TRICIA (Her First Entry)

Tricia arrived last night, a little tired, a lot excited, and we already spent
a day in the great INDIA. I am so excited to have her her to myself for so
many days. We are off to Goa tonight in an overnight, sleeper bus.

Here is her entry of her first day...

Dear all,

I haven't yet been in Mumbai twenty-four hours, so count all yourselves lucky that I'm managing through my jet lag to send you this.

Note: This list may include several people who might be surprised to learn that I have arrived in India at all. It was less than three weeks ago that I decided to drop everything, face my fears and join one of my dearest friends during his travels in south India.

My plane arrived in Mumbai at 11:40ish at night. I quickly got through customs, waited a while for my bag (thank you Yolanda--I fit everything in there, it comes in at slightly less than 20 lbs, a weight I'm sure I'll grow more and more accustomed to), and went through several security scans to find a huge crowd of people standing outside the airport (all men, I think) waiting for arrivals. There among them was one who stood out, literally. Standing a foor taller than most Indians, and waving his arms, Julio was hard to miss. I wish I had a picture: kind of a where's waldo scene except in this case waldo's trying to be noticed. Julio had arranged a taxi to take us to the Salvation Army. This took what sounds like several days of bargaining with local taxi drivers until he found one willing to drive to the airport, wait for us to walk back to him (for some reason he's not licensed/allowed to enter the airport where the rest of the cabs were, so we walked to where he was waiting by a "tea shop") all for a third of the original price for a ride to the airport. (I never saw a tea shop, maybe it comes during the day only?) After a harrowing taxi ride, dodging other cars, trucks, dogs, people and cattle, and about an hour we arrived at the hostel. Remember this is now about 1:00am, on the 9th. I left on the 7th. I'm still very confused about where the time went. We showered and then went to bed around 2:00, 2:30 maybe?

In all my anticipation, excitement and confusion about the proper time, I didn't really sleep much last night. We kind of slowly got up and got organized, which mostly consisted of unpacking and repacking to get ready for the night bus we're taking to Goa tonight. It's a sleeper bus. how creative, how restful (?). I'll let you know how that goes... So this morning we went to a chain coffee bar for some pretty yummy cappucino and an almond raisin muffin (yellow raisins, so they blended in pretty well, honey: eek!). I know, not very Indian, but Julio was determined to ease me into this experience. We did some talking about how to plan the month I'm here, the places we want to go to, how to get there... It's an absolutely amazing experience to be here with Julio, doing this. For all of you who have kept up with his blog like I have, now I'm IN it, the IT that he's been describing so exquisitely and genuinely over the last 40+ days. Can you imagine?

Then we took a cab to meet some of Julio's Osho friends at a bookshop remarkably like a Border's or Barnes and Noble. They are lovely people. We had lunch and then parted ways. One, Sammy, lives in Mumbai, teaching yoga and doing massage. The other, Etimati (sp?), an Australian, is going back to Pune, to the crazy Osho place. After that, Julio and I walked around the city for a while, looking for a deal on a memory card for his new camera (which he seems happy with, though we had a laugh when, on the second picture, the little tiny thing slipped out of his hands and hit the table: an inevitable event when it comes to new things, don't you think?). After lots of inspired bargaining with lots of stand-owners, he did get a pretty good deal. I took a picture of Julio aand the shop owner who promised not to argue if Julio has to come back under the "limited" warranty sold with the memory card.

The city is very dusty and smoggy, and there are so many things going on at once, between the traffic (the daytime busy-ness put what I saw last night to shame: more cars, more bicycles, more motorcycles, and many more people, more more more!), the buildings, the constant honking, the shops, the people, that it's hard to know what to look at, and where to walk. It seems like when there is a sidewalk, it has a ditch winding through the middle of it, causing pedestrians to constantly step back and forth over the rut to maneuver around people and the constantly shifting places for feet.

We went to Haji Ali's mosque and the Mahalaxmi temple, being stared at all the way. People seem to be intrigued by me, possibly as much as I am by them. One man asked Julio if he could pose for a picture with me. Julio would not allow it until the man asked me directly if I was willing to stand next to him in a photo (taken with our camera, so this man will never see it). He finally understand what Julio was demanding, he asked me, I said ok, and then I looked up and a crowd of thirty men were standing there. Another what we're calling Sharon Stone moments happened later when somebody just stepped into the photo, holding his child, smiling.

Love to you all,
Tricia

"Into the Woods to Find the Giant..."
www.brazilbean.net