It's hard for me to write about India. First, the internet was really crummy in Bombay (at least in the cafe we used). I haven't had access that slow since my dial-up days. It was hard enough to check my email, let alone try to access this site. Jason and I are currently in Aurangabad, the second city we've visited in India. Tomorrow, we are going to Bhopal - a city famous for a horrible industrial accident in the late eighties (estimated 28,000! people died in a chemical leak), but we are going there to visit a more famous Buddhist site in nearby Sanchi.

Second, for almost the first week, I really didn't have anything positive or funny to say about India. I still don't have much to say, but we've been here for almost two weeks so surely there is something.

I visited India almost two years ago for my older sister Nancy's wedding. I spent most of the time enjoying the hospitality of her husband's relatives in Madras and Delhi. I went to the Taj Mahal and one other city in Jaipur. I enjoyed my trip, but it was pretty short and most of the time was filled with the wedding and preparations for the wedding.

Our first week in Bombay, I spent mostly in a funk. Egypt had ended on a high point, with Dahab and a mostly enjoyable excursion to Saqqara. Bombay is said to have the largest slums in Asia. Jason and I were staying in a fashionable suburb of Bombay called Colaba. This is where all of the backpackers we never saw in Egypt are staying, apparently. This area attracts lots of beggars, drug dealers, drug users and other unsavory sorts. It is also where there are lots of shops, tourists and happenin' nightclubs.

Bombay is an interesting city, probably ranks right under Cairo for me, for the greatest cities in the world. The streets are very lively. Our first day, we saw a wonderfully colorful wedding, with firecrackers in the street and a turbaned dude on a horse. Barbers shaving men on the sidewalk, cobblers, shoeshiners, sugar cane juice stands, a several street blocks covered with second hand booksellers, lime juice stands, tea sellers and lots and lots and lots of people. At any time of the day, somewhere an Indian person is eating something it seems. Streets are filled with food stands: boiled eggs, fried eggs, fried samosas, fried potato things, chips, fried dough things, sweet things.

On the other hand there is this: If you were to just stay in a nice hotel and read the newspapers and magazines, maybe watch some TV and venture out in a luxury bus to the major sites you might think you were in any city in the U.S. or Europe. TV and billboard advertisements are slick, often advertising Western goods and the English-language magazines have articles on bars, fall fashions and weekend getaways. Just like being at home, right?? It looks like everyone has a cell phone and drives a Honda, according to TV. So begins the obligatory comments from the traveler to India on the poverty in India.

Jason and I would go to a coffee shop Barista, which looks a lot like Starbucks, except has an orange and white color scheme. Every time we went there, about five dirty children in rags would be waiting outside or tapping on the window at the customers inside. Once, I saw one child jumping up to try to grab a coffee away from someone leaving. Some streets are lined with homeless people wrapped up in blankets early in the morning. Rather like San Francisco, except with women and children, making it all the more discouraging. I saw an American women handing out shampoo samples to some dirty children: "Here is some *shampoo*, so you can *wash* your hair". Very nineteenth century London -- like something out of Dickens novel. Besides the beggars, you have people toiling away at dangerous or dirty jobs. Construction sites with flimsy looking scaffolds and skinny guys covered in dust and carrying rubble on their heads in baskets. Young kids making personalized brass key chains with a circular buzz-type saw or writing your name on a grain of rice. Scenes like this made me want to stay in bed most of the day.

After three of four days of being sad, I complained for a couple of hours to Jason and felt better. We've been having lots of fun since then. Oh yeah, except for that eight hour train ride in second class to Aurangabad when the little girl next to me peed on the floor, sat on me all wet, then peed on the floor again... but that's a story for another day. :) For anyone traveling to India, DO NOT take second class on a crowded train. heh.

The food is great, people are very nice, we hardly ever get cheated, and the sites are lovely. Jason and I visited Elephanta, Ellora and Ajanta. He'll be posting photos sometime. Prolly not anytime soon though since we're heading into some more remote-ish towns.