Where to begin

Well...today was interesting. Today I booked a tour of Bombay with my ultra fancy hotel so I expected it to be a good one. A black car arrvied at 10:00 a.m. My driver/tour guide showed up with a smile. As such, I understood him to be happy...that was the last accurate communication we had the entire day. First, I asked if he was my tour guide or was he taking me to a tour..."Yes." So I thought I was going to meet a larger tour. I asked again, he said "no english." Hmm I thought...how could this be. He called his boss on the cell phone...his boss told me that my tour guide was new. I decided to go with it.

The first rule about driving in Bombay is that there are no rules. I have taken cabs in many many a destination and have myself driven a cracker jack box from Barcelona to Nice (along with Gorm and brandy) ...but what went down today will be hard to describe in a way that you will get what actually happened. My "tour guide" and I were driving 3 hours fast and straight in a cracker jack box at high speeds mere inches (and I DO MEAN INCHES) away from bikes, pedestrians, cars, arms hanging outside of cars, cows, goats, chickens, buildings, motorbikes, CHILDREN etc etc. I saw people riding 2 and 3 year olds behind them on motorbikes with nothing holding them on there and no helmets (obviously). Bikes and people and everything whizzed to and fro, as did the cars. There are no lines on the road to tell where traffic going east vs. west should be on the road. It was mass chaos. When I arrived back at the hotel (early b/c I cut the tour short...in fact, after 45 minutes I told the driver to take me back to the hotel but he didn't understand me until I asked about 5 times) I had a severe stress headache. How can a culture that is so rigid in so many ways be so frivilous in this manner??

The tour consisted of us driving at high speeds past something?, my driver pointing his left hand and saying who knows what, me looking, and having no clue where really to look and what I was seeing. I only got 3 pictures b/c there was literally no time for snapping a photo we were going so fast. Oh well, at least there was air conditioning.

And about that. I'm apologize India...but it is too freaking hot here for all the clothes you folks wear...

My friend Chandu (he and his wife live in Hyderbad) called today. He said I will like other parts of India better than Bombay. Let's hope so. He said India places no value on human life b/c there is such a large population. I could see that today when cars literally would not even think about braking when a child would step in front of their car. It was like frogger on acid.

I feel like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation with the whole jetlag thing. Oh well...it is an experience.

I have no idea what I am going to do tomorrow but I assure you...whatever it is...I will get there by foot.