The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘trip’

Mumbai

Previously:

And Now …

Mumbai

In the wee small hours of … the morning, we boarded our plane in Udaipur and headed to Mumbai. It was time for the last stop on our grand India tour / honeymoon. (And thank goodness, because we were worn out at that time and I’m sick of writing about this. You know it’s going to be a good post when I start off with whining.)

The funny thing about the airport experience was that a woman, an Indian woman, walked up and asked me if she was at the right gate for a flight to Mumbai … you’re going to ask the white guy? Lady, thanks, but I’m not fountain of knowledge. We were at the right gate though.

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You wouldn’t know it to look at the place, but it was very nice.

When we landed in Mumbai we did one of the most American things you can thing of … we went to a Starbucks. Lauren and I had left very early in the morning, too early for breakfast, but by the time we landed we were more than ready for some food. A blueberry muffin and coffee for each of us and what a thing it is to eat foods you know after two weeks of new foods. I was sad that it was something so cliche as Starbucks, but blueberry muffins are delicious.

Our hotel lobby was so hip there was a no geriatrics sign hanging (hyuck hyuck). There were a few tables, a kitchen area, and almost constantly one or two employees hanging out. The rooms were all right off the lobby so it was quite small, but very modern and cool.

Cruising around town.

Cruising around town.

The one downside to the hotel … there was construction going on. The kind of construction that made it sound as if one of the construction workers was going to accidentally put a hammer through our room wall at any point. In fact, from our room, if we opened any of the shades we stood face to face with the construction workers on their bamboo scaffolding (which appeared to have been constructed on a dare).

In the early afternoon our guide came and met us in the lobby. She was, well, first off, a she, and secondly she was a bit loony in a fun way. For Lauren our guide reminded her of a good friend of hers – the kind of woman that not only takes no ish (that’s the PG word for shi*) from no one, she proactively takes no ish from no one.

One of the dabbawallas

One of the dabbawallas

She understood, partly from us telling her, that we were wiped out feeling. Message received, she had us covered. We did a bit of a driving tour of Mumbai, getting out to view the dabbawallas (the amazingly accurate and low-tech food delivery system), the Gandhi museum, and the public laundry area. Toward the end of our driving tour she told us a number of places to try that were walking distance from our hotel, including a delightful tea room. Lauren was feeling a bit off so we opted for that. We bid her goodbye, enjoyed tea, and then mostly confidently (me) but also full of fear (Lauren and I) we depended on our sense of direction to get back to the hotel. We made it!

The public laundry

The public laundry

Due to the lack of full energy/wellness feeling we had a very low-movement night at the hotel.

The next day we met up with our guide and headed to Elephanta Caves on Elephanta Island which features religious carvings dating from the 5th or 6th century AD. The carvings were beautiful.

View from the boat ride.

View from the boat ride.

On the boat to the island we chatted with some Swedish students who were working in India for an internship/semester abroad kind of thing and they had enjoyed quite the experience thus far. Two of them were very stereotypically Swedish looking – very blonde, very light blue eyes, pale skin. They said they had taken a tour of some slums in Mumbai and a woman literally shoved her baby into the arms of one of the girls for a picture. Lauren and I’s brown hair perhaps kept us from more unique encounters.

One of the carvings.

One of the carvings.

Well … I’m wrapping this trip up in a hurry because, as stated previously, I’m ready for a different kind of thing to write about on Fridays. Telling true stories gets boring – it’s time to go back to oddball nonsense.

High: The carvings in the caves were beautiful and impressive, it is a shame so many were destroyed.

Low: The next “morning” our flight left at 3 am, the driver was a friendly fella who chatted with us and was happy our visit to India went well. The agent was an absolute punk who looked like a very angry, mean, Indian Burt Young.

Our mean-spirited guide, ol Indian Burt.

Category:

Weekly Wacko

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Tips for Recent Grads – Your Big Trip!

Here we go, recent grad, as I stated earlier I will now be throwing unwarranted advice your way. I debated not posting this because it is obvious and who am I to give advice? But, I had written it up and didn’t want to just throw it out (i.e. I didn’t want to write something else), so here we go!

Done with college! Done with dense books! Done with learning!

Ok, maybe not all three of those … But at least for a while two of the three may be very true. And what better way to celebrate than with a big trip? ESPECIALLY a trip overseas!

Turns out, we (U.S.A.! U.S.A.!) aren’t loved nearly as much as we love ourselves. Fret not, my friends. On an individual level, there are a lot of us who are very likable people. As a recent college grad you are, hopefully, somewhat intelligent. Put that big brain to use.

Here is some advice (again, apologies if it is obvious or you already know it, you world-weary wanderer):

1. Get a Toronto Raptors sticker and throw that on your backpack.

2. Get a Toronto Blue Jays sticker and throw that on your backpack.

3. Say please and thank you.

4. Imagine yourself going to a friend’s house. You hang out and watch movies and you end up crashing there. The next morning he/she says, “you want some cereal?” and you happily say yes because of course you want cereal, cereal is delicious.

Your friend says “please help yourself” (note the please) and you get to work. Your friend ends up keeping their silverware and bowls and cereal boxes in the LAST place you check for each item. You started logically, “where would I put the spoons if I lived here …” and eventually you gave up on that approach, blindly checking.

Now, does the confusion in a different setup you’re used make the cereal any less delicious? No, don’t be silly. Does the different setup make you want to say, “wow, this is really weird” (but the way you say weird makes it seem like you’re implying crazy or stupid)? No, because you’re not a jackass.

(Note: For dudes, you may say things like this just to be a jackass … Hopefully you know that you can call yourself and your best friend an idiot, but no one else.)

Ready for the shocking jump in my little analogy?

When you go to a foreign country where the culture is very different from what you are used to … Things may seem weird to you. But they are weird in fascinating ways. Your friend has his or her own logic for the spoons being in the drawer closest to the fridge, while you keep the spoons closest to the bowls.

You may meet some people who are cool with the fact that you’re wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. The world is an amazing place and far too few get to see enough of it. These cool people you meet may understand your fascination and you can ask them, “so why DO you keep the spoons in that drawer instead of that drawer?”

Good luck, globetrotters!

Category:

Du Jour of the Week

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What a Fun Trip!

And then I said “wow what a trip!,” and mom said, “that was a fun trip,” and I thought, “holy cow mom’s on acid!” and she said, “no I’m not on acid I meant the family vacation,” and then she turned into a dragon and ate dad and I thought, “maybe this isn’t a fun trip.”

Uhhh … What?

A guy I work with uses the word “dragon” as a synonym for a problem of any kind.

“Get to work on this and you’ll find some dragons!”
“I bet there’s a whole box of dragons once you get into that.”
etc.

I had a meeting with him and he talked about dragons, and I tried to focus while thinking about my upcoming trip – and voila – that piece of weird up top came out.

Category:

Short Short Stories

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