India

I MADE IT,

Twenty four hours, three different airports and 3 hours of airplane sleep later I made it to my first stop: Mumbai. I am staying with my friend, Karan in his cousin’s apartment, which is only a few rooms even though his family is very well off comparatively. I slept in their kid’s playroom, but I had a bed so it was infinitely better than trying to sleep on the plane.

What surprises me first is the overall foreignness of India. Nearly everything they do is different from what I’m used to. Motorcycles, trains and rickshaws are the norm while cars are a rarity, you feel genuinely lucky to happen upon a ‘normal’ toilet, people drive on the other side of the road, cows, stray dogs, goats etc. wander the streets… the list goes on and on. So far I haven’t even been able to realize most of the discrepancies because they are everywhere.

I arrived at Karan’s family’s apartment around midnight on the first night and got some jetlagged sleep trying to ready myself for more travel the next day. This fist night I was very comfortable as the apartment had air conditioning, hot water and showers. On the Saturday morning after I arrived me, Karan, and Rachel who was also with us, went for a walk around Mumbai, It is a very beautiful (albeit run down) city. It’s a strange thing to see oceanfront properties that are almost or literally falling apart. After this I boarded a train for another six hour trek to Baroda itself. On the train I met some very nice Indians, one of which had just gotten in to the University of Iowa and was extremely worried that he wouldn’t get a visa to come to the US while the other was insistent that I watch episodes of Tom and Jerry with him on his phone.

I arrived to Baroda just after sunset at about 7:30 and, like everywhere in India, it was a madhouse of people. Karan, Rachel and I were crammed into the back of a rickshaw along with all of our luggage and off we went through the traffic like it wasn’t even there. I met up with some of the AIESEC Baroda people and we went for dinner at one of their favorite restaurants, Jojo’s Chinese. After this me and Karan went with some of the AIESEC’ers on their mopeds to see some of the city. We went to one of their friend’s roadside stalls selling gum and cigarettes, and then to meet up with some more friends that were not from AIESEC. When the Indians that I was with heard that I had an iPhone, they were amazed, because apparently these are very hard to find in India. They were going through my iPod on there and getting excited that I had Lady Gaga songs, and kept asking why I had no Justin Bieber. After we were with this group for a while we all went to get Pan. This was one of the strangest things that I have ever eaten. It was a leaf that was wrapped around assorted fleshnuts and spices that tasted like a mix of candy, tobacco and curry… very odd, and I didnt like it at all. The second night, where I would be staying with a family for a couple of days, was not nearly as relaxing as the first. The temperature in my bedroom must have never fallen below 85 degrees (easily 70+ humidity), and there was a tub of water that I used for a shower before I went to sleep. Luckily I was running on fumes at this point so I got a few hours some much needed shuteye.

I am writing this Sunday morning at 6:45am (ugg jetlag keeping me awake). We have a large agenda for today, first comes a soccer game between different sections of AIESEC (my section is Chelsea and we are playing our rivals Man U) and after that I will tour around the city some more.

I will miss the organized and methodical society in America (and the air conditioning) but I’m looking forward to see if I can hack it in this completely foreign environment.