Australia farewelled me in fitting form, with a roasting of a sunburn and a stomachful of chips.
Asia welcomed me.. with four curries in under 24hrs (without even leaving an airport!). And as we touched down in Mumbai, there were three little kids jumping and waving the plane in, from their vantage point in the slums.
Incredible !ndia say the tourism posters - and though I've only spent 4 days here, I quite agree. In fact, I feel that "Krazy Kolkata" on a poster for this city would be spot on.
Here's [some of] why:
The streets are insane. Buses, trucks, taxis, cars, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, bicycles, motorbikes cows, goats, dogs, cats, squirrels - oh, and people! - they're all there, going every which way. Challenge number one: How the heck does one cross a road?!
And they beep. The. Whole. Time. It's not always an angry beep, more a 'watch out I'm coming through' sort of beep. So as they're always coming through, they're always.. you guessed it.
I've seen signs saying not to beep near nursing homes and hospitals and stuff. But then on the backs of the trucks, it says: 'Horn Please'.
???
There are sacred shrines everywhere, hindu temples, jain temples, islamic mosques (you may even have the good fortune to be woken at ~4:30am by the mullah calling the good muslims to worship. oh joy. but I guess I have been getting up at 5:30 to go to mass, so maybe the madness is catching), christian churches - a bit of everything! There's a whole market dedicated to strings of fresh flowers, mostly sunshine-yellow marigolds to buy to hang on tombs, for offerings, burials, cremations, and more.
Oh and the ganges, the Hindus' holy, holy river? The one where they gather water from to sanctify things with? Yeah well you have probably heard this, but the river is also used to send babies corpses one their way into the next life.. as well as general things like defacating, bathing, etc.
?!?
A quick one which I only just discovered: you have to show photo ID and get it and yourself photographed, and tell them where you live, before they'll let you use an internet cafe here.
I'm sure there are a million more crazy things, but suffice it to say it is also beautiful, humbling, amazing. SO glad to be here.
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