The weather here in Mumbai, India is absolutely brutal at the moment, the heaviest rain ever!
We're just out from the cinema - we went to a Hindi film in English! It was kinda funny, but for the most part just stupid! We can't really go sightseeing when the rain's this bad, so the cinema was the next best thing.
Mickey found this Internet cafe so we're here now emailing. Mumbai is class though, totally different to everywhere else we've been so far. It's way more modern, not half as run down and there's loads of cafes and bars, cinemas, shopping centres etc. I really like it here.
The last night we were in Cafe Mocha (which they have in Ireland too) and these Indian guys sitting beside us started chatting to us and we ended up meeting them the next night too. They're really nice, good fun.
Our hotel is awfully funny, it's on the first floor of a building, and our room is on the 6th floor and it's absolutely weenchy! The three of us are in it and there's hardly room to swing a cat as Mickey said! Every time we open the door there's about six Indians standing there looking at us, they all seem to congregate on our floor cos the kitchen is there, it's gas!
At least the toilet actually is a toilet, unlike the place we stayed the first night here! It was the most disgusting horrible place ever. This New Zealand guy we met in Udaiper recommended it to us - it was on the fourth floor of a dirty building with dogs at the bottom of the steps up.
We moved to the first floor to another hotel cos we thought it might be better - yeah right! Shared toilets which were holes in the ground, no flush, a tap in the dirty tiny kitchenette thingy where the water ran into the floor of the toilet, and our room had a shower in it - infested with ants! I nearly died.
But we were so tired and dirty from the almost 24 hour train journey that we hadn't the energy to look for anywhere else. We slept there that first night and then got out in the morning and found somewhere else. Our new hotel is a palace compared to that place. We have to share the toilet with the other people on the floor, and we suspect the staff too! But at least it’s clean and there's air conditioning! It only costs 300 rupees each per night - that's less than 6 euro so it's not bad.
We've decided not to go to Goa now, there's just no point. It's way too wet and the beaches will be dirty and horrible. We'd all love to go there but it's totally the wrong time of year, November to March is the tourist season there. Also, I'm not sure I could face another train journey! We were in first class last time, which meant we'd a cabin to ourselves, but it was absolutely filthy! We cleaned the seats and everything but we were still absolutely black afterwards!
And the toilet of course was a hole that led directly out onto the tracks! You should have seen us, trying to squat properly…..!!
Well no more news from here, for now. I really hope it stops raining for the rest of the week, it's miserable when its wet. It's not cold though so it's weird. Meant to say, we went to this famous Mosque last week and you'd to make a donation and tie a piece of red thread around this wall thingy and pray for something. And myself and Mickey were at this holy lake as well where a Brahmin (like a priest) said prayers which we'd to repeat and we'd to throw flowers into the lake and make a special prayer.
Have to go now, so take care until the next episode.
Suze, Shona and Mickey.
