On a fine Spring morning, Drevo dropped me next to Saint Ludmila’s church in a nearby forest town. A circus had been set up beside the graveyard, I noticed, as I clambered aboard the bus to Prague, turning up there at mid-day. Honza gave me a ride out to the airport and told me that I couldn’t smoke in the cab as it was against EU regulations. With a nod to Brexit, he spat and swore and said, “You’re better off out of it.”
It was the usual, tedious airport story and, after 3 hours in the air, I stepped off in Istanbul, made my way to the outdoor smoking cage before joining a plane load of Indians at departures and before long we were in the sky again, watching a movie whose name I can’t remember. We got off groggily at 4am in steaming Bombay, and getting through immigration took a while, time used by an Indian-American from Los Angeles to shout at me. The conversation continued as we made our way to baggage reclaim, and just like in Scotland, there was a smoking room! Right next to our belt!
Parting ways, my new best mate mentioned he was also going to Goa and that we would probably bump into each other by simply walking around a jungle corner. I fended off two Bombay con-men/taxi drivers then got in a tuk-tuk with another one. I told him to take me to Colaba, a district in the south of this truly gigantic city. He drove about 2km down the road and tried to fob me off with it being the place I wanted.
It turned out to be Andheri and I took a shine to the busy tree-lined, dusty-tongued streets, bullocks roaming free, goats snacking on plastic, so I checked in at the Alyosha Suites and told the driver to wait. He looked a likely lad and when I went back to the tuk-tuk, he drove us down the road where I changed some Scottish pound notes on the black market. The dealer gave me a lower rate than he would for English pounds. Hehe, the Scots would blow a gasket at that. Then we scored some weed, down a back alley, goats still chewing. I paid off Delboy Dillip the tuk-tuk driver and was set. Back to the hotel for some horizontal sleep, by now about 8am.
An endless cacophony of beeping horns woke me in late afternoon and I showered alongside cockroaches then went out to join the teeming masses going about their day.
Lime and soda must be the world’s greatest drink to slake thirst. The waiter offers it with salt or sugar or nothing. I went for nothing and slurped two of them down. Then, grabbing a tuk-tuk, I headed off to shop at a night market and bought a sturdy pair of flip-flops, anti-mosquito spray, toothpaste, two cheap pens and some curried potato snacks for the next day’s trip. Easing down, I watched the world go by from a plastic seat outside a juice bar and sipped on a mango lassi before heading for an early night, exhausted by India on day one.
It was the usual, tedious airport story and, after 3 hours in the air, I stepped off in Istanbul, made my way to the outdoor smoking cage before joining a plane load of Indians at departures and before long we were in the sky again, watching a movie whose name I can’t remember. We got off groggily at 4am in steaming Bombay, and getting through immigration took a while, time used by an Indian-American from Los Angeles to shout at me. The conversation continued as we made our way to baggage reclaim, and just like in Scotland, there was a smoking room! Right next to our belt!
Parting ways, my new best mate mentioned he was also going to Goa and that we would probably bump into each other by simply walking around a jungle corner. I fended off two Bombay con-men/taxi drivers then got in a tuk-tuk with another one. I told him to take me to Colaba, a district in the south of this truly gigantic city. He drove about 2km down the road and tried to fob me off with it being the place I wanted.
It turned out to be Andheri and I took a shine to the busy tree-lined, dusty-tongued streets, bullocks roaming free, goats snacking on plastic, so I checked in at the Alyosha Suites and told the driver to wait. He looked a likely lad and when I went back to the tuk-tuk, he drove us down the road where I changed some Scottish pound notes on the black market. The dealer gave me a lower rate than he would for English pounds. Hehe, the Scots would blow a gasket at that. Then we scored some weed, down a back alley, goats still chewing. I paid off Delboy Dillip the tuk-tuk driver and was set. Back to the hotel for some horizontal sleep, by now about 8am.
An endless cacophony of beeping horns woke me in late afternoon and I showered alongside cockroaches then went out to join the teeming masses going about their day.
Lime and soda must be the world’s greatest drink to slake thirst. The waiter offers it with salt or sugar or nothing. I went for nothing and slurped two of them down. Then, grabbing a tuk-tuk, I headed off to shop at a night market and bought a sturdy pair of flip-flops, anti-mosquito spray, toothpaste, two cheap pens and some curried potato snacks for the next day’s trip. Easing down, I watched the world go by from a plastic seat outside a juice bar and sipped on a mango lassi before heading for an early night, exhausted by India on day one.