TRAVEL-REPORTS
Reflecting on my Indian Travel in Bombay
I intended to get up again at 5 am this morning like I did yesterday. However, unfortunately today there was no mosquito to bite me and make me feel a bit strange and thus feel like getting up. Only my alarm clock which I was able to ignore twice. Eventually at 8 am I naturally woke up. I jumped out of my tent which is pitched inside the flat to dodge the mosquitoes.
I got in the shower and plunged myself under the cold tap (the shower itself didn’t actually work). I checked the ingredients of a tube of shaving foam that I had to see if I could use it as hair shampoo. It had two types of soap in it so I thought, yeah why not. It smelt manly too.
A cold shower / dousing in the morning is a mixed blessing. I’m still not sure I like it. I crouched under the cold tap. I could hear pigeons cooing and flapping around by the windowsill and the sound of Bombay waking up (loud), even over the sound of the water.
I put a coffee on and I think about the day. In fact, my first thoughts are ones of joy and reassurance that I am making the right decision to head back from my current location to Georgia either by the route I came or Nepal, Tibet and Central Asia. I’ve put a lot of thought into this. It is a good sign for me if I am enthusiastic about it in the morning because my brain has been pondering it through the night. In fact, I had the same feelings yesterday in the morning but not as strong, so the idea is growing on me.
To celebrate this, I decided to sit with my coffee and come up with as many ideas as possible to raise funds for project Ride Earth using my recently rediscovered lateral thinking skills. I do pretty well at around 100 ideas in about a 45 minute period. I also have many ideas about things to do when I get back to Georgia.
I then gave the keys to the flat to my kind host Naveed who is the owner of the flat and has lent it to me this last week. I head down the escalator closing the 2 manual doors behind me because of its old fashioned style (and then opening them again to get out obviously, once I reached the ground floor).
On the way down in the lift a long leaf or blade of a plant is protruding from one of the floors and alarms me as it passes into the lift compartment and then away. I enquire with someone about a post office and take a rickshaw there to post a letter. Then I ask a young-looking man who speaks English about an Internet cafe. He directs me to “Ashish” Internet cafe. I have to go back the way I came and take the second left.
That’s where I am now. I’ve been here for 156 mins and it’s costing 55 rupees. I’ve been reading the responses to my posts on Lonely Planet, finding out I can go from India, Nepal, Tibet to China and exit to another country but I have to do it within 15 days.
I’m just confirming whether it’s a requirement to have a guide with me at all times in Tibet.
I have also been investigating stock photography websites to sell my photos and reading about the, Couchsurfing host from Hungary, David Klein’s mountain climbing expeditions. His writing style inspired me to write this post for some reason. The style is very matter of fact, includes a lot of detail and is usually in the first person, present tense.
I have naturally written like this before, at times when I was recalling something very recent, immediate or I wanted to convey a more intense level of emotion and intimacy. In first person, present tense, I feel that I am replaying events in my head and relaying them into words.