Post #92 - January 11, 2013 - Mumbai (Bombay), India

What we did: rested, Cafe Coffee Day, dinner at KFC
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 3895R/$78

Today was another rest day. Both Patty and I were still not feeling great, so we didn't feel like venturing far from our hotel. We went downstairs to eat a simple breakfast of toast and yogurt. It was amazing to eat yogurt again!

After this, we went out to the Cafe Coffee Day attached to our hotel and had delicious, expensive coffees. We sat there all afternoon surfing the internet and working on our blog. It was extremely warm today and thankfully the cafe had some shading and, hilariously, two air conditioning units that were blowing cold air into the open-air cafe.

We didn't move from our spots in the cafe until about 5pm, when we decided, stupidly, to seek out the KFC we had spotted on our taxi drive to the hotel. For some reason, KFC sounded like a perfectly reasonable place to eat even with our stomach troubles.

I thought that we would find the KFC on the same road as our hotel, but I had forgotten, as Patty reminded me, that we had actually made a turn after we had seen the KFC. Patty remembered the intersection we had turned down so we headed that way.

We spoke to a security guard who confirmed we were headed in the right direction and after 10 minutes or so we found the KFC. We ordered meals of chicken, fries, and a drink. I tried the curry flavoured chicken and sort of wish I hadn't.

On our way home we stopped at a grocery and a street vendor to pick up some oranges, yogurt, water, candy, and pop. Once back in our hotel room we watched Zero Dark Thirty, the movie about the assassination of Osama bin Laden, while eating a ton of junk food. It was a good night...the movie was pretty good too.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to bed until around 4am. Neither of us was feeling particularly tired, and we had a very difficult time falling asleep.

It's OK though...it's not like we will be doing much tomorrow anyway!

Post #91 - January 10, 2013 - Mumbai (Bombay), India

What we did: Train Aurangabad to Mumbai, doctor, Argo
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 4929R/$99

This morning we got up very early to catch our train back to Mumbai. Bouts of serious stomach cramps and pains were hitting me the much of the train ride. By around 10am the non-AC car we were sitting in became very hot and when you're not feeling well, this makes things feel much worse. To put it mildly, it was painful and all I could think about was how much I would rather be at home.

We arrived in Mumbai at around 2pm and took a taxi to our hotel which was much closer than the last time we arrived in Mumbai, (thank the lord!). In fact a whole 100 minutes closer. Of course our taxi still ripped us off though on the ride there and didn't even put on his metre. We're pretty sure it was set at 23 km the whole time, which meant we had to pay almost $10 for a 15 min ride. In India this is very expensive.

It's difficult to put into words how happy we were when we arrived at our hotel. It is an excellent hotel. Reception saw that I wasn't feeling well and offered me water or juice and then immediately took me to our awesome, clean, bright room while Jeff checked us in.

We then spent the  entire afternoon in our room, resting. At around 6pm, we went to see doctor who fortunately for us was located right next door to our hotel. It finally felt like luck was on our side for once. The doctor was impressively thorough and patient with our questions, even with the lineup waiting outside his door. It was so nice not to feel rushed for once. In Canada that feeling in the doctor's room is all too common and it's such a shame we feel that way. Did I mention we only paid 400 Rupees for the visit? That's $4 each. He prescribed some medication for us both and then off we went to a chemist aka pharmacist. Yup in India they call pharmacists, chemists.

The doctor recommended we start eating curds (yogurt) for their probiotics which would help our digestive systems. He said that stomach ailments for foreigners is so common because we arrive with no immunities to the bacteria often found here. He recommended that our diets be very strict for the next few days and he encouraged us to see him again if we weren't feeling better in a couple days.

After buying our medication we went looking for curds (yogurt); eventually we found a grocery store and picked some up, along with cookies.

From there we went for dinner at hotel restaurant, we took it easy on food and just ate some vegetable soup.

After dinner we watched the movie Argo and went to bed hoping for a good night sleep and for the stomach pains to subside.

Post #90 - January 9, 2013 - Aurangabad, India

What we did: Ellora Caves, Daulatabad
Budget: 3500 Rupees/$70; Spent: 2522 Rupees/$51

Again I woke up feeling exhausted and ill. We were to meet up with Victor and Therese (the Swedish couple we met yesterday) at 10am at their hotel. We got down for breakfast at around 9:15am. Our stomachs have been so sensitive lately that we were scared of eating so we only had some toast and a boiled egg each.

We quickly paid our bill and caught an auto-rickshaw to their hotel where a taxi would be picking us up to take us to the sites for the day.

About half an hour later we arrived at the Ellora Caves. We were greeted by many vendors offering us things and encouraging us to go to their stores.

Similar in purpose to the caves of Ajanta, Ellora consist of 34 religious caves, of which 12 are Buddhist, 17 are Hindu, and five are Jain. These "caves" were carved out of a high basalt cliff between 600-1000 AD. We started at the largest cave, called the Kailasa Temple. This temple was completed in the 8th century, after more than 400,000 tonnes of rocks were scooped out over hundreds of years. The temple is considered a "megalith" because of how it was constructed. Amazingly, the entire structure is made out of a single piece of stone. The temple was built through vertical excavation - carvers started at the top and worked their way down. Three huge trenches were bored into the sheer cliff face with hammers and chisels, while taking care to leave behind those sections that would later be used for sculpting. As you can imagine, this leaves a margin for error of exactly zero. And this place is gigantic. According to our Lonely Planet book, it covers an area twice the size of the Parthenon in Athens. We nearly instantly agreed it was one of the most amazing sites we've ever seen, if not our top site. It literally seems out of this world. We loved it so much, we spent about two hours enjoying the intricate carvings and immense size. We could have stayed longer, but there are 33 other caves and we agreed to meet Therese and Victor for lunch.

On our way to lunch we saw so many monkeys. This one was by far the cutest:

We had a decent lunch at a restaurant on-site. Neither Jeff nor I felt much like eating. We both ordered rice dishes. Unfortunately, mine had a little too much spice, so I ate less than half of it. Jeff seemed to enjoy his egg fried rice a little more, since he finished his. I still can't believe how little we are eating these days! Unfortunately, this seems to be catching up to me, at least. After lunch I had very little energy to do any sightseeing at all. Jeff coaxed me to a couple more caves before it was time to meet Therese and Victor at our taxi and drive to the Jain temples, which are about 1 km away. The day was excruciatingly hot, which really didn't help, since I was already not feeling great. I think Jeff was feeling the heat, as well, and he didn't show that much interest in the Jain caves.

At last, we ended up at cave 29, which is a Hindu cave, and we both showed some interest in this one. It was neat in that an entrance/exit to the cave was through a fissure in the rock that was maybe 30-40 metres tall. It was another large cave with many pillars and even more bats. At first, I was absolutely terrified of the bats, but by the end they were tolerable. I think I still would have screamed if they had touched me in any way, but when they are just hanging from the ceiling, they are actually pretty cute. They look like wee acrobatic mice wearing capes.

After this last cave, it was time to say good-bye to Ellora and head to Daulatabad. Daulatabad has a fascinating history: this 12th century hilltop fortress was originally conceived of as an impregnable fort and, in 1328, when it was christened Daulatabad (City of Fortune) by Delhi's sultan and named the capital, the entire population of Delhi was relocated over 1100 km to populate it. The fort, although strategically superior to Delhi, lacked a sufficient water supply for the population and, two years later, the city was abandoned and its residents marched back to Delhi. Naturally there were many people who died during the perilous trek to and from Daulatabad.

The palace sits atop a 200 metre-high outcrop known as Devagiri (Hill of the Gods), and it's no wonder why. The outcrop boasts hundred-metre tall cliffs surrounding the palace. It's amazing people were even able to build anything on top of this thing. As our Lonely Planet book describes it, Daulatabad is literally out of a Tolkein novel. It's defenses include multiple doorways with odd angles and spike-studded doors to prevent elephant charges, three distinct city walls, a moat, and an ingenious stairway through caverns that are pitch-black, have steep and oddly- and differently-shaped steps, and sheer drops. The amount of thought and detail that went into the building of this city is truly remarkable. It was a wonder to behold.

We had less than an hour to see the whole site, which is huge. It was once a capital city. Much of the huge site is closed off to the public, particularly the areas that would have originally been part of the city itself. However, most of the palace remains in tact. It's about a 20 minute walk just to get to the base of the outcrop and Victor really wanted to get to the top, so he decided to run. The rest of us were too tired, so we decided to just walk up.

We were stopped on several different occasions to get our pictures taken by locals. I still can't understand peoples' interest in taking our pictures. I think we're getting more used to it though!

The walk to the top of the hill was arduous to say the least! It was an amazing climb though. The countryside is beautiful and the city is marvelous. The walk through the caves was tricky, especially since we didn't have a flashlight or anything, so Jeff ended up using the flash on the camera to guide us around for the parts where there was literally zero light. At one point a bat flew in Therese's hair. She screamed, but thankfully she didn't fall!

Up and up we went, until finally we reached the summit. The palace is not much to look at anymore. It must have been quite impressive back in the day and it has a spectacular view. The city must have been something when people were actually living in it!

We didn't find Victor for some time once we reached the top, but it turned out that he had just headed even further up to get a better view of the surrounding countryside. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to climb up to the top part, but it's something we would have definitely liked to do. Next time.

We took many great pictures from the top. Victor was crazy enough to climb out a window onto a small ledge to take a look around. He seems to have a crazy side to him. It made for a hell of a picture!

It was near to closing so we headed back down to the taxi. The walk down was uneventful, although the cave proved challenging again. We are amazed that there are no lights to help people up. They've really left it authentic!

The ride home took only 20 minutes or so. We got Therese's email so that we could send them pictures and then said our good-byes. We'll miss them. They were extremely nice people and we got along with them great. We learned today that they have only been together for 10 months. I can't imagine traveling to India with Jeff after only dating for 10 months! I guess they're in a different stage in life, but still...well, I guess it's a good test! They seem to be doing well!

Another thing is that they haven't gotten sick at all yet! They've been here for three weeks and nothing! They even stopped on the street and tried some of the fruit. And here we are avoiding everything and still sick as dogs! It's not fair. Who knows though, maybe their time will come. Or maybe they will just be lucky. Or maybe we've just been unlucky! I hope we just get better soon. It's hard to enjoy our travels when everything is such an effort. India is definitely starting to wear us down.

We had a very simple dinner tonight of just soup and some lemon soda to calm our tummies. Hopefully it will help us recover.

We were so exhausted that after our showers we pretty much just went to bed. It's been a long day and it's going to be an early morning tomorrow. Our train back to Mumbai leaves Aurangabad at 6am. I think we both need a vacation!

Post #89 - January 8, 2013 - Aurangabad, India

What we did: Ajanta caves
Budget: 3500 Rupees/$70; Spent: 3207R/$64

From the minute we woke up this morning, Patty was in and out of the washroom. Her stomach was hurting terribly and we weren't sure whether we'd be able to do anything sightseeing today. When she was feeling a little better, we went down to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast. We took it pretty slow and Patty didn't eat much. Once she had to rush back up to our room. After breakfast, we decided to go back up to the room so Patty could rest for a while and then decided whether she was good enough to see Ajanta today.

Our plan for today was to take the two-hour bus ride to the Ajanta caves. The Ellora caves are much closer, but unfortunately those are closed today. If we were going to see the Ajanta caves, it had to be today. At about 10am, Patty decided she was good enough to see Ajanta today, even though she was by no means feeling great.

We took an auto-rickshaw to the bus depot and then boarded a bus bound for Ajanta nearly immediately. Our trip was uneventful, but long. Closer to three hours. Twice Patty had severe stomach pains during the ride. It was difficult to watch helplessly as she doubled over due to pain. I think she was very worried about the lack of a nearby washroom...and rightly so!! We were sandwiched for most of the ride at the back of the bus among some locals. It was a bumpy ride but much cheaper than any scheduled tour group.

We arrived at the caves around 1pm and Patty rushed to the nearest washroom, her stomach aching badly, while I went to buy the tickets. Patty told me later that a woman waiting in line in front of her for the bathroom refused to allow Patty to go first, despite Patty clearly being desperate. Apparently this lady tried to direct her to another washroom that was upstairs. That's just disgustingly inconsiderate.

Afterwards, Patty felt a little better, although she was visibly upset. I think India is definitely taking a toll on us. We can't eat properly, we're traveling in uncomfortable conditions, we're too cold or too hot, we're sick, dehydrated, not sleeping well...the list goes on and on. We're definitely breaking a little under all the pressure, but we still hope to be able to make it to the places we want to see in India. We're really trying to not let it get to us too much.

Once we had decided that Patty was OK to walk for a bit, we headed to the caves.

The caves of Ajanta are wonderful. They are of Buddhist origin and date back to between the 2nd century BC and the 6th century AD. Twenty-eight caves lie in a horseshoe shape along the Waghore river. The insides of the caves are impressive, with beautifully carved rock columns and coloured paintings that can still be seen on the walls. In the summer time, which is also monsoon season, there are waterfalls near the sight and the Waghore river, which is now dry, is a large river. It’s supposed to be magnificent to see, but landslides are apparently a real risk.

People were also taking pictures of us like crazy. There were many school kids, and there teachers would often encourage them to take pictures with us. Of course, the teachers themselves couldn't leave without getting into the action, either. It was a hilarious experience. We got a little taste of what it means to be a celebrity. I think we liked it!

There were also people being carried through the site on seats carried by four workers. It was very odd. Seeing is believing:

Unfortunately, we only got up to cave 8 when Patty couldn't go on. She had begun feeling ill again and it just wasn't worth it to stay. It didn't help that it was scorching hot, which is something we're definitely not used to. We realized that we would have to prepare ourselves better and definitely hydrate better, especially since we're ill.

We crossed a bridge to the other side of the dry river bed so that Patty could sit in the shade while I climbed up the short walk to the viewpoint at the top of the opposing hill. The climb was brief and definitely worth it. From the top of this hill, the 28 caves of Ajanta were in a half-circle shape around me. It was an impressive sight.

Two men had set up a small shop at the top of the hill and one of the men told me to walk a couple minutes away from the caves to check out the waterfalls that lead to the valley. I chose not to wander off too far, knowing Patty was waiting for me, but I did see where a large waterfall would exist if there had been water. It would have been something to see water pouring over the edge.

I raced back down the hill to find Patty chatting away with a local salesperson. Apparently, while I was away, Patty had a nice conversation with a friendly local vendor. He goes to the site 6 days a week and makes a living selling small souvenirs. They talked a bit about cricket and she asked him if he was upset about India losing to Pakistan. He quickly corrected Patty and said they had won, but Patty corrected him saying they lost the whole series. Apparently he didn't seem too upset about it, even though cricket is by far the most popular sport in India. We've seen kids on the street stop to watch the sport through windows of restaurants or other businesses that are showing a match. The vendor even said girls play cricket in India. There were many vendors at Ajanta today and not too many tourists. They are all selling similar souvenirs. It is such a competitive business for them, and likely not much compensation.

We decided to find an alternative ride home to the snail paced bus. Both of us were exhausted and not feeling too well, so we thought paying a little extra would be worth it. In no time, we found a ride home for 600R ($12) in the back of a Jeep.

We ended up sitting next to a nice Swedish couple whose names were Therese and Victor. We talked to them the whole ride home. Victor worked as a tree cutter/artist back home, and Therese was working to get a designation as a gardener. Very unique professions. They too were planning to see the Ellora Caves tomorrow, and we eventually agreed to find a taxi together for the next day. Sure enough the same taxi driver who drove us home agreed to take us to the Ellora Caves the next day for 1000 Rupees total. A good deal for sure, especially when split four ways.

Once we got back to the hotel we were advised we would need to switch to a different room. Apparently we had been staying in a nicer room than we had paid for. We had to pack up all our stuff and move to the 3rd floor. We quickly learned what 200 Rupees can mean in India and vowed always pay a bit more for a room in the future. The new room had no carpet (not a big deal), it also had 2 twin beds that we had to push together to make a double (also, not a big deal). Our biggest issue was with the toilet. It was a normal toilet in every sense, except it had no seat. It was just a bowl...something we didn't realize until I had to use it. Ah, what a lovely night we had. We were livid, but too tired to say anything, let alone move if they offered us another room. But anyway, how can a hotel not invest a couple dollars on a toilet seat?!

The shower was hot though and it had some actual water pressure, which somewhat compensated for the toilet. Once again we've found you can never get everything in India.

We went downstairs for dinner and were very careful not to eat too much. We had some soup and then up to bed we went to watch a bit of Lincoln. And that was our day.

Post #88 - January 7, 2013 - Aurangabad, India

What we did: shipped stuff home, train to Aurangabad
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 6942R/$139

We woke up today not feeling all that well. We took turns going to the bathroom and rushed to pack our stuff for our train ride to Aurangabad. Our bags have started getting heavy so we had decided to ship a parcel home in the mail before our train ride. That was first on our agenda for the day. Somehow as we were leaving for the nearest post office, we realized our train actually left at 2pm, not 3:30pm, like we had thought the whole morning. We had much less time than we thought and asked the hotel staff whether it would be possible for us to do both. They said it would be possible but that we would have to hurry. They gave us directions to the nearest post office and we hitched a ride with an auto-rickshaw at around 12:45pm hoping we actually had enough time. The driver had to ask a couple people where the place was, but sure enough we found it. $100CDN (for 4 kg!!!!) later and the package was on its way and we were heading back to the hotel to grab our luggage and get to the train station.

We walked from our hotel through the alley and found a taxi driver sleeping, but who promptly grabbed out attention and offered us a ride to Dadar Terminal. It was 1:14pm when we got in his car and we quickly explained that our train departed at 2pm. He said it would take about 45 minutes to get to the train station, but that he would do his best to get us there on time. The next 44 minutes (and I mean precisely the next 44 minutes) consisted of us dodging traffic, cutting off countless motorcycles, trucks, buses ,and cows, as well as running 3 red lights. We arrived at Dadar at 1:58pm. Jeff tipped the guy and we sprinted passed crowds of people. Several really helpful people directed us to the train. One guy even followed us and directed us to our slightly hidden platform. At 1:59pm we were on board the train and one minute later we were heading for Aurangabad. Running one less red light would have meant missing our train. We were lucky both to be alive and on this train.

About 30 minutes into the train ride it became apparent we were in the wrong train car and sitting in a much nicer class than we had paid for. Our seats, as it turned out, were on the other end of the train, which meant that we had to walk through 12 train cars, stepping over people, bags, and getting sandwiched between numerous objects and people. It would have been hellish if it hadn't been for Indian people and their patience and calmness, which was written all over their faces. At various points we shoved, stepped on, got in the way...yet it was nothing out of the ordinary for them. Oddly, this was kind of soothing, like they were telling us “relax, this is no big deal”. Upon recalling it though, this should have been another moment where we stopped to ask ourselves whether we will ever get a break?

We got to our seats finally and breathed a small sigh of relief. We were mostly just thankful that we were on the train. Two really cute young kids about the ages of 5-7 sat beside us. Their mother was across the aisle next to them wearing a burka and covering her face with only her eyes exposed. We offered the kids some mint gum and asked their mom if they could have some; she kindly gestured ok. The older brother spoke a bit of English and was very friendly and always smiling at us. The younger brother was quite shy and only took a piece of gum once his older brother did.

Most of the rest of the trip, the mom kept encouraging the older brother to speak to us in English. The young boy spoke very well, but was also quite shy. He was a really sweet kid. He asked where we came from and where we were going, among other things.

After this, there was more commotion about seats, which seems to happen on every train ride. People tend to switch seats to sit with people they are traveling with, so making everyone happy is like a game. We had taken someone else's seat, but it had been offered to us by another man so that we could sit together. But this just added a layer of complexity to a young man who was trying to sort everything out. This guy reminded both Jeff and I of an Indian Dimitri Ifantis, someone from back home that Jeff plays soccer with. Again, like most Indians, he had seemingly infinite patience with his nearly impossible task, and he was helping himself and others figure out the seating arrangements with class and the air of leader. It was quite impressive. In about 10 minutes, everyone in the car seemed to be satisfied with their seats. It was hilarious to watch. The guy asked for our tickets two or three times just to understand who had moved where.

Once things had settled down, we began watching the movie Lincoln. Unfortunately, it was very tough to understand anything that was going on in the movie because of the noisiness of the train. And this is most definitely a movie you need to pay very close attention to because each detail is essential to the whole story. We’ll have to watch it again from the beginning. Seemed like a very interesting movie from what I understood of it!

The seat next to our (three seats on each side of the aisle) was a seat that was typically occupied by one or two of the three children of the nice family we had met. At this point it was the Sister that was sitting next to us. She was very shy and reserved, and she didn't speak any English. We offered to buy her some candy from a vendor who came down the aisle, but she refused our offer several times. We kinda felt sad she wouldn't take anything, especially since we had earlier given some stuff to her brother. We hoped that she didn't feel left out. However, later on, when she was sitting a couple rows in front of us, she looked back and we locked eyes; she smiled at me then and I felt that she appreciated our offer.

As the train arrived in Aurangabad the little boy we had spoken to approached us with his father and shook our hands and wished us the best of luck. We have met so many lovely people on trains in India. People on the trains are real, unlike most of the people we typically interact with that are part of the tourism industry.

We were exhausted and excited to get our hotel to eat and get cleaned up. It turned out that our hotel room was quite nice. It was carpeted and looked well taken care of. The shower was hot, but unfortunately there’s no wifi even though their website says they have Internet access.

Let's face though, we're in India...we will never have it all!

Post #87 - January 6, 2013 - Mumbai (Bombay), India

What we did: taxi from Ulhasnagar to Adheri East, InOrbit mall, Lemon Grass restaurant
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 7500R/$150

This morning we woke up hopeful; hopeful for warm showers, a cleaner room, worthwhile exploration in Mumbai, and healthier stomachs. We got 2 out of the 4. For India though, a 50% success rate has come to be expected, possibly even lucky. Attaining this took a very long, drawn out journey with what may very well be the worst taxi driver in all of India.

The plan today was to get out of the hotel by 10am. We both woke up feeling ill and therefore didn’t actually get out of our room until around 10:30am. The reception called twice to see when we would be down to meet our taxi driver whom we had hired for the day for 2500 Rupees or $50. It turned out to be the most bang for our buck to hire a driver for the day especially because Mumbai is so enormous and its infrastructure so poor. It is by far the most difficult city to get around in from our experience. There is no metro system (though one is in the works), and the public bus system would be a nightmare to navigate the city with for long distances, like ours.

Since we were late we didn’t have a chance to eat breakfast, but it was alright since our tummies were pretty sensitive. Our kind hotel owner provided us with a recommended itinerary for the day. His suggestion for our first stop was at a mall called “InOrbit” in the new part of Mumbai known as Vashi. The area was nice and much cleaner than the old Mumbai we had seen the day before. It soon became clear, however, our taxi driver had no idea where the mall was. He asked about 7 different taxiwallahs (taxi men) where "intercity" mall was. None of them knew what he was talking about, since the mall is called “InOrbit”. These kinds of verbal slip ups on his part were only the beginning. We finally realized he was saying the wrong name and corrected him and then we promptly found the mall thanks to the directions given to us by several taxi drivers. Finally at around 12:30pm, 2 hours after leaving the boonies of Ulhasnagar where are hotel was situated, we arrived at the mall. At this point we were starving and a little frustrated that such a big chunk of our day was gone and spent in a car. We were craving comfort food. Luckily Pizza Hut was there to lend their food services. We ordered 2 small greasy pizzas and felt much better. We then gorged ourselves on a beautifully made donut and a fancy cupcake:

[pic]

We were full and happy. The icing on the cupcake concerned us a bit since we had been advised not to eat icing. It’s too bad this didn't occur to us until after eating it. Things have been rough for us the past week or so in India. We have been sick on and off, travelling has been awfully cold and uncomfortable for hours at a time, which often meant sleepless nights. There have been huge highs and lows here. India has so many extremes of everything: wealth/poverty, honest/dishonest people, beauty/ugliness. The list goes on. Nothing is ever simple here. You pay for a simple taxi ride and you end up arguing over the price. You never know what you’re gonna get. The problem is that nothing is transparent, and too many people are desperate enough to devise ways of taking more money from you. And it’s not that most of them have bad intentions, but it’s a way of life. It’s been a mixed bag of experiences… yet somehow we still love India! I guess we love how it always keeps us on our toes. Everything is a new experience. It’s a place where people do the most changing, hopefully for the better.

After our smorgasbord, we checked out a few stores. There was one we really liked called Cotton World. It seems to have few locations throughout India. I ended up buying a top for $12. After that we left and got back to the car around 2pm and headed for our new hotel called Hotel Cosmo. This ended up being another adventure. It took us 2 hours to find the hotel. This was no doubt in part due to the sheer size of Mumbai, and the crazy dense traffic, the fact that our hotel was in a remote alleyway, plus we forgot to make note of the address of our hotel. But we cannot discount the impact of our taxi driver. Luckily we remembered the area the hotel was in and the taxi driver knew how to get there. The hotel we were staying at was in an area called Andheri East which is near the airport so we were hoping that other taxi drivers in the area would be able to direct us to the hotel. Sadly none of the taxi drivers knew where the hotel was located...and we asked at least a dozen of them. This may have also been because our taxi driver kept calling it hotel cosmos (with an 's') after we repeatedly corrected him. Every 20 feet or so our taxi driver would pull over to ask a tuk tuk driver if they knew where hotel cosmos was. He even asked drivers in the middle of traffic when we were stopped at lights. But none of them knew where it was. He was determined to find the place with the help of some taxi drivers. We suggested several times to pull over so that we could find the proper address for the place on the internet, but he refused until finally we were all fed up and we insisted on stopping at a hotel. Jeff and the taxi driver (Sunil) ran into a nice hotel to ask for help. A couple minutes later they came back in the car with an address! Sunil quickly pointed out that the hotel was not in Andheri East but somewhere else which was 10-15 mins away. Amazingly, we arrived at our hotel 3 minutes later. The hotel was in Andheri East…he just wanted to blame it on us.

By this point we were very excited at the thought of a warm shower. We asked Sunil to wait about an hour so that we could freshen up for dinner. He agreed to wait for us and then drop us off for dinner. We walked to the front desk and checked in. While Jeff was talking to the receptionist I told Sunil that he could go and grab lunch somewhere and meet us back at the hotel in an hour. He misunderstood and thought that I said he could leave. Well that planted a seed that turned into one of the most frustrating exchanges ever. We quickly clarified ourselves and he agreed to wait in the lobby. While I was in the shower, a bellboy knocked on our door and requested Jeff go to the lobby where he later met Sunil who explained he had to go home now…Jeff came back into the room and we both agreed we would just pay him for 2 hours less since we were told we would have his services until 7pm.

Jeff went back out to the lobby and argued with the guy for 30 minutes. I could even hear some of the conversation from the room. Sunil demanded to be paid the full amount saying he was told he only had to stay until 5pm even though he had already agreed to drive us to dinner. They tried calling Satish who organized the whole thing, but he was unavailable. Finally Jeff came back and the agreement was that Sunil would find another driver for us and we would pay the difference.

We got out of the room all cleaned up and ready for dinner and low and behold, Sunil was standing there to drive us. It was awkward and annoying and the next hour of trying to find Lemon Grass restaurant proved to really test our patience. Of course in good Sunil fashion he asked for directions and continually called the restaurant "Lemon Grass Hotel", not "restaurant". It was getting late so Sunil stopped the car and supposedly took a short cut for which he had to pay an officer 200 rupees to pass through. There was an officer but whether the cost was 200 rupees or whether there was even a charge is still a mystery. Anyways we got to the Lemon Grass Hotel at last and we ended up paying Sunil the full amount plus 200 rupees. He then proceeded to hug Jeff twice and we said goodbye. Good riddance!

We ended up having a really nice dinner though, which I think was much deserved. The restaurant served Southeast Asian dishes of all kinds. Jeff ordered the Pad Thai and I ordered a dish that was quoted as being “superb” in Lonely Planet. They were wrong about that one, but not about the restaurant. It was a really nice place.

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It was a Saturday night in Mumbai and after dinner we were kind of feeling down about not really having the chance to see any nightlife in Mumbai. We contemplated the idea of going to the coast where the "hippest" restaurants and bars are all lined up near the beach, but with the poor location of our hotel we thought it was an excursion that needed to be planned out better. We agreed to leave it for when we returned to Mumbai after Aurangabad.

We ended up getting a ride back to the hotel with a nice guy who didn't try and pull a fast one on us. He didn't speak much English, but treated us well and we all worked together to help him find the place.

It was good end to a somewhat frustrating day.

Post #86 - January 5, 2013 - Mumbai (Bombay), India

What we did: bus tour of Mumbai, booked hotels
Budge: 3500R/$70; Spent: 4318R/$86

Our day began bright and early. We were told that there would be hot water in the morning. They lied. So, miserable, we walked down stairs to the lobby to find someone waiting for us. We took an auto-rickshaw to where our bus would be picking us up and met another employee there. He waited for us until the bus arrived.

We were pretty shocked to see a completely naked man, except for a piece of cloth draped over his shoulder, walking down the street as we waited for our bus. He stopped across the street from us and started a small fire with garbage on the road. He was quite old, and looked very cold. He had a stick that he used to bring garbage closer to him to use as fuel for his fire. What circumstance could bring someone to that state? As we waited for the bus, the street became more busy with more and more people passing by. He seemed to be aware of this and kept his head down. If I were to guess, he appeared embarrassed of his condition. At one point, with his fire running low, he got up to collect some more garbage. He raised himself slowly with his stick and, when his stick wouldn't grab a piece of garbage, he put it aside and bent down to pick it up. It was immediately obvious that this was extremely difficult for him. He shook as he bent downward and picked up all the garbage he could grab. It was a shocking thing to witness. We wanted to do something for him, but what? Our first thought was our blanket, but it was back at our hotel. The suffering this poor man must endure on a daily basis is beyond our ability to know, I think.

Our bus picked us up a little after 7am. It was pretty cold, especially since they were determined to never close the door at the front. We sat there in a state of half sleeping while the bus picked people up and drove toward the city. Two and a half hours later (!!!) we were at our first stop. We hadn't been able to have breakfast, and we had spotted a McDonald's just before the bus had parked, so instead of seeing the sight at this location, we ran to the McDonald's. We both got sausage and egg and they were wonderful. McDonald's is our little taste of home, and man do we enjoy it.

We got back before our bus was scheduled to depart. One lady approached us to offer us a "free" flower bracelet. Patty reluctantly agreed. Of course we knew there was a catch, but Patty had stressed she only had 10 rupees to give the lady, so she probably thought she would be OK. When Patty offered her the 10 rupees she declined them, and instead asked Patty to buy "baby milk/formula" from the store. She claimed she wasn't allowed into the store because she is a beggar, although she looked pretty normal to me. This was an odd enough request that it had us confused, but we never did get a chance to decide what to do, because our tour operators pushed us onto the bus right then. Patty shoved the 10 rupee note in her hand and apologized.

From there our bus took us to various other sites. It was difficult to undertand what exactly we were seeing since the tour operators spoke in Hindi the entire time. Luckily there are English words that are used often in their communication so we did grasp a little bit. We were so tired though from all our travelling that we were okay with sitting back and being chauffered around. We stopped at several spots near the ocean. There were so many couples sitting on the ledge near the water breaks. There were also many locals sifting through the garbage on the shore as if they were looking for something in particular. It was sad seeing the ocean water there in such a toxic condition. Though Mumbai does have beaches, they are most definitely not the kind of beaches you want to swim in. Too many locals simply don't care about the condition of their environment. Littering is all too common and there are no gov't initiatives to be seen to curb this habit and educate their citizens. Goes to show the importance of gov't and the role it should serve.

We drove by many of the key sites in Mumbai but really only got glimpses of most of the places. We stopped at a planetarium and bought tickets to enter it and explore. Luckily we passed on the film being shown since we later found out it was all in Hindi. We were pretty lazy from the lack of rest we had gotten in previous nights so we kind of gandered through. There were so many schools there on field trips. Basic science principles were being explained in fun and interesting ways. We had fun seeing ourselves in funky mirrors.

From the museum we headed to a Hindi temple. We walked passed many impoverished families on our way in and felt sad that we had nothing to give them. We then thought of the idea of carrying healthy snacks to give to the children as opposed to giving them money. The temple was really unimpressive so we just walked back to the bus and hung out there until the next and final stop.

Our last stop was at Juhu beach which had a fun, tropical vibe. The whole place looked upscale compared to the other places we had seen. There were very fancy hotels nearby including a Radisson hotel. We decided to see how much their walk-up rates were since we needed to find accommodations for our last night. Turned out to be too pricey and we walked out.

We made our way to the beach where there were numerous food stands serving some amazing looking food. All of which we were too scared to try. It's so frustrating not having the immunities to eat the local food. There were so many different exotic fruit juices, floats, ice creams, and chilly lime flavoured snacks being served. So many people were oddly staring at Patty, it was quite awkward.

We finally got on the bus back to the hotel. 3 hours later through a very large traffic jam and we were in our room still unable to take a warm shower. The past few days have been rough and really not very enjoyable for the most part. Hopefully things are looking up.

Our dinner was the highlight of our day for sure. We shared a cold beer, had hot n sour soups and another nice dish. The service was great again.

After dinner, the owner Satish called us into his office (kind of like a principal would in school). He asked us how are tour went and we chatted with him for about an hour. He is quite the gentleman. He agreed to refund our money for the last night and also for booking an extra room by accident. He also added Jeff on facebook. He gave us some solid advice on where to go in Goa and he basically planned out our entire two days in Mumbai. It was so nice being taken care of like that. Did we mention the day before that he had his manager upload two Bollywood movies onto our laptop for us?!

Tomorrow we return to Mumbai city and we'll check into a new hotel for the night. We'll have a taxi driver to ourselves for the whole day so we are hoping to see much more of the city.