Pre-Shower Schmee-Shower.

I'd like to make a correction to the Hindustan Times (if I may). What the city of Mumbai experienced yesterday was a light misting of the city. The "monsoons" would, in fact, begin tonight. As Ellen said in the car on our way home from work tonight, how do you describe this to people who aren't here? I'm going to do my best...

So we leave work around 7pm for what should be a twenty minute ride home and step out of the building to a thunderous, torrential downpour. Holding an umbrella, clutching my computer bag to myself, I sort of leap into the car across the gushing Mississippi River (what used to be a gutter). For about half the ride home, it was stop and go with taxis, autorickshaws, and motorcycles broken down in the middle of the road. We finally get to the more residential part of our drive home and everything comes to a dead stop. So, for the next hour, we crawl along the road at about 3 centimeters (I'm doing the whole metric thing these days) per minute. Oh, and on the radio, an Indian rapper is squealing about how "seeeeeeeexy" his lover is. Our hotel was like a mirage.

In other news, I wanted to fill you in on the Indian air-freshener situation: Moth Balls. Moth Balls are EVERYWHERE. They freshen toilets, urinals, toilet stalls, bathroom sinks, closets, cabs, autorickshaws, and any other confined space which might require the pleasant aromatherapy of a Moth Ball. I have a Moth Ball massage booked for next week.

Monsoon Update.

According to the Hindustan Times, the rain we experienced last night was just a pre-shower to the monsoon, which should start tomorrow.

http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/43003.html

One Week.

My one week anniversary in India was pretty eventful: I finally got sick, I worked for 14 hours, and THE MONSOONS BEGAN. Amazing lightning over the Arabian Sea right now....and I'm going to bed!

Not quite a local.

So Ellen and I decided this morning that we were going to save Prana the exorbitant cost of the Taj's laundry service by walking half a mile to the nearest cleaners in town. So, we packed up our little Taj laundry bag and lugged it through oppressive heat, dodging auto rickshaws and busses. Once we got there, we asked them what their prices were (which, of course, are not set). Rather than telling us, they sort of just started going through our clothes and gave us a grand total, which amounted to $17.50 in US money. Which, though lower than the Taj's prices, was ridiculous. Especially considering that I do a lot of laundry and this pile of laundry was practically nothing compared to what I normally do. So, I began to bargain. Here's how it went:

Me: Well, you see, I'm going to be staying here for quite a few months. I'm practically a local. If you give me a good price, I'll come here every week!
Manager: (Looks down at the Taj laundry bag I brought my clothes in) No.
Me: Uh, okay. Well, I guess I'll leave then!
Manager: (Silence)
Me: (Packing up my clothes) Well, okay then, packing up here...
Manager: (Silence)
Me: (Walking out the door) Leaving now...Sure you don't want to give me a better price?
Manager: (Silence)
Ellen: Nice bargaining.

So that was my morning. I think I'll go back next week and try again. Maybe he was in a sour mood this morning.

Walking...

Yesterday afternoon I decided that I wanted to just walk, so I started off along the beachfront boardwalk right in front of my hotel. A lot of young couples strolling hand in hand, old men meditating on the rocks, and...bathers. (The ocean is quite multi-purpose here). I eventually took a right turn in towards the commercial district. The main road that I was walking on had a million little shops and stands sandwiched in between large department stores. Aside from a little beggar girl who kept hitting my arm and eventually pinched me, I did not get hassled much.

After awhile, I got tired of the busy, mainstream street and headed down a smaller, dirt road. This road led into a whole other world with no paved roads, English language signs, or tourists (like yours truly). It was pretty hard core. I didn't bring my camera on this walk, so I can't post pictures and its hard to describe, but I'll do my best. It sort of reminded me of what I envision olden times to be. People EVERYWHERE. I wouldn't even describe what I was walking on as a road, more of a dirt path that wound through the neighborhood. Tons of kids playing games and animals running around (PS: I've discovered that the site of goats makes me laugh. Those little guys are hilarious.) Lots of food stalls selling vegetables covered in flies, onions, potatoes, green beans. Ice cream carts with stacks of bright orange cones. Ladies dress maker shops. Fabric stores. Toy shops. And trash. Trash everywhere. I wouldn't say that the smell was unbearable, but it was definitely pungent. And it was hot...so hot. There is little to no air circulation in this area so everything felt very stagnant. I was doing pretty well in terms of direction, but eventually got a bit lost because a lot of streets just stop. A street that you expect to connect with another doesn't. It's weird. By the time I found my way back to my hotel, I was exhausted and totally overstimulated.

My night last night was the complete opposite of my day. Ellen, Tracy and I went to dinner at a place called Indigo in the popular and more touristy section of Mumbai, Kalaba. The food was fantastic (and ridiculously cheap, comparatively) and the decor sort of reminded me of Butterfield 8 in Chicago. After dinner we went to a club called Polly Esther's which plays all 70's and 80's music. (ND Kids: Think The Linebacker, decked out in 70's decor. Lots of shot taking, drunk dancing, and 'Oh, What A Night.') We made a pretty quick exit from here to go to Insomnia, my new favorite club in the world (Well, maybe after Roscoe's). Insomnia is truly Bombai meets LA. Everything is very sleek and modern, with distinct flourishes of India throughout. There are tons of loungy areas to curl up and chat and a huge dancefloor with a stage overlooking the floor that you can also dance on (and, oh did I). The music was sparkling: current club music from the US mixed with intense Indian electronica and Bollywood. I really need to learn this one Indian song that EVERYONE sings along to. A lot of "oh's" basically, but really cool. It sort of reminded me of that Zombie Nation song (Dean might be the only one to remember that tragic, tragic song that used to be in my nightly repretoire). The crowd was pretty evenly split between Indians and foreigners. I'm surprised how many foreigners I've met here (all from varying industries) who are staying for extended periods of time like me. The club finally kicked everyone out at 3:30am (!)

This morning, I decided to check out the local coffee shop just down the street from my hotel, Barista, and I made my first Indian friend! I walked in and this kid was totally playing my type of music. We started chatting about bands and next thing I knew, Mohammed and I were best friends! I ordered a Veggie sandwhich on wheat bread and he insisted on making me his special coffee drink - a surprise. I sat down and started to eat my low-cal, healthy sandwhich when he brought out a glass 2/3 full of ice cream, a couple table spoons of chocolate syrup and caramel and a teensy bit of coffee floating on top. Oh, he also brought me a piece of apple cake on the house. And yes, it was good.

On my way to the gym now for the next thirteen hours.

Amazing Race: India Insanity!

Two minutes before I was supposed to meet everyone in the lobby of my hotel to leave for the airport, I went to close my in-room safe. As I was going to be traveling, I was planning on leaving every single valuable I have with me (with the exception of my camera) in the safe. It wouldn't close. After repeated attempts, I called the hotel facilities office. Ten minutes later, they sent up security, who discovered that the battery was dead. As I was 15 minutes late already, I told everyone to leave without me and that I would take my own cab to the airport. After another ten minutes, they came up to fix the safe and then I booked it downstairs to catch my cab. It was totally Amazing Race: Steve Edition. We were flying through the streets of Mumbai at 4am, 80 degrees, and there are trucks full of chickens passing our car, feathers flying everwhere. I kept calculating in my head, 'okay, if they have a 20 minute start on me and our plane leaves at 5:20am, I can probably make it, provided that they haven't already boarded with my ticket...'

Needless to say, I made it to the airport in the nick of time, boarded the plane, and was off to Jaipur. We landed at 7am and it was already 92 degrees. Driving through the streets of Jaipur gave me my first true glimpse of India. Mumbai is glamorous compared to the true grit of Jaipur. However, that's not to say that Jaipur is any less than Mumbai...just more real. Most of the shops had not opened at that hour, so the streets were fairly quiet compared to what they would become in a few hours.

The hotel we stayed in in Jaipur was awesome. It sort of reminded me of the Madonna Inn, in that the rooms are completely themed...only cooler because it wasn't themed, it was real. There were lots of fountains and ponds throughout the hotel, flow-ey see through drapes, and these ginormous padlock door locks with equally ginormous keys (I don't know why, but I thought that was cool). Very authentic.

The guy who drove us to the hotel from the airport - Gopaul (no relation to Ru), was really great, so we hired him to be our tour guide for the day. The first stop was Amber Fort, which was a bit outside of the city, up in the mountains. We had our choice on how to get from the road to the Fort: car, Jeep, or...elephant. As we weren't fooling anybody, we did as the tourists do and took the elephant. The beggars/peddlers here were very aggressive and pretty much hounded us the entire half hour trip up to the Fort, which got a big annoying. (My favorite line of the trip: Ellen finally getting fed up with the guy trying to sell her ten miniature elephants for 10 rupees and telling him that he was "ruining our vacation!" Classic).

Now, to call this place a "fort" is a great disservice to Amber Fort. This place is beautiful. I included a few pictures below of the gardens, courtyards, and ornate buildings. We spent quite a bit of time here, just walking around taking pictures, and soaking in the views. One of my favorite parts of Amber Fort was the temple, which had exquisite Hindu god statues adorned with fresh flower necklaces, religious portraits, and a small, flowing water fountain. Sounds pretty peaceful, right? Right, until everyone and their worshiping mother rang the bell which made this ear drum shattering sound that pretty much ripped me out of any sort of moving experience I was attempting to have. Still, Amber Fort was pretty moving in and of itself.

Next, we went to the Maharajah burial site. Very pretty architecturally, but a tad on the bland side (with the exception of these monkeys that roamed the site and bared their teeth at you if you got too close). Kinda creepy. After leaving here, Tracy (one of the Disney people) was getting a henna tattoo when this adorable little boy asked me for "one rupee" (the equivalent of 2 American cents.) It's absolutely heartbreaking to know that you cannot give him what equates to so little in our terms, as it will only worsen the problem. This was my first really painful encounter with India's poverty.

After a lunch of chicken tikka masala and parantha (my new favorite Indian bread), we went to Hawa Mahal (the representing emblem of "The Pink City," pictured below). This place had fantastic views of ordinary, everyday life in Jaipur: Cars, buses, and motorcycles coming within inches of street vendors, women in vibrant saris, dogs, goats, and each other. It also had a museum with beautiful ancient Hindu god representations, amongst other Indian royalty artifacts. After a quick trip down the street to the Observatory (very scientific, too boring to even type about), we decided to head back to the hotel.

Now, I described our day in Jaipur with nary a mention of the oppressive heat of Jaipur. But, let me tell you, it was stifling. I never thought that I would long for Mumbai's frigid 90 degree weather, but I sure did in Jaipur. Needless to say, I was ready for a swim when I got back to the hotel...which pretty much encapsulates the rest of the night. We swam, lounged on big cabana beds, read, ate some dinner, and crashed pretty early. It was a refreshing end to my first real Indian trip.

JAIPUR it is. Apparently, the entire city decided to paint itself pink one day to impress a visiting Maharaja. I don't know about you, but any city that decides to paint itself pink is A-OK by me. Ellen and two of the Disney folk are coming as well. We decided to make it a short one though, and will return to Mumbai on Saturday evening. Before I arrived, Ellen and the Disney people met this really fun group of people from NYC who left to do a shoot at another city in India, but are coming back on Saturday. So we're coming back a bit early to meet up with them. Jaipur is supposed to get up to 115 tomorrow...spicy! I'm up at 3am in the morning to make our 5:30am flight.

Goodnight!

PS: I'm not bringing my computer to Jaipur (I'd prefer that it don't melt), so my next post will not be until Saturday evening or Sunday morning Mumbai time.

Horrible news.

I just found out that the only vodka you can get out here is Smirnoff. No Belvedere. No Ketel One. No Grey Goose. Just...Smirnoff.

I'm coming home.

Here...

Flying into Mumbai was sort of surreal. I kept having to remind myself that I was landing in India. I was so dazed and out of it from the crazy travel schedule over, that I kept having to remind myself that this was it...I was finally here. The Mumbai airport was beautifully inefficient. When I got off the plane, I had to go to the bathroom. Usually, there is a bathroom as soon as you get off the plane, right? Not in India. We had to walk for MILES before we even got to Immigration (at which point, I could see the nearest bathroom in the distance). Thanks to the lady in Singapore, I was completely prepared for Indian Immigration and sailed right through.

Stepping out of the airport, into the thick Indian air at midnight was a feeling I will never forget. There were hundreds of people shouting and holding signs. The guy who was holding my sign was right in front and whisked me away before the crowd ate me. Thankfully, I was coached on how to deal with being driven in India. You literally have to turn off. You can't really look at other cars or judge (as we are trained to do) whether they will hit you or you will hit them. You have to completely just let go and trust that the driver will get you there in one piece. Everyone honks. However, it's not a mean honk, it's more of a friendly, 'hey, I'm here and I'm about to come within one inch of your left side, so you'd better not veer left!'

Once I got to my room, I ordered my first meal in India...a chicken tikka masala pizza. By far, one of the most genius meals ever created. After brusing my teeth with bottled water, I went to bed around 2am.

The next morning, after repeated attempts to get up, I finally peeled myself out of bed around noon. The night before I wasn't able to see what was outside of my window. In the morning, I could: The Arabian Sea. (I've included a few pictures below). After eating some breakfast and showering, I decided that I wanted to go into Prana. Ellen came to pick me up and then we drove over to the business district of Mumbai. This area is sort of funny because you have these big, beautiful business buildings ("sky scrapers," if you will) and yet there are dirt sidewalks and people milling about below them as if you were in the middle of an Indian suburb. Prana's offices are beautiful with Hindu god statues next to pictures of Shrek and Nemo. Everyone was incredibly nice and welcoming. However, as if I have a hard enough time remembering people's names, here I also have a hard time saying them. I kept asking people, 'how do you spell it?'. That's going to take some work.

Around 7, I came back to my hotel, went to the gym, ate some dinner and crashed. I know, sort of boring, but I'm still adjusting...

We have a four day weekend this weekend, so I'm trying to decide where to go. Right now, it's between Delhi (which would also include a trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal) or Goa.

In addition to pictures of the Arabian Sea below, I've included a shot of the hotel across from me. I'm not sure how well you can see this, but they are renovating it. Their "scaffolding" consists of sticks bound to other sticks. Last night I saw a few guys working on these sticks 12 stories up and about threw up. (It sort of reminds me of the bridge I had to build out of toothpicks in high school Physics. The bridge was supposed to be able to hold a lot of weight inside of a bucket. Needless to say, the minute the empty bucket was hooked on to my bridge, it buckled). Very scary. I hope these guys did better on their physics bridge.

On my way into Prana with Ellen now...

Orchids, Coconut Ice Cream and Naps.

After breakfast I decided to check out the Singapore Botanical Gardens. The cab ride over there was my first opportunity to see the city in broad daylight and by God, it is gorgeous. There are huge, lush trees and foliage everywhere, which creates this sort of rainforest/tropical juxtaposition to the urban-ness of the city. Totally beautiful.

The Botanical Gardens were founded in 1822 and are run by the National Parks Board. As I started into the park, there was this huge group of people doing tai chi, overlooking a giant lake of waterlillies...a really intense introduction to the Gardens. The highlight of the Gardens though (and the only section of the park that costs money), is the Orchid Garden. DID YOU KNOW, that there are over 1,000 species and 2,000 hybrids in the Orchid Garden's collection? Of you course you didn't! That's why I picked up a brochure so that I could include that very interesting information in my blog!

A few more quick notes before we get to the good part (the pictures). It was insanely hot at the Botanical Gardens. Which is why I got a scoop of coconut ice cream and headed to the "Cool House" which housed the high elevation orchids and carnivorous plants. Although, I'm sure there are a million other amazing things to do in Singapore, the Gardens about did me in, so I decided to come back to the hotel and take a nap...or two.

My plane leaves for India in 3 hours...

Sunrise in Singapore...

I landed this morning (Tuesday) in Singapore at 5:40am. The flight was surprisingly do-able. When I wasn't sleeping, I was either reading, eating, or watching movies and TV shows. I was a little dazed when I got off the plane though...I walked up to the Singapore immigration desk with my passport and was like, "uh, hi." And she was like, "uh, hi." After a few moments of awkward silence she told me that I needed to fill out an immigration form. (Apparently, it's not like when you're flying to Puerto Vallarta and they practically fill out your immigration form for you). Anyhoo, after we got that debacle worked out, I hopped in a cab and came to my hotel.

It did not start to get light until I had already checked into my room...which made it the perfect time to start taking pictures. Below are a few shots of my room and various views from different windows.

I just finished a breakfast of fruit, granola, honey yoghurt (as they call it here in Singapore) and jasmine tea and now I'm off to explore!

22 hours and counting...

My flight to India leaves at 9:15pm tomorrow night. I'll have a 13 hour layover in Singapore, which, jet lag permitting, I hope to explore. The longest flight I've ever taken up until this point has been 5 hours from San Diego to Boston. I can't even really comprehend the concept of a 17 hour flight. I soon will. I've spent the past few days hanging out with the fam in Carlsbad. The whole group is all on overdrive. In addition to my move, my sister is moving to NYC next month for an internship with Carolina Herrera and then college at Marymount of Manhattan. We're thinking Jake maybe might pack up and move to Spain.

Since telling everyone about my move to India, I've heard everything from "you are going to be completely miserable for 6 solid months" to "don't they eat curried monkey there?" However, as my trip has gotten closer, the reactions have become more and more positive. Most recently, my old landlord called India "magical." I've also been frequently asked why I've such a fascination with this place. After thinking about it for awhile, I remembered: During my sophomore year at Notre Dame, I took a film course that explored international cinema. One of the lessons delved into Bollywood, during which the professor showed an elaborate dance sequence from an Indian film - I was floored. The scene utilized every possible method to create beauty: lighting, music, choreography, actors, set... And while the result was completely over the top and probably distasteful to most American film-goers, I was entranced. After that experience, I began to explore the culture more - the more I learned, the more I wanted to actually go.

In preparing for this trip, I created a "To India" playlist on the pod. These songs (either lyrically, thematically, or musically) encapsulate what I've been feeling during my preparation for this trip. If you'd like a soundtrack for the blog, this is it:

To India Mix

1. Madonna "Jump"
2. Bally Sagoo "Noorie"
3. Fischerspooner "A Kick In The Teeth"
4. Kylie Minogue "Breathe"
5. Olive "Smile"
6. M83 "Teen Angst"
7. Stereophonics "Rewind"
8. Whitney Houston "Step By Step"
9. Tracey Chapman "Change"
10. Cyndi Lauper "Shine" (Body Acoustic Mix)
11. LCD Soundsystem "Great Release"


Until Singapore...