Bombay, Mumbai, a bay;)

Ali and I successfully survived a 24 hour bus ride from Diu to Mumbai. and boy was it nice to be there. it was rather warm, but the dry warm that is tolerable as opposed to the insufferable humidity. Still technically winter, being February and all, and temps were already in the 30s. I'm so glad we weren't there in the summer! The bus ride wasn't all that bad and Ali and I were actually pleasantly surprised with how quick the time flew by. We had a sleeper, which basically means we had a little box all to ourselves where we could lay down and shut out the craziness that is India. Stayed at the Salvation Army's place for a whopping $4 a night, breakfast included. It's kitty corner from the taj hotel, where all the crazy stuff went down a few months ago. Didn't even phase my mind until we went out to grab drinks with a few Brit girls at Leopold's, the famous foreignor hangout, and saw bullet holes in the windows. Then it hit me, why the whole front side of the Taj was boarded up and blocked off. I know, don't say it, she's a quick one mr. grinch;) anyhoo, mumbai was awesome...I totally could live there for a period of time. There was the feeling of India, but then the comforting presence of the modern world that I'm used to. The first thing that hit us was how clean the streets were! and how little pollution there was for such a large city...we could finally maneuver the streets and sidewalks without having to avoid feces and crap of some kind or other. Lots of modern buildings, interspersed with ones from the Brits, and then adjacent to slums. Kinda a crazy background. Went to see Slumdog Millionaire again, and it was amazing for the second time again. It was so cool to see it in the city it was filmed, and brilliant to be able to recognize where the scenes were filmed. heck, we had just walked by most of them. Had some funny experiences with some street sellers...one guy tried to get us into his shop by claiming he was selling "museum pieces." hah. got some balloons from another guy who was walking around with a GINORMOUS balloon. I got giddy like a kid in a candy shop and got some. imagine all the fun you could have with a balloon the size of a small person. anyhoo, ali decided to get some the next day, and right after she bought them, this guy came up to us and informed us that they had sold us small balloons! duh, we totally should have figured given the size of the balloons in the bag. He demonstrated how far they could get blown up, a decidedly wimpy size compared to the others, not that size matters or anything, but anyways, he was trying to get us to pay more for the bigger balloons that he had. we figure they are probably all in it together and make money off of suckers like us. meh, it was fun.

as far as the food goes, Mumbai warrants a trip all on its own. man was it good. tried some of their faloodeh, although Iran's is much better. they put milk in theirs, and the noodles were like glassy spaghetti noodles, too thick for me. but the ice cream was good. had melt-in-the-mouth chicken kebabs, vegetable raita, vegetable fry and naan at the olympia cafe, a parsi restaurant that served delicious food...the whole meal along with fresh sweet lemon juice cost ali and I together a whopping $2! another day we went to another delicious parsi restaurant called Ideal Corner, where I had some brown rice flavored with lots of spices and some mutton curry sauce that was just like a persian khoresht but spiced up a bit with Indian spices. so yummy!

anyhoo, Bombay was awesome. flew to Iran via Qatar a few days ago, and now I'm nicely settled in Tehran. Thankfully it's cooler here...about 22c or so. it's good to be back. my aunt told me something funny today...she came home and told me I shouldn't eat the sausage/kilbasa anymore. Apparently the cops stopped some truck driver and checked out the back of the truck and found it filled from top to bottom with dead cats...upon inquiring as to what the cats were for, the driver said he was bringing them to the meat factory to make sausage!!!! yuuucckkk! I couldn't help it, I just burst out laughing one of those uncomfortable laughs as I racked my brain tried to count the number of times I actually ate the sausage. thankfully I never was much of a fan so it was probably limited to only a few times. well, at least the meat's halal here...;) man, I still can't believe it. that's so gross. maybe I'll be a vegetarian for life...after all, India showed me that it wasn't that bad...in fact, I really didn't miss meat that much. meh, hope you guys are enjoying your sausage;)