Helen's observations: After seeing the Dhobi Ghats, I do my own washing thanks! Watching Peter get a haircut was fun for me but looked painful for him! Can you believe that enormous gorgeous building Peter is motioning me in front of is just the Victoria Train Station? A two-inch thick mattress is not my idea of a good nights sleep! Thank heavens for sleep-sacks, mosquito nets, our towels, my precious pillow, i-pods and speaker. It's the little familiarities that make you feel at home. How lovely to be in a country where a smile from you gets an enormous grin back. Can't believe (but very happy) that there are hardly any mozi's and I've seen NOT ONE cockroach. Poor Peter is the one that gets most of the solicitations and it's much harder for him to deal with because he's not been a woman in western society who has spent years building the barriers against unwanted attention. The yummiest drink in the world is in India! - Take a six inch tall glass and fill with 2 inches of freshly squeezed limejuice. Add sugar and salt to taste (I'm guessing about 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of salt, as it's a closely guarded secret!), and then fill with soda or fizzy water and stir like mad until the sugar and salt are dissolved. It's delicious! We even had one with crushed anise seeds in it too, which was really good. The hardness of the begging children is disconcerting and very saddening. I was expecting to see many more people begging and a lot more disfigurement. Read Shantaram. It's an amazing book with beautiful observations about India that Peter and I have felt ourselves and gets into parts of Mumbai life that we could never be exposed to. I love that we can have an amazing Indian meal at a local's place for less than 3 bucks without getting Delhi Belly. Real estate is expensive here - a 100 sqr ft "house" in a legal slum is anywhere between rs 500,000 and rs1,000,000. That's $11,628 and $23,256!!! Thank heavens for digital cameras! If I had to pay for film and processing for all the pictures I've taken I'd be broke. |