Mumbai-from slums to cell phones

Where do I start? How about at the beginning. Our first experience was leaving the airport in the cab. We stopped and a crippled man was asking for change, from the slum adjacent the airport (surrounded by a wall of garbage). The police came over and started to whip him with their thin sticks. I asked them to stop, please, this was all I could do, until the man got to his feet and continued to argue with the cops. This picture was taken just before.

We've been in Mumbai, India for five days and its feels like forever. It is a world away. With all of its endless differences, one can still see we are all the same, just in different places, living along-side different cultures-that are slowly converging.

There are 16 million people in this city (half the population of Canada). There are 29,000 people living per square km. 55% of them live in shanty towns or slums. At first it seems insane, by the second day it is something one must except to be reality.

This being said there are many good things happening here, mostly for the middle class-festivals, music, life, fun, family time, environmental action, social action. There are education initiatives for slum children and so on. There are snacks to enjoy on the way home from work at a million different food stalls, there is fresh cane juice, colourful sites, many friends to be had. Even the low class work and go about life finding some happiness its seems. Compared to the very very very poor, they're doing OK. Its all relative.

Its amazing to me how some have claimed a square of pavement as their home, for them, and perhaps 2-3 tiny children. One most lasting vision was the wee baby sleeping in a sheer shall tied between two fence posts. There it will live, or die, amist the stench of the train station and piles of rubbish. This is perhaps the worst off one may be, others have the broader community of the slum and a tin roof and walls.

There is a huge, and I mean HUGE gap between rich and poor, however the overall standard is quite low, and most buildings are crumbling, most streets are dirty and all of the air is polluted. There are so many people, garbage is burned in heeps or left to decay in this city's many crevasses.

Our position in society here is sickening, we are beyond privledged and could probably eat in any hotel were India's most famous bollywood stars might eat.

We visited the Taj Hotel, down the road, to see the tribute the those who passed in the Mumbai bombings or "26/11" as the papers call it.

Our first hotel, huge cockroaches and all, was snuggled-in beside Leopold's (another site of recent attacks). There we discovered the picture hanging which covered quite a large bullet-hole, the pillar beside Lisa which had and entry and exit wound, and a few others.

Have I freaked you out yet? The thing is, Mumbai is in mourning, but there is something else this place has shown me. Dispite all the thick smog that hides the oceans beauty, dispute the layer of dirt on the face of the poor and the leaves of the trees, dispite the rats and roaches of the night, dispite murderous extremists...there are 16 million heart beats here, the women still dress up, the smiles are twice as bright, crows still gowk and socialize. Life is in full swing, the fervor and push of life, undenyable. It is hopeful. The pulse is so incredably loud I am awed by the beauty and ugliness of humanity.
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• There are a million amazing things to look at every second.
• South Indian food is pleasurable and cheap! Lisa is doing very well with the spice! Its mostly vegetarian AND gluten free!!!!
  
• We are fat compared to everyone.
• 25 degrees to an Indian is cooooooooool weather.
• We've spent 2 days sucking in fumes and meeting very interesting cabies to obtain our vietnamese visas-which we'll have to pick up when we get back to mumbai, in 7 weeks anyway! ahhhhhhhhhhh!
• We are getting better at haggeling, but we still suck.
• We are definelty getting better at crossing the road. ahhhhh!
  
• You don't know traffic.
  
• We don't like closing the curtains before snugging.
• We do like noticing there other gay people here who can't hide it very well either.
• It must be true, Southern India is more laid back. So far, the level of hassle we get on the street is nothing we can't handle. Cuba was WAY more annoying. Still- apparently -we are drop-dead gourgeous.
• Indian clothes are beautiful and comfortable.
• sikhs, muslums, hindus and christians all live in this city.
• Someone wabbling their head at you is a very good thing. :)

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Tomorrow we take the train to the most southern tip of India. It will take 2 nights to arrive there. After waiting in the hilarious 'foreigners' line up (a.k.a. the people who stick out like a soar thumb stand here line up), for such a long journey we hoped for our own lockable train car, they were sold out due to the holiday season. So we are happily forced to do what we should have in the first place-experience the real India and enjoy the company of such nice people.

From there we will put our bikes back together and get ready to ride baby ride, up the west coast and see how far we can get, physically, mentally and spiritually.

We're loving it.