Horn Please OK, Part II - Paul lands in Mumbai

Well, I made it. It was a long trip, but I'm in India. Despite the long trip I am feeling pretty good. Those No Jet Lag pills must work pretty well. Leah and I already have an epic day under our belt (which we will write about tonite, after day 2), but in order to catch everyone up, here is a quick update on my own trip to India...

Seattle to London, Heathrow
I left Seattle at 6:30pm on Sunday evening to arrive in London at noon on Monday. The flight was fine, and we landed on time. My itinerary called for a 9.5 hour layover in London, and while Leah slept at the airport, I didn't plan on sitting around. I used the time to take the underground into London for the afternoon. I saw the Parliament buildings, went up the London Eye, took a quick trip on a very fogged up Double Decker bus (couldn't see anything) and wandered around Picadilly Circus in the rain. At about 4:30 I was a little damp and ready to head back to Heathrow. Thank goodness British Airways gives you a spare pair of dry socks in your in-flight goody bag!

London to Mumbai
This was another overnight flight and I got another 4 hrs of sleep. I arrived in Mumbai at about 11:30am after an 8.5 hour flight. Again, I decided to take a quick trip into "town" so I grabbed a taxi (more like they grabbed me!) and headed out. I learned quickly that haggling is required in India, especially for cabs. I got in the first cab without agreeing on a price (mistake), when we started haggling and we couldn't agree, I asked the driver to stop and let me out. We finally agreed on a price, which it turned out was too low (at least for them). So, about 1 minute from the airport, the cabby stopped, got out and walked over to another cab nearby. Next thing I know, I've got a new cab and I'm on my way to Mumbai.

The Mumbai derby
My new cabby was a very nice man by the name of Hashoe. He spoke broken english enough to be able to explain different sights on our 50 minute trip into downtown. The first thing I noticed was the crazy number of rickshaws, cars, motorbikes, pedal bikes and people on the road. This was literally every man (woman and child) for themself. The horn is used liberally to let people know that you are about to cut them off or run them over. While there are lines on the road to mark the lanes, they are totally ignored here. What is meant to be a three lane road has about 5-6 vehicles lined side by side, each jockeying to get in front of the other. What was most amazing to me was the skill that these people drove with. In the 2.5 hours I spent in my cab (to downtown and back), we almost got in 43 accidents and almost ran over 67 people (ok I didn't actually count, but it was at least this many!) The key word here is "almost". It seemed that at any given moment we were within 3 inches of the cars in front, beside and behind, all while travelling at 25-40 miles/hour. To make the trip even more exciting, people walked freely in front of moving traffic, expecting the cars to swerve to miss them. I held my breath many times thinking that this time the cabby didn't see that family streaking across the road. I joked with my cabby (I was having a great time!) about this, asking if he had ever hit anybody. "Yes, very bad" was the response. Thankfully, it didn't happen on my trip.

Mumbai to Coimbatore
The last leg of my trip was a 1.5 hour flight south to Coimbatore. I had been travelling for 35 hours straight, getting about 8 hours of fitfull sleep in flight. I had travelled through 13.5 time zones and was ready to lay my head down. I was excited to meet Leah, though I had not made contact with her since before I left Seattle. A moment of panic crossed my mind as I realized I had no back-up plan if Leah wasn't there to meet me. It hadn't even crossed my mind until then. The thought quickly passed and sure enough, there was Leah waiting for me at the airport, ready for me to join her on the last, most important leg of the trip. Welcome to India, and I was.