Bombay. Mumbai. Call it whatever you want, the city’s damn fun. And incredibly diverse- interspersed amongst the millions of Indian faces are dots of virtually every conceivable ethnicity. This city amazes me- it’s not very large space-wise, yet it sustains (taking into account the mind boggling number of people and add to that India’s run of the mill urban wildlife) an unbelievable amount of life. And, be it day or night, Bombay NEVER sleeps. Ok, so I won’t bore you to tears with the intricate
details of everything I saw/did there- even if I did yammer on and on, truth be told, there aren’t words enough to describe how amazing this country is- instead I’ll try to summarize as best I can. In a nutshell- we did everything, and still didn’t experience even a fraction of what this city has to offer.

Journey begins in the train- takes about some 15 hours or so to get to Bombay from Madras, takes even longer when the conductor keeps stalling the bloody train (oh yes, it can be done). But we eventually got there.
I woke up everyday to a hot cup of chocolate or tea (made with whole milk, mind you) with something yummy to accompany it. Spent the days shopping or sightseeing- went all over Bombay! Saw the various university/college campuses, the monumental buildings, tried my hand at bargaining. I found it easier just to bargain myself, English accent and all, rather than have my aunts and uncles mediate- takes entirely too much time and, lost in the confusion of it all, I’ll still end up paying too much. We spent one day in Hiranandani, which is absolutely beautiful ~ very British architecture wise. Spent the day trekking around there and the night in an arcade where thank god there were cute guys… not to offend anyone but by this time I had spent about 4 days in Bombay and was sorely disappointed. Another day we went off to suburbia- Kalyan….kind of a sleepy little town a short train ride away from metro-Bombay. I loved it there- the air there was the cleanest I’d seen anywhere near Bombay and the atmosphere was equally as refreshing. My uncle’s apartment building was surrounded by very low income dwellings- a few shades better than “slums’. From the vantage point of their apartment we could see all these homes below us and beyond them to the countryside. As sun was about to set, this local band started their daily practice- they’re a drum troupe, and unbelievably good! I loved it, perhaps one of the best times I’ve had Bombay- dancing in the apartment to that music.
For our last day in Bombay proper, we went clubbing- well, it didn’t start that way. We went to a bar and it was crazy boring. There was a DJ but I suppose it didn’t occur to anyone in there to dance….that is, till I came along ;) after about 20~ 30 mins of sitting around, doing nothing- vibha and I had had enough. So we got up, dragged our uncle (he’s 22…ya, he’s our uncle, that’s a tale for another blog) with us and got our dance on. Soon tons of other people joined us, so we weren’t the only yutz’s dancing in the middle of a bar. I met these Swedish guys that night- actually 3 were Swedish and one was british…all were incredibly nice and pretty good dancers. These guys were crazy! In the middle of the dance floor all of then would start singing REALLY loudly…in Punjabi. One of them asked if I’d go to Goa with them, dead seriously, with in 10 mins of meeting. We had a great time that night, but none of us thought to introduce ourselves and I didn’t say good bye…so if fate has it that you guys read this blog: thanks for leo’s :)
And I looked hot that night. I know because I was told, I was actually taken aback at how bold some of the guys here can be. (“This isn’t a come on, BUT….”) See Ed, some Indian guys do have balls…unfortunately though, the ones that do are all ugly ;)
Am I forgetting anything else? Oh ya and one night we almost got arrested.

Ahh…that’s enough writing for today- and, yes, that was the abridged version.

Good night.