Contrasts of India

Still in Mumbai, we were asked to play extras in a Bollywood movie. We said yes, of course! When do you have another chance to do something like this?! They brought us in the morning to a place, where they took care of our appearance - we needed to look like boolywood starts apparently.
They made me up, Filippo had to shave his beard. They putted us in semi elegant clothes, and ready we were: Mister and Misses Bollywood Extra:
They gave us to eat, to drink, and even 500 rupies each, for playing a quick part in a scene in a gallery. We were the European visitors of an exhibition. The movie is called Rafta and should come out in march here - we will go to see our part ;)




From Mumbai we moved over to Pune (Poona), which appeared to be not the best decision. In Poona is situated the Osho Ashram, in which we were interested in the beginning, but then discovered it to be a money making machine and strange sect in one. The very luxorious huge Ashram has even Zennis (Zen Tennis)...this was to much for us. We profited from the beautiful park behind the Ashram, which we could do for free, luckily.

The place was really relaxing and all the surroundings beautiful. We also found ourselves for some time in a small village, very calm, happy and beautiful. There are no more photos from Poona, though. Cause what we have seen, heard and smelled after leaving the idyllic surroundings of Osho Ashram didn't inspire me to take any. It was loud, dirty and stinky. Many slums, even more homeless and dead bodies on the streets. Chaos. I knew places like this exist, i also saw photos of them or reportages, but live it was too much for my nervs. We decided to leave Poona as fast as possible and take a 13h trip to Panaji (Panjim), the capitol of Goa.
This city surprised us very positively. Quiet, clean, sunny and cheap - it was just what we needed. Panaji was until 40 years ago a Portugese city, and you and see it. Lovely little streets and buildings, stairs everywhere, european architecture mixed with indian influences...the best point of the travel, so far.
We walked for hours, in love with this quiet and friendly place.
Here some photos of it.


















In Panjim all different the religions seem to exist in peace next to each other. You see crosses, Hindu temples, Arabic corners...
After a more then a week in India we also started to take first little risks with food. We asked ourselvs why we are actually not eating the fruits from the markets and tried immediatly the coconut juice, that they sell on every corner here... We had different opinions on it...

























On the next day we took a motorbike and went to the seaside. Riding all the day and finally seeing the see was just amazing! On the beach you are of course not alone. There are people who want to sell you everything and nothing, there are dogs, of course, and also...cows! Another surprising thing was, that all the Indian people are completely dressed on the beach...and also in the sea.














Tomorrow we are moving to the goan seaside, let's see what waits us there...

Welcome to Mumbai

After a pretty hard trip, indian people welcomed us friendly..too friendly even. Taxis on every step, how can i help you, smiling, helpful, cheating.
for the first taxi we paid about 5 times too much, they asked us 16 times too much.
Arriving in the north of Mumbai, at 3 in the night, with 28 degrees was a bit shocking. People, cows, goats, dogs and cats - everyone was still awake and on the street.
The first impressions...there are millions every day and they cannot be summarized in few sentences, but we post here some photos and short stories to give you an impression.
Maybe we will not post often in this blog, cause it is not so obvious here to find internet points.
On the photo above is the Taj Mahal of Mumbai, which is close to the Gateway of India - huge buildings, surrounded by a square full of people, who want to sell you something. Every 3 seconds you hear "Yes, sir, yes, madame", "Can i help you", "Pssssss", etc. etc. And the things they try to sell you are even more absurd.


The seashore of Mumbai, at the sunset.
Looks great, smells horrible. It s not possible to swim because the sea is black...











Traveling by train is an art in itself. This one time i had the space to do a photo. Normally the trains are crowded until nobody fits in anymore. People jump out and in during the train rolls. There are different wagons for women (didn't use yet).
Once we jumped into the 1st class, having 2nd class ticket, and, of course, we got caught. They made us step down of the train, and took us to an office with other indian people who didn't have the ticket, or had the false one like us...We paid about 10 euros, which is really really much here, the other ones didn't pay anything of course.. This is the way to learn...

Guess which one of us uses sandals?












Children are asking you for money nearly all the time, but they are the the ones who you really want to give it, too. These 3 guys who spoke very well english told us some (true or made up?) stories about their cat, that doesn't eat for days. After we gave them some money, the stories started to multiply, but the chat with them was anyways very pleasant.




We went to an island near to Mumbai, called Elephanta Island.
The island is property of Unesco, and it is the site of very old caves, containing centenary sculpures in the rock of indian divinities...
Very short visit, anyways, and was funny the sight of the thousand monkeys everywhere.


Down also a picture of a sculpure.



There are dogs everywhere on the streets. They all look the same, seem to be not agressive and always sleepy (it's about 30 degrees now). We would like to play with them, but we keep a big distance, being a bit afraid of the illnesses they could have.










Mumbai is full of signs of spirituality and gods. "Oms" are practicly on every corner, car, etc. In each car, restaurant and shop you'll find also little statues of gods, altars.
On the picture a poster in front of the Academy of Science, which was about the hand reading as a scientific learning... in the end who knows..











Honking: for nothing, all the time, in all sounds...
In one moment you can hear about 15 different kinds of honking.
We didn't get used yet...


In the end we went shopping. It was one of the most tiring experiences ever ;) Lower you see the result as well as our wonderful hotel room.