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Namaste
Welcome to my first blog entry, I know it's taken a while but quite frankly I couldn't be arsed to get out of the hammock or off the beach.
So I arrived in Mumbai on a thursday morning and, my god, what an assualt on the senses. I wasn't prepared for what I saw usually big cities are fine they're mad, busy places but you still feel comfortable, like you know whats about to happen or what could happen. Mumbai was the complete opposite for me I didn't know what was going on, simple things like crossing the road were a trauma. In India they only seem to have one rule for the road - Might is Right! - So for pedestrians it's a game of chicken everyday, add to this the 42 degrees of heat and you're in for an exhaustive experience. However feeling a little disarrayed I tried to make the most of it and spent a couple of days just wandering checking out the architecture, shops, people and places. Mumbai has some fantatstic colonial architecture, the Chhatrapati Shivaji train station is particularly stunning especially when lit up at night, It has long wide arched walkways and beautiful fountains and statues, which made me realise its potential to be a brilliant city that could compete with the likes of Lisbon, Madrid and Barca only tropical, however I got the impression that the Mumbai indians don't see that potential, in fact it really seemed as though they couldn't care less about the place, men and women would just phlem everywhere people were throwing their litter down and some would just piss and s*** on the side of the street, then when it came to cleaning the city the would just sweep it into the corner somewhere and leave it there hence huge great piles of crap everywhere.
Street traders and beggars are particularly relentless due to the heat alot of tourists are heading to the cooler climes of the north so there aren't many of us down here now which means fewer targets, alot of the street traders were okay, they'd just offer their product then leave you alone but some can get quite hostile, the beggars also, I thought that it was pretty much the norm until I spoke to an indian fella who was helping me out with my train ticket to Goa, nice man, Mr Bali, he told me that in india they have a belief and a word for people who have very little or no hair - Takla (sounds klingon), apparantly indians believe that bald men are particularly wealthy not neccessarily of the wallet but of the heart also, they are people who like to give, and combined with the fact I was introducing myself as Rich probably gave them more hope. - Live and learn.
So it got to the end of my four days in Mumbai, which was more than enough, and I had my train ticket down to Goa for the monday morning, 12 hours I was told it would be and I had a nice window seat so I could enjoy the countryside on the way down, but, I was in a three tier AC cabin with a family of 5 indians we'd only been going an hour and they decided they wanted to put the beds up and have a sleep, so I was encouraged onto a tiny top tier bed, the lights were switched off, curtains pulled and bar a 15 minute break for lunch that was that for the next 10 hours - I don't know how they sleep so much. So the train ride was pretty uneventful and I got to Goa in the evening and found a place to stay and met and made some new lovely friends.
I hadn't slept as well as I did that first night in Anjuna, Goa as I had for ages, no car horns or shouting to wake you up in the morning only birds singing - bliss.
Anjuna is in north Goa and is lovely, once a big resort for the seasonal hippies most of them have moved on now and the backpackers are in. Apart from a trip up to Chapora to see the fort and a few other beaches, which were even nicer than Anjunas, I haven't done much else here except enjoy the beach or pool it's the perfect place to chillax, and if I don't drink too much I can quite comfortably survive on 7 pound a day, including accomodation, and for those who thought I might be raving it up all night at one of the infamous and renowned Goan parties - NO CHANCE! I've heard quite a bit of what they play here and it seems very popular but personally I think it's atrocious, I like my dance and electronic music but here it's something else something I've not heard before, it's like some weird psychedellic hard trance, it's extremely repetitive and uber irritating.
Anyway that's it for now, i'll right again when I've got off my arse and done something,
Bye
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