I told a friend recently my analogy of how this place meets your expectations: its as if you ask someone what the weather is like outside and they tell you it's raining. But when you poke your head out the door for a look, you see donuts falling from the sky. Yeah, ok, technically it's raining, but it ain't even CLOSE to what you were expecting. India is like that. Yeah, there are streets and buildings and cars and shops and everyone has 2 arms-legs-eyes-etc, and it looks like many other cities. But then you take a second closer look and you do a double-take, if you weren't already shocked breathless by the first glance: 1/2 the cars are literally about 2/3 the size of normal; there are 3-wheel scooters duking it out with double-decker buses; everybody is busy honking away but the horns all sound like they've been squashed into broken toy trumpets, giving forth some sort of asthmatic wheeze; at night only 1/2 the cars use headlights; everybody drives on the wrong side of the road (kudos to the long arm of the British Empire); the sidewalks in some areas are PACKED with slums, many of them 2 story shanties; kids are crapping openly and adults are washing themselves on filthy curbs (their clothes range from black as tar to shockingly-clean); beggars, many of them looking miniaturized like the cars, are on every corner and running through deadly traffic with abandon; the normal-looking 3,4, and 5 story buildings are decrepit and filthy but totally functional; one of the best and most expensive hotels in the world (if you believe the hype, and I could) stands side-by-side with decay and chaos; and I could go on and on. Basically, its just surreal. There's this veneer of normality (by western standards) that just keeps getting ripped away, bit by bit.

Needless to say, I've been feeling a bit shell-shocked and its taken a couple of days to acclimate. But I feel pretty good about the place right now and am anticipating some great times down the road - its just taken a bit to get used to, that's all. My initial impression wasn't helped much by the circumstances of the first day. The flight here, which I thought took 3 hours, ended up taking 9 (including the layover in Bahrain). It dumped me in a strange country at 5AM, having had only 2 hours of dramamine-induced sleep on the plane, the kind of sleep that refreshes your body a little but leaves your mind fuzzy as hell. And the bike ride from the airport into town, which I thought was 10km, turned out to be 40km with a main highway that was so vague and ill-defined in the sticks that after 2 hrs of getting lost (or being lost continuously), I gave up and flagged a cab. Actually the cab flagged me - I'd asked him for directions earlier and I think he knew I didn't have much chance, even with his (correct, as it turned out) instructions. So when I showed up back in the same place, trying to retrace my steps, he stopped me and offered me a ride. I didn't believe him at first and verified the distance remaining with a passer-by before getting in. Oh, was I glad I did get in. The slums on they way into the city were incredible (supposedly 1/4 to 1/3 of this city of 16 million or so has no housing and probably never will in their lives). A friend pointed out that whole generations were spending their entire lives on the streets, being born, growing up, working, marrying, dying - everything that we ourselves do in our lives. I was actually mentally feeling a bit numbed by the events so far, and was glad of it.

We finally found my hotel, the taxi driver being as lost as I was when we reached the general area of town(actually I was more of a help in finding the damn place than the driver - at least I had a guidebook and little map to go by). Snagged a room, out for some delicious food (but hell, a pb&j would have been delicious then), and a nap from 12 to 3PM. Whatta day.

Since then i've been on pretty relaxed pace. Trying loads of new places to eat incredible food (burning the hell out of my tongue on a regular basis), dodging street hawkers and beggars right and left, and basically goggling at every sight. It's all the little out-of-place things in the middle of the familiar that constantly throw you for a loop. Bombay central is Britain of 50 years or more ago: Double decker buses; Victorian and later architecture; everyone speaks British (though a lot fewer understand it when you speak it back to them!); words like 'bloody' and 'chaps' are common; stores post their 'timings' on the door so you know when they're open and sell 'suitings' for businessmen to wear; cinemas featuring Hollywood movies and ushers that show you to your assigned seat (where you see 15 minutes of commercials first, including one for a breath freshener containing dates, coconut, cardamom and fennel); kids wear uniforms to school and babble in a mixture of English and Hindi. If it wasn't for all the familiar, the strange wouldn't seem quite so strange somehow, I think.

Tomorrow I hit the road for the southwest coast down towards Goa and Kerala. The northern half of the country is wrapped in freezing fog at the moment, and my tan is fading (waah!). Everyone I've spoken to about it, both western and Indian, says this should be a really fun journey and a good way to see the country. I'm looking forward to it!

All the best, Mark