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...