Culture Shock

Whoa...

Okay. Right now I'm in Mumbai, India. I have been here since Wednesday (for 2 days). Thankfully, my travel partner and I have met up. I'm trying to get caught up with emails and this blog as well as look for possible places to stay for our next destination by hanging out at an internet cafe right now. Okay, admittedly I'm wanting to hang out at the i-net caf for its air-conditioning. (Yeah, it's pretty darn warm - so completely different than the freezing weather of Morocco!)

Mumbai is definitely a place of contradictions. For instance, some of the traditional dress of India women, in my opinion, is fairly sexy and revealing - bare midriffs and tight tops. But when my friend and I tried to stop to watch a group of men play something very similar to 3-card Monty, several men tried to shoo us away because "it's gambling - it's bad." They were pretty serious about it and fairly adamant that we leave. So we left.

The thing that is most astonishing to me is just how crazy Mumbai is. There is so much "more" than what I had imagined: immense hordes of people, tremendous poverty, insane drivers/driving, pollution of garbage and noise, depressed economy... I had some idea of what it would be like but my imagination certainly did not even come close to reality. The only thing that is making me cranky is the noise, specifically that coming from all motor vehicles - cars, taxis, trucks, scooters, motorcycles, etc. It doesn't really die down until about 1:00 a.m. and starts up again at about 6:30 a.m. Talk about a city that doesn't sleep! Let me tell you: Manhattan has NOTHING on Mumbai!! Good grief! I really hope that the rest of India is a bit quieter!