Incredible India

Wow. It’s certainly been a really interested few days.

An uneventful flight led swiftly into my first adventure into an outlying province of Mumbai. After a one hour taxi journey, which gave me time to practice my Hindi (currently limited to “hi” and “thanks”) acclimatize to the climate and recall the hustle and bustle of this fascinating country, I was swiftly deposited into an Indian “slum” town.

With my 18 kilo bag in tow, I took to taking a walk around town and soon became the local celebrity. People stopped, people stared, and one person even fell off his bike, smashing into a parked car whilst looking at me. They don’t get many visitors it seems. So I took to watching a local magic show and everyone watching the magic show took to watching me instead.

After about 45 minute’s entertainment, which cost me little over 10p in tips, I struck up a conversation with a selection of smartly dressed local college students. Enquiring as to where the local cricket games took place, they promptly instigated a match for me. Before I could even mention that I was rubbish, a bat was summoned via motorbike messenger and the local battered remains of the college ground assigned as the battleground. It was fitting four our collective cricket skills. My lack of skill fitted in perfectly with their game where being “caught out” means you have been caught before the second bounce – running was outlawed it seems as it was too much like hard work, and although over 40 people were involved in the game (which started with about 8 people), over 30 of them were involved in people watching. Hadyn watching, to be precise. I did my country proud, hitting the ball well past the seven year old assigned to my flank. Ahhh, the colonial spirit lives one.

My friends then took me around their town, stopping in a restaurant of their friends, where promptly the power went out. It turns out that where my Indian friend, Prasad, had asked me to wait for him to meet me, was actually classified as a slum. Given India’s current power shortage, all power was cut to the city for about 5 hours a day during peak periods. So there we eat our food, mostly in the dark, some of the time under generator power. Either way, the selection was excellent, if rather hot.

After a brief trip to a temple (by which stage I was being given free bananas and flowers due to my English-ness), and yet more chance for my friends to show off what they believe to be the first white visitor to the town, in their lifetime, we headed off to McDonalds for a final send off and to meet with Prasad’s bus.

On arrival of the “hell-bus” as it shall now be called, it became swiftly obvious that Indian people are shorter than the presenting 6’2” tall Brit. About a foot shorter. 12 long hours later, one tired Brit emerged from the bus to be subjected to more random shouts of “how are you?” (which were often replied to with a really enthusiastic and intentionally incomprehensible “totally spiffing” as their questions actually mean "how can I sell something to you?".)

With our ever ready supply of rick-shaw drivers gawping at us we waited by the side of the road. Let’s just say I know how the “freak show” at the circus feels like – many of the places we were going were rather off the tourist road.

The day consisted of the usual affair of seeing religious and other supposedly interesting tourist sights, but my friends took great amusement in the fact that at every interesting sight I was taking photos of the people, the piles of rubbish or the signs rather than the item itself. I did take a few photos of what I was supposed to be interested in as well, but on the whole it’s the sights and sounds which made if special.

One perfect example is that of “sunset point” in Rajasthan, near Udaipur. Here over one thousand people gathered, huddled at the top of a hill, to see the sun set. I could have sworn that this would be the last sunset ever there were so many people. Nothing like spending a serene sunset with people selling their goods at the top of their voice and a few hundred tourists (all but five of which were Indian) huddled at the top of these rocks. What did make it though were the crazy porters, who would offer to carry/ hoarse ride/ kart you around for a nominal fee, all of which were running around like crazy people to try and get their next fee!

After spending the evening meal in a wonderful restaurant in a 5 * hotel (which cost less than 6 pounds) I then got some well needed rest. Well, I did once the maid left me alone – six separate entries were required, giving one bar of soap, then the other, then the towel, then the key, then another towel, finally “just to check”. I think they were looking for something, although I had already tipped one guy 50 rupees for his help of carrying my 18 kilo bag from the car (about 80p) – evidently too much. Normally I resist help like that, but it wasn't worth the hassle of saying "no".

Today has been a great day, starting with a superb trip across some of Rajasthan’s tribal areas, we have seen many of the local tribes-people, narrowly avoided getting hit by a few thousand trucks, eaten in the middle of no-where and spent the evening first watching local dancers, then eating food over Octopussy (James Bond) which apparently was filmed in the city we are currently located. Apparently that James bond is shown in most of the restaurants, daily, at 7pm. I can imagine how the waiters must love it.

Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, we saw some of the chaos which makes India so great – firework rockets being let off in the middle of the street, some of which bounced off the wheels of local motorbikes trying to make a hasty retreat through the traffic!

I cannot wait for tomorrow….. Jaipur beckons....

[Photos uploaded here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27183292@N08/]