Crazy is just the beginning..

Phillip and I set our first foot on Indian soil 4 am yesterday morning. The airport was pretty nice, some uncovered concrete walls half finished construction, but it had a good vibe (Might have been the amount of adrenaline, endorphins and
veggie plane meals that made me feel this way though). We pretty much just strolled trough customs, the pass guy barely glanced at my passport, he just stamped it and sent me further down. After picking up our bags (No signs or information saying witch luggage reclaim carousel it was) we exchanged some money and ventured out.

We found out that after you exit the airport you're defiantly not allowed back in (there was an armed bunker making sure you wouldn't). We thought we would be able to hustle a good price for a cab in to the central station on our own but NO.. The first guys we meet claimed to be airport informants and tourist security something something.. They were talking in walky-talkys to each other and looked professional (Well as professional as professional Indian do.. Hrmm), they told us that due to the Terrorist treat and a Muslim festival that was going on we were prioritized targets going to get killed... He then asked us "were are you from?" and we told him we were Swedish... "Oo! Swedish! Yesterday I helped 6 swedish tourists go to goa without having to stay in mumbay [...]" HUSSLER HUSSELER.. WARNING WARNING.. When we politely told him we didn't want to go to Goa and that we were going to Mumbai he AGAIN said we would die and when we walked away "stupid tourists".. He was professional alright, professional hussler..

We we ended up getting a pre-payer cab. This meant first trying to walk back in to the airport (the pay booth was located inside), getting stopped by the machine gun armed guards and directed to a hole in the glass window trough which we bought our 390 rupee recite. The next thing was finding the pre-payed taxis and a driver, Some 'nice' guy insisted on on helping us and as soon as we were seated in the car he asked for a 100 rupees. Charming..

I had already given the driver the recite and was kind of worried he would stop and ask for more money.. But as we were about to find out your supposed to give him the recite, he then goes to get it stamped (while beggars are putting their hand trough the open space in the widow) then he gave it back to us so we could show it to a guard as we exited the airport area.. Pheww..

40 bumpy minutes later crammed in the small cab without seat belts we arrived to Victoria central station.. Crazy place, we felt pretty lost.. We begun asking for the direction towards Colaba, the tourist district and simply started walking.. It was actually pretty special cruising between the people sleeping on the sidewalk (alone, with 5 kids or just their dog) wrapped in thin blankets.
We walked around until 730 am and was generally amazed over the trash, beautiful buildings, tropical trees hanging over the streets, amount of sidewalk sleepers and the beauty of all of this combined. Amazingly they don't open the restaurants until 9 am, but when they opened we had a really nice meal. consistent of a cheese sada doosa and some fried vegetable somethings (dada doda or something alike).. O, almost forgot, some monk came and blessed us and tied strings around our wrists and put dots in our forheds.. THEN suprisingly enough, he asked for 500 ruppes.. I cindly explained the situtaion to him and he walk away quite grumpy.. WITHOUT any money.. Husslers husslers...

Our original plan was to stay in Mumbai for a night but when we sat at the Red shield hostel after walking till our feet hurt we realized a beach would be nice after all..
We went to a train station, spent 15 min looking for the ticket office, another 10 filling out forms (luckily I had gathered this information previously) and then when it was our turn (10 min waiting) in the end of the "Q" as they write here we got redirected to a tourist counter in another part of the building. When we got there our train was FULL... AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa....

Luckily the lady was nice and looked at alternatives.. She found one empty seat at a train leaving 3 hours later from a station across town. So we ended up running back to the hostel were we left our bags (3km), jumped a cab to the victoria station (100 rupees) and hussled until we found out which train to take to go to the other station, bought the ticket (7 rupees) and then jumped the train.

It is more comon for Indian trains NOT to have doors then it is for them to have doors.. Quite amazing feeling hanging out from the door waching things fly bye!

Asking gets you a long way as long as you ask the right person. Most people here are really nice and genuinly JUST wants to help while others will try to hussle you for money in every situation.. I turned out we had to take a Tuktuk for 10 minutes to get to the other station wich wasent really connected to the other stations with rail..

We made the train at 1405 (instead of taking the train at 2305 and being abale to sllep the whole 11 hour journey) and split one seat (or bed as we bought a ticket in sleepers class..
We arrived in Canacona in goa at 1 am and walked down to a hotel closer to the beach..

Now Phillip is husseling me tho he wants to leave the Internet cafe and go get a bungalow..

So.. Short end...

We split the roome with Jame, a brit we meet at the train and woke up this morning, went back to canacona to get money and eat and blogg..

More later folks
//Rasmus Leo Foyer