Mumbai Madness

So finally the English version arrives for all those single lingual readers back home. After being lured into the world of Facebook and MSN.....the latter there are no comlplaints about....I have eventually succumbed to the "blogging" community. Here we go then, as a man of often few words I will keep this short and to the point. Its been 5 days in Mumbai (Bombay for the less educated folk) and some hectic ones at that. After managing to smuggle a stray banana past the Indian customs we decided to lay low for the 1st afternoon cowering in our deluxe air conditioned room eagerly awaiting the call from the officers. When this did not arrive we managed to pluck up the courage to venture into the wild city night to be somewhat surprised by the ease of fitting in and friendliness of the locals.....although Martina's latin skin may be confusing them a little!! Mumbai is beautiful, charming, sometimes frustrating, colourful and smelly all at the same time. The taxi ride from the airport whisked us through some lively slums and markets with smells ranging from pee to paprika to pooh to paneer (look it up) and an array of colours to rival a technicoloured dreamcoat.. So what have we done......wandered the Colaba Market at night, took in a hearing at the High Court, stuffed plenty of the stupidly cheap local delights, Bhel Puri's and Pakoda's, into our ever anxious bellies.....which have so far held out (slightly disappointing, but a long way to go yet), dodged taxis, goats, cows, bicycles to cross the hectic highways, visited the sacred sight of Bhanganga Tank and meandered around Malabar Hill, strolled along Chowpatty Beach and Marine Drive.....and all with the finest means of transport.....our own 2 feet. Have decided to move on from here to Ahmedabad tonight, an 8 hour overnight train ride North......Rs235 (US$6) and joining in our carriage shall be 75 people, 18 goats, 438 chickens and hopefully just enough room for our bags and to squeeze out some dinner extracts. Before leaving though and to make our last night here a special 1, being a Saturday, Martina and I decided to take our relationship that little bit further and go on our 1st ever cinema date.....the movie of choice "Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic" (A little love, a litle magic), an unsubtitled Bollywood family movie complete with over dramatic muscial interludes. Turned out the family fun was for all the family with a Mary Poppinsesque script becoming a touch raunchy for the elder viewers....worth a watch if you can get hold of a good pirate copy. The night was made all the more special by the fact that Indian cinemas are open for blatant piracy, mobile conversations, general chat and as was the case next to lucky me.....stinky nappy changing!!!.....all worth the 90 pence cover charge. So there you go.....Mumbai......magical, mysterious, muggy and mad. Until the next time. X