On our way to Goa

Today was our last day in Mumbai and what day would that be without a bit of adrenaline and a pinch of craziness.

When early in the morning we went to Churchgate we found that it is not a station from where we expected to take our train to Goa. Not loosing a time we got a rickshaw to the Mumbai Central Station. We had only 15 minutes to reach the correct station but our driver almost like a race car driver sped through the streets of sleepy Mumbai.

At the place we found that the Mumbai Central Station was also not the station where our train departs and unfortunately we had to continue our crazy race with a time.

Our driver didn't speak much and his response to our constant question: "Are we going to make it?", was: "Shhhhh!!!".

Cover in sweat and completely exhausted we reached the station from where we took the train to Goa.

Today for the first time I smelled India...

Today for the first time I smelled India. It was a sweet haze of sandalwood and spices. This pleasant for our noses scent accompanied us since we left the building of the airport and stayed with us for the rest of our stay in this big city. Mumbai turned out to be as expected, mix of noises and colors. It's a city where every driver knows how to use his horn and they uses it exhaustively. It's rather impossible to escape from that sound since you can hear it from everywhere.

We were travelling for nearly 24 hours but we didn't want to wait, we wanted to start living the Indian life right away. We could have taken a taxi but that would it be too easy for us. After long bargain the price of rickshaw, we finally found one crazy eyed guy who didn't speak English, tried to cheat us and has been driving like a maniac. When we finally end up on desirable station we took the public train. The journey was rather shocking, you could see poverty everywhere. If that was not enough all of the eyes were turned into our direction. Everyone on the train was closely observing two white tourists who were crazy enough to take this form of transportation.

Jirka's room at Salvation Army

  Our hostel- Salvation Army was smelly, dirty place, full of tourists who exactly like we were looking for something exciting that would change their lives.

Our meal

 I wasn't able to fall asleep. I was keeping asking  myself: "what the hell I'm doing here?" but all those  negative feelings and confusion disappeared once I  woke up and saw Mumbai with a different  approach.

India is not a place for a princesses who are disgusted by eating a kebab on the street surrounded by garbage like we did last night. However India is a lot to take, it's difficult to watch naked babies lying on the streets and seeing horribly skinny beggers but I had to become immune to that to fully enjoy my trip.

Birth of the idea

When we spoke about our plans my one was to go to New Zealand, his was India. Who would it thought that I will change my mind and join Jirka on his journey to this beautiful Asian country. We didn’t know each other very well. For a few months we were sitting face to face in the office, not knowing a single thing about our lives. It was quite bizarre and crazy idea to go together yet so spontaneously. We were both suffocating from lack of creativity and enormous amount of monotony in our daily lives. We both wanted something new and exciting; India seemed to be the place to find those things.