and Toni was looking at these maps of India that this guy wanted sell him. These girls came up and started talking to us. They were very polite and tried flattering us and asking us where we were from. Then they asked us to help them, not with money, but to buy their sister some milk. They followed us around everywhere until this guy that looked like a security guard or maybe police chased them away. I could tell that they had been coached about what to say. Later, Toni said that kids used the same exact technique on her when she was in Mexico. That surprised me. We ate at a fancy restaurant called Indigo. It reminded me of an expensive restaurant in Seattle. I had a cold zucchini soup R125 ($2.84) and grilled vegetables in with pita R230 ($5.23). It was pretty good, but it seemed weird to eat food like this in India. Toni wanted to eat safe on our first day. That's pretty expensive for India. For dinner we ate at Leopold's, I ordered vegetable paulov (I know it as paulou, sort of like fried rice) R50 ($1.13) and this would have been enough to fill me up. I didn't realize how much I would get so I also ordered vegetable Kurma (I know it as korma, a vegetable stew) R60 ($1.36). This is also considered a little steep.

01 Gateway of India

My original plan had been to buy clothes so I would blend in better, but I realized that with me wearing a day pack, I stand out no matter what. So, I've decided to give up the idea of blending in, though I still bought some Indian clothes because they are comfortable and cheap and I had nothing else to wear.

02 Posing in front of the Gateway to India

There are dogs and cats laying around all over the place. They don't seem all that malnourished. In fact, I've seen people, especially kids, looking in worse shape than these animals. The dogs will lay right in the middle of the sidewalk, and I saw one laying in a busy road median just wide enough for him to lay down. Cars were whipping by him on either side and he didn't even look up. At first I was a little worried about these dogs, but they were quiet and relaxed. We would step right over them and they wouldn't even lookup. All the dogs and cats had a similar look to them,like there was a whole lot of inbreeding going on. We haven't seen many cows and they all seem to be cared/owned buy someone.

03 Bentley's Hotel room

I've seen some pretty sad looking children and some a few women with small children and infants looking very malnourished. There was this one small girl that looked in a bad way with weeping gooey eyes, and she had this frantic look about her as she hand-signaled please give me food, bringing her hand to her mouth and then holding her hand out to people as they passed. The stall vendors were hissing at her to go away. Toni and Kenny Lee were ahead of me and moving fast so I couldn't really stop for fear of loosing them, but I was torn about giving her some of my German Brown bread that I had in my pack. I know they say not to give them anything because it just goes to someone else, but she looked so desperate that she haunts me in my head. It looked so genuine to me.

04 Toilet at the Bentley's

We checked out of our hotel today. We plan to take a sleeper train up to Amedabad tonight, then it is on to Udaipur. I'm not sure if we will be able to find Internet access when we are in Amedabad, but we should find something in Udaipur. I still haven't found a place where I can upload images. So, maybe I'll find some place in Udaipur.

05 A dog's life in Mumbai