Mumbai

This place is twice as dirty, three times as polluted and immeasurably more impoverished than I anticipated. And, my expectations were already pretty low. I am overwhelmed. It's partly the jet lag that has me feeling down, but this is certainly the most difficult experience of my life.

The flights were relatively uneventful. I had to go through special security in Frankfurt due to the Mp3 player Monica bought me. One would think the Krauts had never seen one. They actually ended up doing a chemical test on it before they allowed me to pass. I actually appreciated it because it gave me something to do during my seven hour layover.

My flight to Mumbai was delayed slightly, causing me to arrive at three o'clock in the morning, local time. (By the way, India is 10 1/2 hours ahead of Indiana. The half hour is referred to as Indian "stretch" time.) So, in the middle of the night I arrived in a city more populous than Australia. I had some difficultly getting a hotel, despite using the airport's reservation desk. Everyone is trying to rip me off. I'm white, therefore I'm basically wearing a sign that says I am rich and ignorant. Thankfully, even getting ripped off 25 rupees here and 50 rupees there means I have still wasted less than 2 dollars.

The 45 minute taxi ride to my hotel was... enlightening. Maybe revelatory is the word. I watched from the window with both a broken heart and a sense of morbid fascination. The slums are immense. Beyond immense. They give new meaning to squalor. More yet, beyond the millions living in the Dharavi slums (the largest slums in Asia) there were thousands sleeping homeless on the street. Literally, on the street, because all of the benches and building overhangs were already taken. I found the homeless population when I lived in Washington DC heartbreaking, but this is something altogether different. Imagine driving past women and babies - young children sleeping on the same street as rabid dogs. The sulphurous cloud of pollution hanging everywhere, coupled with the stench of human and animal waste. I am not exaggerating.

I felt guilty, but I couldn't help but hope that my hotel was in some clean, Western quarter of the city. A place with plenty of white people where I might feel safer. Such was not to be. My taxi stopped at the Sea Lord hotel (no sea view). I had intended to stay at the marginally nicer Sea Palace hotel, but there was some confusion at the airport. Still, I have a quasi cleanish room with a working (cold) shower and an inner lock for my door. I'm paying an exhorbitant lodging fee (by Indian standards) of about 1700 rupees a night - about 25 dollars a night.

Well, I hope everyone back home is well. You are all in my thoughts.