Goodbye India

Right now I'm sitting in a Dutch household, drinking coffee, eating yogurt and listening to Jazz music. The last 48 hours I've spent in transit, traveling thousands of miles. At 1:35 on Tuesday morning I climbed onto an airplane in the muggy heat of Bombay (Mumbai), India. Ten hours and ten minutes later I climbed out in Holland. The transition is very strange. I feel like a ghost. Everything in Holland is so clean and spacious. The people are all so orderly in their appearance. I'm shocked by my own culture.

Goodbye India
I spent the last two days in India traveling and exploring Mumbai. On Sunday, March 15 I took a train from Gokarna to Mumbai. It was an overnight train. I had reserved a sleeper class coach, which means I would have a bed to sleep on. However, as it turned out I ended up sharing my bed with two other Indian men. They had no place to sit or sleep because there tickets were never confirmed. So, I slept a few hours crammed in between these two men and the wall.

I got off the train in Mumbai at 6 am. I had been invited to spend the day at a man named Abhay's house. I had met him on the train two days earlier, and he had offered to put me up for the day.

Just saying that I agreed to spend the day at a strangers house makes it sounds like a really bad idea. However, the man was so kind and so genuine it felt like the only logical decision.

I stumbled off the overnight train into early morning Mumbai. It was relatively quite (by Indian standards) but still busy. I had vague directions to Abhay's house. I had to take an inter-city train five stops forward. From there Abhay would meet me. I found the train that I believed was the right one. It was pulling away so I ran and jumped on board. Only later did I realize that I hadn't purchased a ticket. Luckily for me no one checked.

It took about one hour to get to where I needed to be going. I never really relaxed. I was always kind of nervous that I was going to end up in the completely wrong place. However, it all worked out. I got off the train in a place called Dombivli (East).

Abhay met me and we took a rickshaw back to his apartment. It was a small but clean and orderly. Abhay is a civil engineer and makes a good living. We immediately sat down and started having tea.

I learned that Dombivili is a completely separate city from Mumbai. In fact there are two cities near Mumbai that are slowly merging with the giant that Mumbai is becoming (there are 130,000 people per km).

Abhay works down town in a 250-year-old building. I traveled with him into town, to both see where he works, and to see a bit of Mumbai. It was really interesting to see how an India bureaucrat manages his day. Abhay and I didn't head into Mumbai until 10 am. We got there at about 11 am and immediately sat down to have some tea. After tea we went and met his co-workers. After talking with them for about an hour we decided it was about time to have some lunch. So, we ordered lunch. Actually to be more precise they ordered me a deluxe lunch. They ate their home-made lunches, but I, being the guest, got the deluxe meal. It was delicious.

So, after lunch I figured that Abhay would begin working and I would be on my own. Wrong. Instead we got a taxi (he paid) and we went down town. He spent another hour showing me around. He showed me where the usual Mubai sites.

Finally he headed back to work. It was 2 pm and we were going to meet up again at 5 pm. I spent the time walking around just soaking up the sights. There were tons of Westerners and all of the associated characters. I was offered all sorts of drugs, jewelery, sex and spiritual salvation.

We met up again and headed to the train station, ready to go back home. By my calculations Abhay spent maybe three solid hours working that day. But I'm sure that he had a tea break at some point.

Riding on city trains is a completely new experience. Long distance trains are a bit crazy when viewed from a Western perspective. They are usually late and always crowded, but you have a seat and are able to relax. Inter-city trains are a different beast all together.

I realized that it was going to be a new type of experience simply standing on the platform waiting for the train to arrive. There were, literally, thousands of people in my direct line of site. Swirling masses of humanity running and pushing. They were all there to either get on a train, or get off a train.

When our train arrived there were people hanging out of the doors. Before it had even stopped men came flying off the train. They would leap from the moving train and land, running on the crowded platform. After the train stopped the more conservative train riders jumped down. It was a tide of humanity pouring out of the carriage. As they poured out, we began to race in. It was an amazing feelings. Suddenly I couldn't stand still. There were too many people pushing me from behind. I had no choice. If I had been more rigid and less accepting of the changing circumstances I might have been hurt. As it was there was no problem. I battled my way through the crowd, pushing and clawing my way onto the train. Men were yelling, cursing and nearly fighting. I found a spot to stand and the train pulled away from the station. From the moment that their spots were assured the same men that were fighting each other seconds ago were best friends. They began talking and laughing. It was an amazing change.

And so there I was. Jammed into a mass of humanity. There was no room to move. I have pictures that I will post, but they don't do justice to the situation. In my carriage alone I bet there were 300 men (women have separate carriages so that they can fight each other). The ride took about an hour. It was uncomfortable, but I loved it. I talked to my neighbors (I had about ten) and just soaked up the closeness of it all. It's so much different than in the west. Us westerners require so much personal space.

Once we arrived back at Abhay's house we did some shopping and then headed back to have dinner. I was planning on leaving his house for the airport at 9 pm (my plane arrived at 1:35 am). We talked and they fed me a delicious dinner. I was stuffed. The pushed food on me like crack dealer push crack on little kids. It was great. It was particularly nice because the day before, to conserve money, I hadn't eaten anything but bananas and apples. So, I was primed to be stuffed full of food.

One interesting thing about eating with them was that his wife didn't eat with us. She served us the whole time. I can only imagine she ate afterward. For me it just seemed weird. I would have much preferred to have her eat with us, but I guess “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” applies here.

After dinner I was force fed dessert. I had insisted on buying them some ice cream as a present. They hadn't allowed me to buy anything else all day so I figured that the least I could do was buy them a treat. Ice cream is expensive in India and most families only have it once or twice a year.

Well I misjudged their cleverness as hosts. They allowed me to buy the ice cream, but then they served me the majority of it. Poor me! Anyways I was stuffed and it was time to go. Abhay had told me how to get to the airport. It involved taking a train for about an hour and then taking a rickshaw. I felt confident that I could do it and was ready to head out into the night solo. However, his duties as a host weren't quite done. He was very nervous about me going alone and subsequently transferred some of that nervousness to me. Normally I wouldn't have been bothered at all, however, after talking to him for a bit I was sure I would be raped, mugged and that I would miss my flight.

So, when he finally insisted on accompanying me on the train I didn't object too much. Of course he paid for the train ticket and helped me find a rickshaw driver. And then we parted.

And I was left alone for the last time in India. The rickshaw ride was long one and it was intense. The roads were terrible, pitted and filthy the traffic was insane. Their were slums on spilling over into the road. And I was in India. I don't love the poverty, or the filthiness. But I love India. I don't know why I love India. I certainly don't love the slums or the poverty, but somehow, when thinking about 'India' and not just the bad aspects I love it.

We finally arrived at the airport. I was dumb and told the driver to drop me off at, what I thought, was the front of the airport. The traffic was very heavy so I didn't want him to have to get sucked into it. Well, it turned out where I got dropped off was about 3 km from the actual airport, so I ended up walking.

I got to there finally and started the long process of checking in. At some point, while filling out one form or another, I realized I was drenched in sweat. My entire shirt was wet from the walk But, more importantly, I realized people were staring at my shirt. I was already beginning to leave India.

From there on out it was fairly uneventful. I flew out of India at 1:35 am. I was sad to go, but looking forward to the next phase of my trip. Hello Holland!