MAHALAKSMI DHOBI GHATS

I love Bombay.

Granted, it's easier to love, when one knows there is a butler waiting to draw your herb-infused bath at the end of a busy day...

I've been getting up early, tearing myself away from 800 thread count sheets and goose down comfort, to watch the sunrise over the harbour as I do a few exercises in the room before going down for an energetic swim in the beautiful outdoor pool, listening to the birds wake up in downtown Colaba. Then a quick shower and breakfast in the Sea Lounge and back to the room to sketch a bit outside on my private terrace.

Then the day can begin.

Yesterday, I had an ambitious plan. I left the hotel at 10am and began walking. I love walking in new places. It's such a great way to see the place and get a feel for the pulse of the city and the spirit of the people. I quickly got the groove of how to walk in the city (always in the road, never on the sidewalk, but not more than six inches into the road, or you're done for). When crossing the road, always stay right behind a fat lady in a sari (there's always one around) as cars don't seem to like hitting fat ladies in saris (too much trouble).

I began walking north, past so much Victorian splendor, it's easy to get jaded. The British certainly left their mark on this city. The architecture is spectacular. I took loads of photos as I went. I walked past Victoria Terminus, where I arrived the previous day. (Oh, and by the way, for those of you fact-checking [Jorge], I didn't proof yesterday's email and was not even close with the true name of the station, sorry).

I walked up through Crawford market and through several of the bazaar areas, such as Chor Bazar, (thieves' market) and so on. My goal was in Null Bazar, which happens to be the lunghi market. I can't tell you my destination because it involves a special gift for Dean, who is putting up with a very spoiled Dalmatian for nearly three months. Suffice it to say, I was not shipping for lunghis.

From Null Bazar, I continued north through some quite dirty areas and through several slums, seeing how everyday life goes on for probably a majority of people on this earth. Fascinating.

My eventual destination was the Mahalukshmi Dhobi Ghats. They say that if you ever have laundry done in Bombay, it is likely done here. This place is amazing. Acres of concrete cubicles with one Dhobi in each square, washing kilo after kilo of dirty laundry. It's the busiest place you can imagine. Then the laundry gets hung out to dry on giant lines hanging above the ghats. It really is quite beautiful.

From there, I walked toward the sea, and across a thin causeway, lined with beggars to the famous Haji Ali Mosque. I had been there before, but I is spectacular enough to go again and again. From there, I walked to the Mahalukshmi Temple, also on the seafront, and had myself blessed by a Hindu priest. The place was packed as it was a Hindu festival day. Although I think it is always packed. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and Mumbaikars like wealth.

Eventually I walked back to the Dhobi ghats and took the local train back to Churchgate Station, for an easy half hour walk back to the hotel. In all, I had been walking for nearly six hours. My feet were aching, but it was a great day. But boy was I filthy. I went to the gym, did a workout and 30 minute of intense cardio on the rowing machine, then took a ten minute shower with soap AND shampoo AND shower gel, and still the towel was filthy when I dried myself. Wow.

Today, a bit less walking. I walked back to Churchgate Station and took the local train up to Bandra, the tiny suburb up north, where many of the Bollywood stars live. I walked around up there for two hours and really enjoyed it. I'd never been there and it is a completely different side of Bombay life. Then back for some quality time by the pool.

Dinner this evening with my friends Alok and Vikram.

P.S.

 नमस्ते

EDITOR'S NOTE.

I have gone out of my way to make Gary feel comfortable on his return to my London Apartment by adapting it to the style that he has got accustomed too in the past few weeks (i.e. I had my shower and toilet removed and hidden the toilet paper and imported some lizards)  but now he writes that he is getting back to a more pretentious (P Town) style and expects me to arrange the towels just so:-

LAID EGGS

Typical. The camera is never around when the best photo ops arise. As I was leaving Patnem today, I saw in someone's front yard, not far from the famous chicken tree, a giant aloe plant (one of those cactus-like succulent plants with huge spiky protuberances. This plant was easily a meter and a half wide. But instead of seeing the usual sharp spikes all around it, someone had stuck eggs on every spike. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. Perhaps there is a hen that roosts in this aloe plant, related of course to the hen that roosts in the top of the palm tree.

I couldn't get my camera out fast enough. So instead here's a snap of the lovely Marlein on Patnem Beach.

On the train now to Bombay.

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OMG

I just checked into the Taj. Not only have I never stayed in a suite like this, I didn't even know such places existed. I just walked through with my mouth open, saying OMG. 

I'm sitting on the terrace, watching the sun rise over the sea with the Gateway of India at my elbow. 

PATNEM BEACH

I've been silent for a while. Been very busy working on my tan.

It's funny, but when I planned this trip (yes, OK, some would say "over-planned"), I figured that after the crazy train journey through south India, that I might well be exhausted and possibly even sick, and a week on the beach might be perfect. Well, the whole time I was in south India, I was having such a great time and I was so excited about everything I was seeing and experiencing, that I didn't realize how worn out I was.

So now I'm in south Goa, in a place called Patnem Beach, which is how one pictures paradise. I've done nothing all week but lay on the beach, swim in the Arabian Sea, and eat fresh fish.

South Goa is so different from north Goa, where I spent the first three weeks. I'm glad I started my trip up north, as I had find memories of the place and it was quite comfortable for me there. I also have some friends there that I don't see often, so I enjoyed spending time with them.

This area, though, is so much prettier and cleaner and less developed. The sea feels clean and there are no motor boats or jetskis or cargo ships in the water, so swimming is a pleasure. Even the dogs here are much nicer. They obviously get fed a lot at the restaurant right on the beach, by the nice tourists. We are in a jungle here, but unlike north Goa, everything here is centered right on the beach. Most of us are staying in huts either right on the beach or set back in the lush gardens just a few meters from the beach. It is so nice to hear the crash of the waves at night.

There are also some people here in Patnem, who are quite special to me, though I don't get to see them often, so it has been wonderful to be able to hang out with them. I must say, though, that after two weeks of traveling in my own and filling every hour of the day with just myself, it has been a bit overwhelming to have to be social all of a sudden. There is quite a social scene here, with cocktails at sunset and group dinners, often celebrating someone's arrival or departure or birthday or anything else.

As gorgeous as this place is, you are often reminded that this is still India. This morning, as I was running on the quiet main road, after swerving to avoid two pigs crossing the road, I had to stop, as a large family of cows were blocking the road. I don't feel like messing with the cows here. Not only are they sacred, they have REALLY big horns. Then as I was passing a house, I heard a large dog charging down the dirt lane toward me at extremely high rate I speed. This can't be good, I thought. But this dog, big as he was, seriously wanted to play. I stopped and played with him for a bit (I probably shouldn't make it sound as if u had a choice in the matter). He was a beautiful dog, but would absolutely not let me leave. I had to stay and play until some other poor soul came walking along the road and the dog charged toward him. I took this opportunity to run away and heard the other man screaming as I ran. There are also chickens and chicks everywhere. Also on this morning's run, I saw a chicken perched in the top of a coconut palm tree. Allow me to repeat that. A chicken in a palm tree. Apparently this tree is known locally as the chicken tree. I had heard stories of this tree, but had assume they were apocryphal. So imagine my delight to come across it and see a chicken still up top. It seems that the bush is so chock full of chickens, snakes, and other critters, that some of the chickens look for alternate places to roost. But in case some you don't have a palm tree in your back yard, they are REALLY tall. I have no idea how the chicken gets up there or what happens to the eggs she lays up there.

So in all, this has been the perfect place to chill out before the next phase of my trip begins. Tomorrow, after another grueling day on the beach, I take an all-night train to Bombay for the beginning of the urban part of my Indian adventure.

Before I sign off, while I'm thinking about it, I should say a word about the "over-planned" aspect of my trip. Granted, my level of preparation may not be for everyone, and certainly not for those of my friends who come to India every year. Such planning may even be un-Indian. But for me, it has been perfect. First of all, I enjoy the planning part. But more importantly, having everything planned has allowed me to really live in the moment throughout this trip. This is not something that comes easily to me. I'm always thinking five steps ahead. While preparing breakfast, I'll think about what's for dinner and do I need something from the market... But here, I've found that I've been able to experience every experience as it is happening, rather than worrying about what bus will take me to the next destination or how to make train reservations on an Indian Railways website that doesn't really work... Nope. Not me. I just pull out my iPhone once in a while and it tells me when my next train is, and the address of my hotel. Simple.

नमस्ते

GARY'S NEW FRIENDS

Gary finally has to leave the train and ALL the friends he has made on the journey,   BUT ......

 they are ready to follow him on the long hike back to P Town ....

MADRAS HIGH COURT

Here I am, just hopped on the train from Madras (Chennai) for the 23 hour journey to Goa. I'm at the end of my crazy two-week train journey around south India, with only three weeks left in the country.

The trip (the past two weeks) has been amazing. The two states I visited, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, were very different but both fascinating.

I want to take a minute to talk about the food. First of all, both the people of both states take food very seriously, which I always appreciate. I found I remarkable that the food could be so drastically different from anything we are accustomed to in the United States. The Indian food I've seen in the US or in England is always north Indian food. Here in the south, the typical meal consist of a starch, like appam (rice pancake) or iddly (a fluffy pillow made from rice paste) or dhosa (crispy crepe made from potato? Or wheat or rice, maybe?) or pangol (a grain-maybe amaranth cooked with cashews and spices and served either sweet or salty) and then a variety of vegetable sauces to dip your starch into with your fingers (right hand, please. The left is for cleaning your bottom instead of toilet paper). Then there is also a soupy dal served as well (usually lentils or some other beans). All this is usually served on a banana leaf. Especially in Kerala, the food is amazingly spicy. But I don't mean this in a bad way, as we often do in the west. The food was not necessarily "hot" but always full of flavour. Kerala is all about growing spices and trading them with the world, as they have since the time of King Solomon (hence the origin of Jew Town) and they are very serious about their spices. There were a few things I didn't like, but mostly all the food was magical. Sometimes there were things on my plate that were so strong in flavour that I couldn't tell if I liked them or not. Clearly these things were meant to be taken just a finger tip at a time with the other foods, not swallowed all at once. But that's what I mean about the cuisine being so different that I didn't even always know how to eat it. Sometimes I would look at the food on the banana leaf of the person at the next table and ask what it was called so I could order it. Otherwise, I would usually just order a couple if things blindly (if there was a choice, many places just had you sit down and they start bringing you food, like thali, further north). But in thali or northern Indian dishes, like curries, there is usually a main ingredient, like mixed veg, or peas, or chicken or fish, and then a sauce built around it (curry or masala, for example). My impression of south Indian food was that spice is king, and each of the things ladled onto my banana leaf was built around a particular spice or combination of spices. It was always clear that a lot of work went into these meals.

Now, I'll admit that sometimes this food (especially the more rustic versions, shall we say) does a real number on my delicate American tummy, but I haven't been sick and for the most part, the parade of flavours has been worth the gastric inconvenience. The exception, of course has been the train food, which is obviously mass produced without much care and not very good. The better alternative has been to stick your head out the train door at a station stop and buy food from someone on the platform. This is often something fried, like a vegetable samosa, and often is followed by a stomach ache. Boy, how I wish I had learned the Tamil words for "Have you changed your cooking oil recently?"

Often, when people would stop me and speak to me on the Chennai Metro, for example, they would ask me if I have tasted their food. I would always say, "Of course! I love your food!" They always find this very gratifying.

Chennai can be a challenging place. The drivers, as in all of Tamil Nadu are crazy an very aggressive, so walking anywhere is treacherous. Also, you are always being pushed and shoved anywhere you go, often in a rather aggressive way. But I found that there I a certain flow to the place, and once I found that, it wasn't so bad. I did walk a lot and I took local trains around the city (standing room only, usually with someone's elbow in your ear and someone else leaning on your back) and I found that as pushy and rushed as everyone was, if you asked a stranger for directions, he would ALWAYS stop and give you directions. I just don't thing this would be the case in New York. Now, granted, these directions were not always correct. In fact, I found sometimes that when someone would direct me to go that way, I would instinctually go the other way and find what I was looking for. Perhaps there were two possible ways to go, and they thought I might enjoy the long way...

I also loved that so many men in chennai wore traditional Indian clothing (lunghis- made from madras plaid, naturally). It is such a great look. In Kerala, the men in rural areas all wore lunghis, but in the city, no one did. No one but me, that is.

P.S.

One of my favorite things about traveling by train in India, is that they provide cum-beds free-of-charge. 

These girls looked so great all dressed in identical saris. 

How could you not love Lukshmi, the elephant?

नमस्ते