Namaste! Confessions of a Sub-Continental devotee

Oh my God, India is beautiful. The people, the landscape, the cows, even the dirt. It’s all beautiful. I’m only sorry I didn’t keep up the blog while I was away although some of the places we went were so remote, they barely had telephones let alone internet cafes. However, I did write a travelogue. In fact, what the hell, I’m going to include a few entries over the next few days. Wednesday, 30 January 08’On arrival at Mumbai airport, we got into the smallest taxi ever, a ramshackle vehicle with a 60s print velour seat cover and a taxi driver who loved to honk. Everyone loved to honk – which, I have to say, was a necessary evil when you consider the catalogue of near misses that accompany even the shortest journey. The trip to our hotel took forever as the traffic was nose to tail (quite literally – the cows wander willy nilly across the road – no jokes about zebra crossings please!). Boiling hot, dusty and desperately wanting a wee, we huddled in the back of the cab, almost doubled over in the shrunken dimensions. The landscape was bleak. By the roadside were makeshift, dirt encrusted ‘shops’ and dingy, rubbish-strewn alleyways between even dingier hovels  where barefoot toddlers and mangy dogs played in a toxic atmosphere of traffic fumes and human filth. We eventually got to our hotel, the salubriously-named Strand Hotel. … more tomorrow…