starting over again

Our flight was on Thai Airways; yet another Asian airline that knows service. The flight crew was extremely attentive, the airplane spotlessly clean, and the alcohol completely free. Sipping on a small pre-dinner vodka and orange juice, then a during-dinner one was a rather perfect way to relax and enjoy the flight. The meal, which was forgettable, served to give opportunity to a flight attendent to walk the aisles offering an after-dinner congac. How could I say no?

After departing from the brand new, ultra modern and fancy Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok – where you can find outposts of Hermes, Chanel and every other fancy brand – we landed safe and sound, right on schedule, in Mumbai, in an old, dirty and aging facility. After what seemed like a kilometers-long walk, we cleared immigration, got our bags, cleared customs and found the prepaid taxi stand.

The taxi driver, apparently doing nothing out of the ordinary, had to stop several times to ask directions to where we were going. While this didn’t inspire any confidence in us, we stuck with it and found ourselves dropped right in front of the apartment building where our hosts live.

As we slalomed the streets of Mumbai in a Fiat that would have been considered vintage the year I was born, we both felt like we were playing a game of bumper cars. Well, frictionless bumper cars, at least. Everybody just drives where they want and if that means heading towards somebody else, that person moves out of the way as if they had been bumped out of the way. Lane markings are mere suggestions, and since the Fiats and autorickshaws (the Indian tuk tuk) which fill the streets are just wide enough for two people to sit with shoulders butted up against each other, a 3 lane road may have 7 vehicles across.

We’ve decided that Mumbai is most certainly the least jarring place to start an Indian adventure; people are remarkably honest, no taxi meters are “broken,” begging is at a minimum, and in general all of the things we were bracing ourselves for haven’t quite materialized. We certainly have noticed, though, that this is a country of contrasts, diversity and disparity.

People come in a broad spectrum of skin shade; everybody is more brown than us; some only a little bit so, others so much so they’re nearly black. And everything in between. There are all manner of dress, based on religion (of which there are many), or on the latest fashion. Many Indians live in very nice looking apartments or houses and you can find 5 star hotels for $800/night. And then there are the slums, home to people who do not live in anything that could be considered nice and quite likely will never see $800 in their life.

So as we begin aclimatizing to India and its sights, sounds, tastes and smells, we can tell we are entering a climate unknown to us, and one that will forever be with us, in some way or another. So far we’ve had some of the best Indian food we’ve ever had, and we simply went to ordinary restaurants. We’ve noticed, through experience, that waiting in “Qs” (lines) is something we need to get used to, and that paperwork can be downright excessive.

Speaking of which, after about 5 or 6 forms and at least as many signatures – as well as a passport sized photo – we got a SIM card for our mobile. Not, of course, until waiting in the seemingly requisite queue. (If you’d like to call or text us, email us for the mobile number).

We’re staying in the Bandra neighborhood, which is one of the “hot” areas of the city. It’s home to many of the Bollywood stars, hopping night life and an array of tantalizing restaurants and dessert or ice cream parlors. It’s got two main seafronts, one of which we walked along yesterday. And the first thing we were struck by was the scent of oil. The second would be the seemingly oil-soaked rocky shoreline. And walking back home, we turned down a quaint winding road with very nice looking apartments on either side. And in front of these were corrugated metal shacks not big enough to stand up in, housing a number of people I don’t want to contemplate. And as I thought perhaps this was simply a street for the poor, I noticed the fancy pet store open behind one of the shacks. None of the shack residents were shopping there, but the well off certainly were. So Bollywood, in all its glitz and glamor, isn’t quite Hollywood.

Tomorrow we should be on a train from here to Gujarat for our first farm stay. Most trains in India have a foreign passenger quota – a quantity of seats held for foreigners – but this train doesn’t, and it was full, so we got on a waiting list. Now we are apparently “all but confirmed” and should have no trouble getting on board tomorrow, but we don’t, officially, have confirmed tickets. But the person we talked to today when following up on our situation was quite confident we’d be getting tickets no problem. We’re trusting it will work out; this seems to be in the Indian way.

It’s safe to say we’ve left behind the land of smiles. We miss the street food; our stomachs need plenty of time to adjust before tempting fate with the street food here. We miss the Thai friendliness, the clean and easy nature of their trains, and the sense that we had some things figured out.

Now we’re back to square one, where nothing and everything make sense at the same time. Where our stomachs aren’t quite right, but aren’t really wrong. Where the English can be at one minute so easy to understand and the next incomprehensible. But we’re figuring it out, like we always do, even if it is one friendly stranger or one bobbling head at a time.

Because here, that’s one thing to look for. The bobbling head – a movement not unlike that of those little sports figurines called “bobble head dolls” – indicates “yes,” and that means we’ve figured out one more piece of the puzzle. Eventually, we may even figure out what the picture of the puzzle looks like.