Borivali National Park

Yesterday was a nice Sunday in the city. Most of it we spent in Sanjay Gandhi National Park (Borivali Park), which is located within the city and is a place annually visited by 2M people. Nevertheless it's a calm place to visit on Sunday's morning after partying the night before :)

Alyonushka

"Untouched" nature

And a lot of flowers! I love this winter!

Women selling fruits

Kids queuing to catch a train which goes around the park

Gandhi Temple

The guys I went to this park with (mostly aiesec interns)

The view on the city from that hill

Monkey - necessary attribute of any park in Mumbai, but never saw them on the streets here... yet!

Jain Temple - very neat comparing to the other Temple I visited recently (haven't written about it yet)

I must write a separate post about this religion later.

The most beautiful train station award goes to...

Mumbai!

Who said that the train station in Anwerp looks like a temple? Who thought that it's the best building in the city and something all antwerpeners are proud about?

Check this out: Mumbai train station - way more beautiful, grand and stunning.

Elephanta caves

Today we made a trip to Elephanta Caves which are on an island close to Mumbai.

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To reach it we took a ferry pretty much like the ones we were taking in Turkey some years back:

departing from the Gateway of India, which is just opposite Taj Hotel (you might know it for being attacked by terrorists in 2008) - two main highlights of Mumbai:

After one hour trip along the cost we reached the caves. They are full of sculptures devoted to the lord Shiva and made 12 centuries back. My camera couldn't capture them properly as it's quite dark inside and the walls are not illuminated. So the picture is taken from web:

That's how it looks like from outside:

Luckily we join a nice guide who was making a private tour for a couple from the US. We dared to ask for permission to join and it wasn't a bad move! Otherwise the alternative option was to hire a local guy in a baseball hat which looked rather suspicious than academic and I wouldn't rely not only on his knowledge, but on him in general. So if you ever end up there - make the right choice :)

Plastic cards

One thing that I didn't want to forget to write about, which still surprises me:

plastic cards (visa, etc.) are widely accepted here, at least in the restaurants/bars/clubs and in the shops. It is very convenient as the fee for these transactions is only 1,65% of the amount, when withdrawal fee is 3,5 euro (for my bank).

Still to improve: my swedish bank card doesn't seem to work for booking flights. I was told it might be because the card is issued abroad. So far nobody helped me with this issue. So if you know the way to book the tickets here with a foreign card - please let me know!

New Year's Eve in GOA

I left for Goa with some other 30+ people on 30th of Dec and came back just yesterday. It's impossible and it's a shame, but I haven't taken a single picture being in Goa. I'll try to get some from my friends later and update this post.

To start with, Goa is nothing I expected. Nothing I could imagine, and still felt familiar and as if I have been there before. As per overall stereotype Goa is "a place to be for the new year's eve", is " all about drugs-sex-rave", is "people high on weed and hash throwing up on the beach". I thought it would be exhausting. In reality it was chilled out, very much chilled out.

"a place to be for the new year's eve" didn't happen because I literally couldn't feel this ny's eve when it's +35C outside. I kept on forgetting about it before 12 am and I forgot that the new year began right after 12am.

"drugs-sex-rave" didn't happen due to different reasons. Perhaps I wan't looking like looking for drugs, so none of the drugdealers approached me at all for all 5 days of stay. From what I heard "you can't walk 10 meters in Goa without being offered some weed"- never happened to me!

Sex was rather something you'd initiate than coming naturally with the wind thing.

And I don't know where all the rave parties were held, but I heard anything but rave in there. Which is still fine, as I am not a big fan.

"people high on weed and hash throwing up on the beach": people were throwing up a lot, A LOT, but the reason was too much heat, not alcohol or bad food or smoking.

That's basically it.

Just few more things: we spent a lot of time on the scooter, driving around from one beach to another. It was awesome!

There are really tons of Russians. That's one of the stereotypes about Goa which is correct.

Pictures with (more interesting) comments to follow.

Feels like Sweden

Another good thing happened today:

Taking rickshaw I lost (left) the cellphone there. We called the driver, he brought it back, and didn't even take the money for it. I was impressed. Wouldn't you?

Haji Ali UPD

Abbas decided to change my yesterday's impressions of Haji Ali Mosque. And he managed. Watch this:

Day 3

Today we went for the first sightseeing tour in Mumbai (first for me, but to the places which were new for Matina as well).

First destination was Haji Ali Mosque. It is supposed to be a great mosque around here, which it didn't look to me :(

- On our way to the mosque we saw a wedding. Check out the groom on the very left - sure you're still dreaming about the prince on a white horse? :)

- The mosque is connected to the shore with a concrete road, quite long and too crowded, so it becomes exhausting.

- In addition to the people's flows coming both directions, the sides of the road are occupied by the sellers, beggars, cripples, coin changers, etc. It makes the way even more pleasant.

- Not meeting the expectations Haji Ali was nothing extraordinary to see, we walked around fearing the way back. (On the video: do I actually sing that song from "Nu pogodi" in the end? Why??? :)

After getting out of the crowded mosque we headed to Banganga Tank, a sacred place for Hindus.

- It felt way more calm and relaxed comparing to Haji Ali.

- Us chilling on its edge.

- In the area near Banganga Tank . Locals told us there is a hundred hindu temples around, we found couple of them indeed :)

Done with the religious places for today and finished a quick lunch we joined a friend (Abbas) to watch a play. It was something local, modern and funny. Something that I didn't get, because apparently I tended not to understand indian accent anymore! All over sudden! Never happened to me! I should go there again in the end of my trip to see if I improved.

After the play Abbas took me for the first bike ride in my life! That was awesome! Cool breeze at a good speed, Mumbai at night, Abbas' comments on the city history, etc. The apogee of the ride was when we went down from the hill with the switched off engine, at the terminal point we had a speed of adout 70 km!

- Check out Mumbai at night (to the extension my camera quality will allow :)

- Brussels La Bourse?

Day 2

Today I tried to take some pictures of what I've seen. And even recorded a video for you!

One of the biggest impressions of the day - the train. You must have heard about it before - those trains where people are all over - stuffed like fishes in the cars and dangling on the sides. But as today was a weekend day, I haven't got to see the real fight for the room in the train :(

Here's the video of us and the train approaching. My last phrase is - "we've got to rush!"

Inside:

After travelling by train we've spent the whole day shopping! There are some criminal stories about it, but i save them for one-to-one chats :)

Other than the train, ricksha is a convenient way of transportation:

- the view from inside

The day finished in Enigma... Strange, isn't it? :)

PS I love it even more here! And Marina says that I make her love the place too :) Come to India, guys!

The very first day

It's not enough that I am a bad writer, I just understood that I have a way to go to become a decent photographer too. Not even in the sense of being able to make good pictures, but in general - I am not able to remember to take pictures at all! But anyways:

I am in India, in one way or another - the country I've been dreaming about for such a long time!

I must admit - it's no way near charming and pleasant to your eyes, and "bounty" type of a country. But you know, my expectations were lowered so much by those who know me and have been here (some people were saying I'm gonna faint when I face everything here!), that I was well prepared to accept everything the way it is. But really - smell, poverty, absence of women, sewage all over the place, chaotic traffic - everything you heard about India is true :)

From the other hand - people are really nice, weather is awesome, prices are extremely low. If not working - travelling here is something you should not miss on!

The first day I spent by doing grocery shopping in the very strange small shops, the type of those pakistani night shops we have in Antwerp, with no results as they didn't sell anything we needed. No pictures from this experience :)

After that we dropped by the Xmas party organized by local aiesec people. The only picture is this one: me with Marina, I am staying in Mumbai at her place.

The night finished with going to some posh club called Enigma in the 5 star Marriott hotel. How to tell you, only the entrance fee was 2500 rupees, which is around 35 euro! But we didn't pay, as foreigners are always welcome :) Here are the pictures:

- with some fancy Indian crowd behind

- and with the strangest xmas tree ever seen

Condition number one.

Believe it or not, but within 3 days I am going to land in India. Still can't quite feel it. This trip has a long history and the reasons I can't already remember, but I am definite about one thing - this country is a MUST VISIT for me.

I start up this web diary for you to follow my wander and for me to afterwards cry about "the good old times". The idea is to stuff it up with pictures along with some short comments, as I don't want you to be bored of reading endless paragraphs of meaningless thoughts :)

But before the pictures please have a look at this short promotion video (in case you haven't seen it yet) and be honest to yourself: it is a MUST VISIT place!

I'd also like to thank some people helping me out with the preparation to my trip: Alina Izh, Katya Porotnik, Olya Obraztsova, Anya&Pasha, Abbas and his Indiasomeday, and many others. Guys, appreciate your inspiration, learnings, tips, advices, pictures and stories! I am finally doing it thank to you.