Short post

Aloha from Ahmenabad! This is actually a pretty big city. There is a lot less traffic, but still a lot more than at home. We have met Thijs friend Yasser who is showing us the town, which is really nice. We have seen a lot of temples and mosques. The old town is really big with extremely small street and many great shops. Tell you more in a few days as Yassers battery is now low. Bye!

Day 7: Leaving Mumbai

Hi everyone! Tonight we will be leaving Mumbai for a trip to the North. We are spending the day packing at a leisurely pace. I can drop most of my stuff at some friends of Thijs, which is very pleasant. I still want to arrange for a hotel for when I will be flying to Australia. We have seen a lot of aspects of Mumbai: we have walked through the slums, visited the museum, we have drunk tea in the most expensive places and in the cheapest, we have been in overcrowded trains and enjoyed spectacular views. I am looking forward to seeing more of India and Ahmedabad will be an interesting change as there are only 4 million people living there instead of the 18 million in Mumbai. Nice and quiet probably.

Yesterday we visited, among other things, the Mumbai music festival in the Tata theatre which was pretty impressive. The Tata theatre is the most prestigious venue in town. It was funded with by the Tata family, who are the owners of the largest industrial company in India, they make about everything you can buy in India from tea to trucks. The theatre is usually not so easily accessible for normal people, but for the festival the admission was free. We went there to visit Japanese musicians who were playing a kind of guitar. The music they made ranged from very cool to very annoying but it was a great experience.
The Tata theatre consists of several large music/theatre halls and was built in the seventies using a lot of concrete. In its own way it is a beautiful building and most of all extremely large. In Mumbai there are many very Impressive buildings from this age and if you like concrete you should definitely visit the business district some day. It is too bad that were not allowed to take any photographs inside the Tate theatre. Other architecture in the city is also very nice, but badly maintainted. Before going to the theatre we visited the former Prince of Wales museum, which is build in an Arabic/Victorian style in a similar neighbourhood, also a good recommendation for visitors. Around there districts we also walked through the old colonial neighbourhoods.

The most impressive thing about Mumbai is probably that these thing can exist so closely to the slums. There are very people living next to very rich ones. Now it seems we are leaving. Hope to write soon, bye!

Cats and Dogs

Ah, there are many dogs on the streets. And today there were some very cute cats! See below...

Day 5: Preparing for travel

Hi! Today we wanted to get things sorted to do some travelling through India. So we went to pick up some laundry for Remy and Thijs. On our way we visited a small but nice vegetable and fish market. The trousers that we picked up at the laundry shop were impressively clean.Next we went to get some train tickets. After waiting in line for a long time we found that on Sunday there were only 2 tourist quota tickets available. Now we will be travelling on Monday. We are going to Ahmedabad in Gujurat and travel onwards from there, maybe to Jodhpur.


Once we got the train tickets sorted we went for a walk along Marine Drive to Chowpatty Beach, where many people were enjoying Republic day. Republic day is a national holiday to celebrate the Republic. It does not seem to be celebrated elaborately but many people have the day off. After the beach we took a stroll up Malabar Hill were we had a great view of the bay and the city from the hanging gardens. After a quick dinner (pani puri and pav bhaji) we visited the TRI continental film festival where we watched “A Jihad for Love”, which I would recommend if you are either muslim or gay or both or like watching movies in general. All in all I had a nice day again. www.ajihadforlove.com

Special News Report: coldest day!!!

Yesterday we went out and found the streets nicely cool for the first time since we arrived. It can get pretty hot in Mumbai, especially in the city itself.
Yesterday however was the coldest day in 10 years: 11.4 degrees at 8.30 AM in the morning. This is five degrees below normal. The low temperature was due to strong winds from the North. The lowest temperature ever was 7.4 degrees on January 22, 1962.

Day 4: cooking and eating.

Our fourth day in Mumbai was rather unproductive. We had a nice and long sleep which has done us very well. We were woken by the housekeeper that came to clean, cook and do our laundry. We watched her do some Indian cooking for us, which she did very nicely and was very interesting. Having a housekeeper is great.
We tried to get some train tickets for a short trip into the North. We have stood in several lines for the better part of an hour, but sadly there were already 221 people on the waiting list for reservations that might be dropped. This means that our chances for a regular train ticket are very slim. Tomorrow we will try to get some tourist quota tickets.After a cup of coffee with a piece of pie at the Gaylords (?) we set off to have dinner with Nutan. Nutan translates for Thijs. The journey took about one and a half hours by train. She also showed us how the Indian cuisine is prepared and told us many new things about living in India. We had a very nice dinner with her, her husband and her daughter Nikki. We had a nice and easy going day.

Day 3: Tea and Dance

Today has been a rather uneventful day here in Mumbai. After three short night we decided to get some extra sleep. In the afternoon we went looking for some nice silk fabric to make a sleeping bag for Thijs and maybe a shirt for Remy. On our way we bought some other stuff and then Thijs went for a shave at a local barber shop. Remy and I decided to go for some tea on the other side of the road. Just as we were about to order the boss and three friend picked up the entire shop and ran off. This was rather awkward, amazed and confused Remy and I were left there standing, without the desired tea.


In the evening we went to see a dance performance at the Mumbai festival. The dance was very impressive and located in a park with view of Mumbai over the bay by night. The festival was a long drive from our house, first by a rush hour train and then by rickshaw. The rickshaw driving style is very impressive. The roads are overcrowded as there are 18 million people living in a city just twice the size of Amsterdam. The drivers cope with this by speeding up and slowing down rapidly and using both sides of the road whenever possible. This makes using them a very interesting experience, luckily the rickshaws are rather cheap: an average trip will set you back about 15 rupees, which is about 30 eurocents. Now I hope to get me a gin-tonic. Bye!

Day 2: Mumbai

This night we picked up Remy at the airport. As it was very early we got there in just fifteen minutes, during the day this trip can take more than an hour due to the traffic. Remy brought cheese, schippersbitter and a very nice Turkish Airways blanket with him.
Today Thijs had to go working again and Remy and me went to see Bombay. We started with a walk through the neighbourhood where we found many holy cows and a few goats. In the sea a few men were performing a kind of religious ritual, which was odd because the sewers also end up in there. Next we took a walk through some medium slums. When we got back to the city we found that many people were living on the sidewalks. This is troublesome as this leaves no sidewalk to walk on.


Next we took the train and visited Mumbai’s main tourists attractions: Marine Road, the Gateway to India and the Victoria Station. At Victoria station I used to scales to check my weight for a fair price of 1 rupee. The card I got from the machine said: 72 Indian kilos. Nice! It also told me : “You love freedom, experiment and investigating”. You learn so many things about yourself in this very spiritual country.

When we tried to get home by train we encountered a real Indian rush hour. When we tried to reach the door about 5 mins before we reached our destination. We could only get within two metres of it and there were still about 30 people between us and the door. When the train stopped people rushed out, people rushed in and it was impossible to get out. The people here call travelling on the train “a free body massage”.
We got out on the next station. When we tried walking home we got lost in one of the worst slums in Mumbai. Although the people live about 1,5 meters from the railway tracks they seemed very cheerful. After a while we decide to take out the map. While we were looking at it a policeman on a motorbike showed up. The man seemed worried. After a while we had a chat with him and he wanted to help us. He could not tell us where we were, but he did seemed worried that we were in that neighbourhood and would not leave until we took a taxi home. As we did not know where we were we decided to take the advice and thus got home quickly.

Remy has arrived

I am happy to inform you that Remy has arrived. We just picked him up and he seems to be okay. Very nice. Bye now.

Hello! yesterday night I finally arrived safely in India. After a 14 hours delay I walked out of the airport and where found Thijs and very many Indians. After a few attempts we found a taxi that could take us to Thijs's house and the gin-tonics.



In the morning I went with Thijs to see what work he is doing here in India. We took a train to Malad where we met Nutan, our translator. Next we took a bus to the Northern suburbs where many people live in slums. There we tried to find some people who are willing to talk to Thijs to get some insight in their economical situation, as he is trying to verify a research on poverty. The people were friendly fishermen who lived in houses made from sticks, plastic and rope: this was pretty impressive. Next we had tea and visited a small orphanage and then returned to Mumbai.


In Mumbai we first went for refreshments: smoothie, hooka and a very nice chocolate pie, which I hope to put on youtube soon. Next we took a riksja to the better part of town where we took a stroll and bought some very nice Indian shirts to pick up Remy in style tomorrow night at the airport at 04.20hrs. After all this we had some gin-tonics and went for dinner. Now I will go to sleep as I only have 4hrs sleep left before we leave for the airport. See you in the morning! Yvo

dr. Yvo stranded in London

Aloha! Here is an update on my traveling already: I just got stuck in London. Not knowing what to do now I decided to tell the world, by means of your favourite blog! British Airways was kind enough to put me up in a nice Holiday Inn, pictures will follow as it is very nice, yet impossible to find: take the train: no train, take the bus: bus just stopped. In the end I found the place by taking a red bus: the London kind. Tomorrow I will be flying on BA139 (I think) to Mumbai, where Thijs will pick me up at 0040hrs. Now I am going to do watch my very fancy TV or take a bath or watch rugby in the lobby. Hmm.

For who cares: I got stuck here because it seems very windy: to windy to take off or land, and Heathrow just had a very almost crash blocking the runway which resulted in many delays, exept for the plane going to Mumbai...

As you can see this blog is very up to date. Nice!

Plane today

Hi, I am taking the plane to Mumbai today. I leave Schiphol Airport at 19.15 local time and will be in Mumbai at 11.45 local time ( = 9.15 Dutch time). Nice.

Toothbrush in bottle

Hi, I just came up with this in the race for many deadlines. It is a new packaging for toothbrushes: now packed in a small cylindrical bottle, much like a testtube. It opens by unscrewing, in stead of the always very annoying blister packaging. When done brushing, just put it back in. Comes in handy when going on holiday.


If anyone happens to be in possession of a toothbrush factory; please create this package. Let me know when and where I can buy this. Although this picture looks a bit crappy, better pictures are in production.

departure

Aloha: Here a post on departure: I will be leaving you next Sunday on BA0441 for Bombay at 19.15hrs. Checkin at 17.15hrs. See you in Bombay?

Post with picture: met oprechte deelneming

Hi! I found this card in the supermarket, it comes in a 5-pack. The cards say "Met Oprechte Deelneming". This means a much as "my sincerest condolances". I was quite amazed by them as are sold 5 at a time at the checkout with the batteries, candy and magazine. The print is done in a extra large pixel quality. Although the card seems a bit pessimistic to me, I will put it here anyway and see if i can get picture posted as well. Bye now!

My first post

Hi everyone, this is the first of a series of posts. I hope. If all goes well, I can show you pictures of my soon to start vacation to India, among other things... Nice! Cheers, Yvo.