Iiiiiinnndddiiiaaaa!!
Where to begin? The food here has been absolutely amazing. Highlights include an 'indian hamburger' which a nice Indian fellow bought for me on the train, vege samosas from the street shops in mumbai and plenty of biryany all along the way. Tried heaps of food from hawker stores, yet no dehli belly just a renewed appreciation for Indian cuisine
Early on in this trip I met Markus Lanz from Switzerland and what better place to start a lifelong friendship than mangalore train station! From not knowing one another we then spent the following week together 24/7 sharing dorm rooms, trance partying on the beaches in Goa with all the Rushkies, daring one another to eat all different foods and travelling across the country by train together. The longest time we were apart was about 7 hours and even then we were only about 30 metres apart in separate carriages of the same train class
Markus is a great guy who lives 10 minutes from Lucerne where he runs a carpentry company that builds houses and after spending a month in India is on his way to Nepal then Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, then onto Hawaii and Alaska where he will be meeting with his long term girlfriend Tatjana who he misses even more than his beloved floor boarding team
It has been a privilege to travel with and get to know Markus along the way, and I dare say I inspired him to travel lighter! Here is a photo of us on the train on the way back from Juhu beach where we celebrated holi festival (the Indians loved that we got so into it!)
Highlights in mumbai include mahalaxmi dhobi ghat where all of mumbai's clothes washing gets done by hand, we met a man who had worked there 14 hours a day for 28 years standing in bleach as a dhobi. He showed us his toe which was close to coming off his foot.
Another highlight was seeing the the dabbawallas who daily deliver lunches to office workers in mumbai. Was fortunate to meet a businessman Santosh who explained this is a six sigma operation, the dabbawallas are a community of people with strict discipline not simply employees, the government recognises them as an association rather than as a business which carries tax benefits, the cost of operation is extremely low because most of the lunches are delivered by foot or push bike and rail, which in india is the cheapest rail anywhere in the world when measured as cost per kilometer
Markus and I saw a bollywood action shoot in downtown mumbai and I checked out a bollywood flic 'bekalifooyan' woo hoo! Future ambition is to perform in a bollywood flic!
From here it is onward to Morocco, flying 5000 miles for 200 bucks, please excuse me as I'm about to brush my teeth in front of people at Jeddah airport
Where to begin? The food here has been absolutely amazing. Highlights include an 'indian hamburger' which a nice Indian fellow bought for me on the train, vege samosas from the street shops in mumbai and plenty of biryany all along the way. Tried heaps of food from hawker stores, yet no dehli belly just a renewed appreciation for Indian cuisine
Early on in this trip I met Markus Lanz from Switzerland and what better place to start a lifelong friendship than mangalore train station! From not knowing one another we then spent the following week together 24/7 sharing dorm rooms, trance partying on the beaches in Goa with all the Rushkies, daring one another to eat all different foods and travelling across the country by train together. The longest time we were apart was about 7 hours and even then we were only about 30 metres apart in separate carriages of the same train class
Markus is a great guy who lives 10 minutes from Lucerne where he runs a carpentry company that builds houses and after spending a month in India is on his way to Nepal then Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, then onto Hawaii and Alaska where he will be meeting with his long term girlfriend Tatjana who he misses even more than his beloved floor boarding team
It has been a privilege to travel with and get to know Markus along the way, and I dare say I inspired him to travel lighter! Here is a photo of us on the train on the way back from Juhu beach where we celebrated holi festival (the Indians loved that we got so into it!)
Highlights in mumbai include mahalaxmi dhobi ghat where all of mumbai's clothes washing gets done by hand, we met a man who had worked there 14 hours a day for 28 years standing in bleach as a dhobi. He showed us his toe which was close to coming off his foot.
Another highlight was seeing the the dabbawallas who daily deliver lunches to office workers in mumbai. Was fortunate to meet a businessman Santosh who explained this is a six sigma operation, the dabbawallas are a community of people with strict discipline not simply employees, the government recognises them as an association rather than as a business which carries tax benefits, the cost of operation is extremely low because most of the lunches are delivered by foot or push bike and rail, which in india is the cheapest rail anywhere in the world when measured as cost per kilometer
Markus and I saw a bollywood action shoot in downtown mumbai and I checked out a bollywood flic 'bekalifooyan' woo hoo! Future ambition is to perform in a bollywood flic!
From here it is onward to Morocco, flying 5000 miles for 200 bucks, please excuse me as I'm about to brush my teeth in front of people at Jeddah airport