I am here now. Travelling to India went relatively smoothly. After a wild afternoon in Amsterdam, we took a plane to Mumbai. We arrived in monsoon rains that flooded the streets into rivers. Also, there was a big festival for Ganesha (the elephant one). and apparently, nobody works on that day. so, roarke and i were 'helped' by someone who contacted our hotel arrangements and informed us that the reservation was not until the next day. so we got into a strange taxi and drove for about 15 minutes in the flooded streets. This was terrifying, we were not sure how badly we were getting conned. but when we checked in at a new hotel at 1am, we had to pay $100. we fell asleep slowly, not sure of what just happened and i had trouble controlling my nerves. at this point i was genuinly unhappy and scared about what had happend and what could have happend. but the next morning, this morning, was much better.

as the morning light illuminated the world around us, we saw where we where. we looked out of the decrepid hotel building onto the slums of Mumbai. It was undoubtedly surreal. Roarke and i stared out of our dirty window on the sixth floor on a busy 4 lane road and the tarp covered slums. in the first five minutes of staring in awe out the window we saw people driving and walking through the streets with purpose. there was constant movement and bustlying with a few exeptions, a few people pausing to pee against a wall on the sidewalk and someone pooping in the gutter. but odly enough, the high spirits of the young day kept me going. after an interesting omlette sandwich, we called hotel midland (the hotel we were sapossed to stay in) only to discover that we had a succesful reservation the entire time. so, we got picked up and taken to our pre paid room in Santa Cruz, Mumbai. it is outrageous. the smells, the sounds, the colors, the people are unlike anything i've ever incountered. it smells like exhaust, spices, body funk, poop, and rotting food. roarke and i wondered around the bustling city. every tuk tuk (or auto-rickshaw) buzzed by us at speeds that would be frowned upon un the US. We got lots of looks. it is easy to say that were the only white people in this area of Mumbai. i might of seen one when we were walking around, but thats not for sure. after walking around, we returned to the hotel and had some flavourful egg curry on the roof.

tomorrow, we plan to take a minor domestic flight to Goa. apparently it is 'nice' there. i hear it is india 'light'. before i came here i would have frowned un such a tourist destination. but im not now. finding poeple that are also travelling would be nice. it is weird to feel entirely different from everyone around us. the language barrier is prooving to be a bigger deal than i expected. going somewhere that is labelled as a destination for westerners might help with this. my fingers are crossed.

functioning in this environment is much harder than i anticipated. saying totally emotionally stable and sticking to a very fixed budget is prooving to be a challenge. but i feel i will learn how to cope quickly because i have no other choice. missing home, iseasy to do. home is loving and confortable. but i must come to accept that i will not be here forever, and i should enjoy it. I am very lucky to get this chance and determined to enjoy it.

(pardon any errors or typos, internet time is expensive)