well the luxury bus, or civalized bus as i like to call it, was not all bad. it was so air conditioned we had to wear wool blankets, and they showed half of a bollywood movie. there were no sleeper cars, but the chairs reclined back a bit, it was as comfy as an airplane. unfortunately, i did not know how winding and hilly the roads were from goa to bombay, which is unfortunate cause i have motion sickness and my dramamine were in my luggage in the belly of the bus. i spent half the time with plastic bags in my lap coughing to try to stave off the vomit. a little pranayama and tossing and turning and cold sweats seemed to do the trick, but i am a light sleeper and even with ear plugs i was unable to catch a wink. and i had to piss for 8 hours and refused to jump off and be a man, which was a big misteak cause i had a bladder full of rusty urine from dehydrating myself. i left at 7pm and arrived at 6am, got dropped off somewhere in the middle of the street in some hood in bombay, and caught a cab that seemed to be pedaled instead of driven. the cabs here are so tiny you can't even fit a backpack in the trunk, so we tossed everything on top and crawled to my destination-the bentley's hotel. when i arrived, the place was totally booked. tried the guesthouse. totally booked. i asked, "is there some kind of festival going on?" "no madam. it always is like this." i guess bombay is crowded with tourists all year round. the only thing going on over here is carnival-their version of mardi gras which was more celebrated in goa cause of it's christian population, and the president of iceland is in town. i'm not sure how big of a deal that is, but whatever. i landed a very expensive room on the sea-tiny room with a tiny tv, a fridge 8 times the size of the tv-how did they know i drank that much beer? and an a/c that barely worked without knobs, so i wasn't able to turn it up. the entire room reeked of mothballs-for the price of 2700rupees!!! "you can stay only one night, madam." so i spent the next day treasure hunting for a place to stay. landed at hotel causaway, on the colaba causway road smack in the middle of panty and shoe stores, hundreds of stalls of tit bits, and shoe shiners and giant balloon salesmen-how do you blow those things up? they are balloons as big as a 12 year old child that the hawkers lunge into your face at every corner-very coney island. anyhow, the place is also small with the same amneities and costs half as much. bombay is the most expensive city in india because the real estate is among the highest in the world. it's cheaper to buy a house in beverly hills. i'm basically re-tracing my steps since last november, eating in the same places, trying to re-live my experience, but it's not really the same. weather is just as hot-this place below sea level without much breeze, kind of like mexico city, very polluted. i found myself eating my first western food today-chicken salad with avocado and russian salad which had peas and potatos on the sandwich. now i'm going to see "lost in translation" again cause it's the last day here. it does appear i am ready to come home, dosen't it? i made my usual pit stop to planet m, the tower records of india, for some more sami-"lucky-no time for love" cd which is all the rage and 7 more movies-(dori-i got your kids a bunch they will love.) i keep smashing down the luggage to fit as much as possible, which means stopping at rhythm house, the better dvd/cd store. like the 30 movies i bought in november are not enough. it's gonna take me till 2010 to watch them all. i also have developed a love for indian pop tunes that are non-film score from watching lots of mtv asia.
this place gets to me if i walk around too long-it's really really crowded, stinky, and the entire city is one big outdoor market with constant hawking and beggers who grab you and don't let go. still, if you like the bustle of new york city, you will like this place.
i did, however, sadly miss my chance to be an extra in a bollywood movie, the premise of this whole trip. a woman approached me and said she was from bollywood, but before i realized what she had proposed to me, i had sent her away and when i tried to run after her, i lost her. boo hoo. big boo hoo.
bindifry
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