Mumbai

In typical Indian fashion we arrived late in the evening in Mumbai, and our one checked bag had not made our connecting flight from Paris (I guess a long connection is just as dangerous as a short connection for losing luggage). After some strange customs formalities regarding the missing bag, we were now in India. There was bumper to bumper traffic at 1am in Mumbai, perhaps partially due to Ramadan, but probably just generally the way things are. It was hot and humid all of the time in Mumbai.

We spent several nights there and were led around town by Rafique Baghdadhi, a Hindi film critic who writes for an Indian economic magazine in Mumbai. It was sort of a friend of a friend of a friend sort of thing. Rafique showed us all around town, and familiarized us with the joys of drinking at the Press Club, and eating Mughlai (muslim, non-veg) cuisine in the muslim quarter of Mumbai after dark during ramadan. We also tried some Paan, a sort of fibrous, chewy concoction made up of the narcotic beetelnut, which was sort of gross. After a few days we took the overnight train to Delhi and met up with Bernie's father John at the train station.