Nov 2005

Ahmedabad is about 300km north of Mumbai. The train journey was okay, but a little scary at first. We shared our compartment with an Indian family who were travelling to Ahmedabad to visit a temple.

Outside view of the train

Inside the train

Ahmedabad is scarier than Mumbai, mainly because very few people speak English. When we arrived, a taxi driver took us to the wrong hotel (one he was probably on comission for), but we eventually got him to take us to the correct one. We have a nice air conditioned room with TV, and room service bring me up a big pot of tea for about 15 pence.

In the evening, we went to a local place to eat, and had a fantastic 20 dish meal in fantastic settings for about the price of a coffee in starbucks. Waiters came from every corner of the room, and within a few seconds, our table was covered with the colours and smells of India. Some pictures to follow...

We went on a long walk around the city last night, got hopelessly lost but thankfully managed to find an autorickshaw driver who took us back to the cinema (it was the only place he understood), and we walked home from there.

We haven't seen a single other white person in town, and the locals seem shocked to see us. Women scowl at Tabi when she walks past, and the men do nothing but stare. That said, there's no shortage of people wanting to try and help us. We only have to glance at the guide book and we'll immediatly be surrounded by people offering their help. As they can't speak English, and we can't speak Gudgerat it tends to confuse more than help.

In news from back home, I just learnt that Porism came 17th in the Deloitte awards for the 50 fastest growing technology companies. This is up from 35/36th last year, I tried to have a drink to celebrate, but this is a no alchol state...

Gerald and Mike from Porism with Paul Ross, collecting the award

I finally managed to get to sleep before 6am last night, but even so we didn't rise until noon. As today is our last day in Mumbai we had a few jobs to do which have taken most of the day.

I packed too many clothes, so I've posted some back to the UK to lighten my backpack. Posting the parcel took about 4 hours start to finish.

The first step is finding some post wallahs, who stitch canvas around the parcel and address it. The next stage was taking Tabi's parcel to the airmail desk. There was a long que in a building with no air conditioning. By the time we got to the front of the que there was someone trying to push in behind me - this didn't go down too well with the person behind me and by the time we left the counter several people were shouting and throwing punches at each other. I found it all very amusing, Tabi less so.

Tabi with the post wallah

My parcel is going to be sent by sea, so I had to que again at another counter. Apparently I needed an export licence to send it, so I filled one of those out. The post wallah had left the top of the parcel open for customs to search through, which they did. The officials took great delight at passing my posessions around, and everyone had a go on an air horn I picked up from a market stall earlier. An 'official' post wallah then un picked the stitching from the canvas from around the parcel (one stitch at a time), and then stitched it all back together again. I thought it looked neater the first time around, but decided to keep quiet. Finally, the customs officials gave me my export licence, applied wax to the seams of the canvas and now the parcel is waiting to be shipped.

We're booked onto a train at 9:50pm to take us overnight to our next stay in Ahmedabad; until then we're lazing around. Tabi's writing her blog next to me, and is just about to put her first entry live.

We have some great photos that I want to share, but it doesn't seem possible to get them off the camera's memory card and onto a CD here, so it may not be possible until Singapore.

On the way back from the internet cafe yesterday, we were approached by a scout from one of the Mumbai film studios asking if we'd like to appear as an extra in a Bollywood film - apparently they're always on the lookout for people from the west. Of course we both said yes - and arranged to meet the scout at 8am the following morning.

As I mentioned earlier, the new hotel we're in is pretty crappy; and neither Tab or I fell asleep until about 6:30am, meaning we slept through the alarm and missed our big chance. I guess the pivotal role of 'man in swimming pool' is being played by someone else.

We think we've worked out a route - we're leaving here tomorrow night for Ahmedabad. It's an 8 hour overnight train journey, leaving from Mumbai central at about 10pm. From here, we're going onto Udaipur, a nice town of about 300,000 people before heading up to Jaipur, Agra and then Delhi where we fly on to Bangkok.

Tabi's set up her blog here http://tabi.travellerspoint.com

Some street sellers

We arrived at about 11pm on Friday night. The first thing that hit us was how run down everything is, even in the airport. We thought that our bags got lost en route, but thankfully it turned out that the conveyer belt had broken but our bags had arrived safely.

We were met at the airport by a driver who took us to our first hotel, the Orchid, a fantastic 5 star hotel just a few minutes from the airport. We went to bed almost instantly and didn't get up until 6pm the following day.

In the evening, we made our way to Colaba, which was our first real experience of the Indian road network. It seems you're supposed to ignore all traffic signals and pedestrians while driving as close as you can to the vehicle next to you whist simaltaneously beeping your horn.

Today is Sunday, and we had to leave the oppulant surroundings of the Orchid for a more 'reasonable' hotel in Colaba. It's right in the centre of things and close to all the tourist sights. We visited the gateway of India, which is where the British marched through when ending their occupation. Some local priests painted Sandlewood spots on our foreheads and gave us sugar, flowers and bracelets for Divali.

Me infront of the Mumbai seafront

Being white, we attracted large crowds. People wanted their photos taken with us, and young boys followed us taking pictures of us freaks on their mobiles. In the crowd, we met a tourguide who drove us all round the city. We've seen pretty much everything it has to offer - from Gandhi's house to place where they wash your clothes (I can't remember the name). We walked through the slums and came out next to the Mumbai Hilton - the contrast here is incredible.

Washing wallas in Mumbai

Mumbai shacks - just behind the camera is the Mumbai Hilton

Tomorrow we're making plans to leave Mumbai, heading for Pune (pronounced Poona) which is about 3.5 hours away by train. This should be more relaxing as it's a much smaller town. Mumbai station is pretty impressive...

Mumbai Central Station (formerly Victoria Station, until the British left)

We've got some great pictures to put on here, but the internet cafe we're in at the moment isn't technically advanced enough to allow it, so they'll have to wait for another time.

We're all packed, and we set off from Heathrow terminal 1 tomorrow at 9:20am for our flight to Mumbai (formerly Bombay, apparently).

We still haven't decided where we're going to go once we get to Mumbai, but where ever we go, we need to end up at Delhi by the end of the month for a flight to Bangkok.

My bag weighs 40lbs, which is about a third of my total body weight. I've only packed the essentials: kettle, mug, tea bags etc , so I can't figure out why it weighs so much!

No doubt there'll be more news when we arrive!