To clarify, I had to duck out quickly from my last entry because time was expiring. In that particular internet cafe, you see, you are obliged to guess how much time you will spend. Raju learned the hard way that if time expires you lose everything you have written. Having started about a minute after Raju, I quickly realized I had very little time to post my blog without losing it. Why couldn't we just pay after determining how long we were online for? The answer is blowing in the wind.
Porbander was the next destination. It ended up being quite a bit like Punjab. We were visiting Raju's relatives who were incredibly happy to see us, and were alarmingly hospitable. Raju's little cousin Bitu is a real piece of work. The only boy in the family in a generation, he is quite spoiled. He runs like a monkey, and only really ever wants to play cricket. The people of Porbander feed migrant cows who wander the city. In return, they milk these cows when they need milk. Bearing in mind that a cow is a sacred animal to these people, I found it really amusing to see Bitu eyeing the cow whilst twirling his cricket bat. I told Raju that I believed Bitu was going to try to hit the cow. Raju disagreed. Less than a minute later, Bitu said he was going to hit the cow and began advancing on it. I can't wait to see what he gets up to when he is big enough to overpower his mom.
We went out with Raju's uncle, who really put my negotiating skills to shame. I might get good deals relative to other foreigners, but it is still a foreigner's price. Not so with Raju's uncle. A particular highlight for me, was when he spent five minutes arguing an autorickshaw driver down to 12Rs from 15Rs. This is a difference of under 8 Canadian cents. It was for a 15 minute ride too. Very hard-nosed. We walked around a market, I drank some sugar cane juice (I recommend it to anyone, though I have no useful way to describe the taste). Finally, we went home where the women served us dinner at the table, and only after ensuring that all the men were stuffed, cleaned the table then ate their own dinner on the floor. As in Punjab, I had to swallow my western ideals. When in Porbander...
The next day we went to the planetarium in Porbander. This was a curious experience. The guide talked us through the whole show, in Hindi so I have no idea what it was about. He made sure that we understood at the beginning that cell phones were to be shut off. A fair request. It appears, however, that there was no rule against you and your children engaging in boisterous conversation with people on the other side of the theatre throughout the show. Why should there be?
Mumbai
We ended the trip where we began. After a sad goodbye in Porbander, we took a prop-plane into Mumbai. By this time we were tired of the travelling thing, so we pretty much spent our last few days hanging out and meeting other travellers. If you ever go to Mumbai, there is a restaurant called Leopold's in Colaba that is a great place to meet people. They have good food too, including one of India's only beef burgers.
One night I stayed in, but Raju went out and had a bit of an experience. There was this Aussie chick, Sian, who I believe wanted to be Raju's girlfriend. There was this Indian guy "Batman" who wanted Sian, and there was Raju who wanted to leave as the following scene unfolded. Batman gave Sian his picture. Though not a common practice in North America, it still seems likely that such a gesture stems from romantic intentions. So Sian began to insinuate that Raju was her boyfriend, in order to rebuff Batman's advances. Raju did not want to play along. This bothered Sian, and then Batman took it upon himself to try to explain women to Raju, and in particular why he was upsetting his woman. Then Sian ended up pushing Batman, and visibly distraught he demands his picture back. Then Raju was trying to leave, but Batman didn't want him to. And Sian was telling Batman to leave and he didn't want to. Eventually Raju threw his hands in the air and just left. It really isn't a vacation with this kind of stuff going on.
On my last night in Mumbai, I went out for Karaoke. I did Sheryl Crow's version of Sweet Child O Mine in the key of Axl. It went over quite well, and some girl from some Indian pop culture TV show interviewed me about karaoke, and what I knew about cricket.
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