Settling into Mumbai madness

I don't think I have ever been so shaky getting on a plane before but my mind was going at 100mph when the scale of what I was doing was finally dawning on me whilst I waited at Gatwick airport. Anyhow, there was no turning back and I landed in hot, humid and over-congested Mumbai the next day totally jet lagged. Hmmm...Mumbai, I haven’t seen many tourists 'so far and again, I think I'm the only Chinese person in India, so I'm thinking that Mumbai is a likely stop gap to better destinations. I checked into my budget accommodation and I'm slowly easing myself into what would be my lifestyle over the next four months - communal showers, hovering over toilets (although I think I'll be an expert at this in no time) and quickly locating the nearest pharmacy to buy bog roll.

Nothing too exciting yet, although I made my first local Goan 'friend' on the first day and he introduced me to masala dosa which is this gorgeous fried pancake with a potato filling and curry dip for less than 50p and went on to explain some useful traveling tips. He was then less friendly when I told him I was married and didn’t fancy going halves on a bag of ganja and monging out in the park with him. Haha! So I made my excuses and left. That would be my first taste of having to learn to keep my wits about me since I'm still convinced that I'm the only Chinese female (and person) in India.

Good news is that I bought my first train ticket today and I'm setting off to Kerala to take a tour on some boats in the jungle (it really is more visually interesting than how I am describing it). I thought that it was quite an achievement even though it took two hours to do (30 minutes to locate the stand and then 1 hour to wait and to stay patient because when it got to my turn, the assistant then said he was going on lunch) because let me tell you, India runs on ‘Indian timings' so patience is a virtue here. So I'm looking forward to cramming myself on the busiest train on the planet with the rest of the locals with my fat backpack and then spending the next 25 hours on the sleeper train taking in the breathtaking scenery that is Kerala.

What have I learnt so far? The 'real' average price of everything from water to bog roll and taxi rates to realising that Indian tea is the best. Oh, another plus is that it is so hot here, that I'm not hungry, so all those beer calories that I accumulated over the last 6 months will finally vanish away as I transform into a size 0! Yes!