After taking and overnight bus to Jaipur, seeing Amer fort and Galta I hopped on a plane to Mumbai. This is Bollywood capital for all of you out of the loop. Apparently all the popular music in India comes from Bollywood films and not from any other medium. Quite in contrast to other parts of the world where there are a zillion different popular genres and experimental forms. We stayed with Chad's friend Cheryl in a slum (where over 55% of ppl. in bombay live) and rode the train into town every day. On Christmas I wore one of Cheryl's Salwar kameez's (sp... a sort of long dress over baggy pants and a long scarf draped back over the shoulders) and so did she, while Chad wore is Kurta Pajama and we went to Catholic Church. Apparently 4 people die everyday on the trains in Bombay. Crazy. There are special lady cars and people are always hanging out of the doorways while it is moving. We had a delicious meal at Cheryl's boyfriend Dilip's house and I explained (through Cheryl's Hindi) the nature of my relationship with my half-bro and half-sis to his mother. This is definitely unheard of here, so that conversation was pretty funny...and long, ha! Other highlights include: A 'German' bakery with apple pie, me purchasing myself some Indian threads, bookstore hopping, and tasty eats of course.
On Christmas night, Chad and I caught a plane to Cochin, in the southern communist state of Kerala. We met up with some friends from Chad's Hindi program and spent a day in the old city/fort but after that I proceeded to get ill for about 3 days and stayed in bed. Upon recovery we set out on the train south for some backwater cruising. Four of us rented a houseboat and had our meals catered for two nights over the New Year in what I would call paradise. I hope everyone had a great New Year and it is pretty wild that it is already 2008. What is 2060 going to be like?
