More info about India...

Dear friends,
I’ve jsut found spare time to update you about my last movements and to finish my description about India!
As already said, a good thing about India is that everybofy speak english (since it was a british colony), so to move around there is abosolutely no problem...of course talking with old people could be more challenging! In particular, TV channels are half hindi and half in english (even if this other part is made by indian people so it's not so easy to understand their "english version")

The country is similar to Thailand about fees entrance for museum or more in general to bargain with the people about the prize! For example, all the foreigners are supposed to pay something like 300 indian rupee to get in a museum, where instead the Indians pay only 10 rupee!! Now, it this case I was lucky because I’ve asked the discount price for student, which was 6 rupee, thus I’ve showed him my ex-Royal Holloway student card (expired on 2005) and the guy let me in for 6 instead of 300 rupee!!!! Another example is where I was buying a world map on the street: the guy asked for 650 but then slowly slowly he came down to just 100 rupee (less than 2 euro!). What I’m trying to say is that those countries are quite poor so all the time they try to make more money with the tourists, since they don’t really care if spend 10 or 2 euro for a map!!!

During my permanence in Colaba (south Mumbai), I’ve found a great pure vegetarian restaurant next to my hotel: after my first meal I’ve understood that that place will be became my only and unique place where to eat! I still thinking about the great black tea served with a different white sugar (different from the kind of sugar sold here in Europe) and the two white and red salsa which are served with any kind of food (just to let you know, most of the restaurant here are vegetarian due to Indian and Muslins religions, so most of my Indian experience I haven’t ate much meat!).

Moving around the city is pretty easy, first because there are taxi everywhere (prices are really cheap as well, and too funny where you have to pay: they still have old taxi meter, so everybody has a paper with the conversion from what the meter say and how much instead is the real cost!), but also because train and ferry are quite efficiently (even if a little bit dirty..); in particular, the ferry is the only way to get to Elephanta Island, a nice place that recommend to visit (there are really few interesting things to visit in Mumbai): there I’ve met many Indian guys from the Navy, and with them I’ve visit the caves and monkeys on the island (they also tried to help me to pay the Indian price to get in (10rupee) without any success, I’ve paid 250,shit!
Except for this small island, other places that could be interesting to visit in Mumbai are the Haji Ali Mosque (nice for the special position where this building was constructed), Kamla Nehru Park (good view of the city) and Washing Laundry (at Dhobi Ghat, maybe the most interesting place in all Mumbay). In general Colaba is the place to be seen during the day, where instead the north of the city is more attractive for the nightlife (in particular Bandra and Khar).

A couple of nights I’ve been dancing with two crazy guys, Martins from Goa (too funny when he get piss off with the taxi driver which was trying to take a longer way….he’s from there but in the car was talking in English, so all the taxi driver believed he was a tourist as well!), and Danis from St. Peterbourgh (good photographer and crazy dancer): with them I’ve been in a couple of clubs, of course only after have get drunk in some really cheap place that Martins knew….one of those nights I’ve also been to a salsa club, but I really don’t recommend to visit this place if you are looking for good dancer and good music!! Anyway, it was fun and we met nice girls (not Indian). In general anyway, most of the clubs are in the biggest 5 stars hotels, just like in Puerto Rico!

Finally, I think that if you wanna visit India, Mumbai is not really the best place where to go, or at the least you can come here for few days but then you’ve to move in the north/south of the country to see something more tipical (I guess). In particular, I think this country is under transformation from their old culture to our western culture: there are many example like people start drinking alcoholic cocktail (the religion is against that) or most of the girls doesn’t dress anymore traditional clothes, etc…

Anyway, my last day was spent around Juhu and Andheri, but nothing interesting to say…that’s why I’ve preferred to come back to the airport earlier (at 8pm I was already there, when the flight was at 2am!).

About India, I always will keep with me in my mind the memories of all the people sleeping in the streets and the funny way how they move their head when they are not really sure about what to answer after a your affirmation (or question)!