Intro to India

Ok, I'm back on the road after spending a couple of years in sunny Perth - hopefully the only place in Aus where stretch hummers are allowed on the road. It was a great opportunity to live in and enjoy the vast state and meet some great people and some South Africans. I joined the rat race, turned 30 and then 31 always feeling like it was a bit of a placeholder while deciding when and where to move on. Well that's 1.5 years ridiculously distilled into a paragraph ... the last few days may take a bit longer:

Heading from Tas to join Dirk in Sydney I shared my seat

with the left side of my large neighbour confident in the knowledge (screw probability theory) that we would therefore get great seats for the 12.5hr flight to Mumbai - (which, of course, we did - landing well rested early in the Mumbai evening).

With one day in which to explore Mumbai we crossed the road from out Hovel to check out the now infamous Taj Hotel and then on to the Dhobi Ghats - a stark juxtaposition! The Dhobi Ghats

are essentially human powered washing machines complete with extremely rudimentary housing. The workers 14 hr shifts and $10/month pay packets confirming my long held suspicion that mum has had it to easy for to long! We would not forget how fortunate we are for at least 10 minutes.

After the ghats we found our way to Gandhi's house, some dodgy gardens, a waterfront mosque lined with beggars, and the famous Chowpatty beach (slightly less appealing than cott). In between we manged to get in on a game of street cricket- knowing we could take on the

Indian kids or bribe the umpire. However, when the youngest player, calling himself Brett Lee and sporting Murali's bowling action, started beating us for pace we did what any self respecting Aussie would do - called him a chucker. We left with pride in tact, confident in the knowledge that he wont be seen in international cricket!

We caught early flights above the dense Indian smog through Delhi north to Shimla - an old colonial town of ~100,000 people 2000m in the steep Himalayan foothills.  Not distracted by the rich history , culture and natural beauty we headed straight for the Monkey Temple at the top of the hill. On reaching the peak we were bitterly disappointed by the temples distinct lack of primate action. It seemed our childhood fantasies of a world ruled by monkeys would remain unfulfilled ... that was until Dirk was jumped by monkey cleanly deposessing him of the sunglasses on his face! Oh the shame, a defense force lieutenant ambushed by an untrained monkey - I suddenly understood how Vietnam was lost and we headed back to town feeling more mice than men.

To reinstate our manlyhood we stopped in for a cut throat shave and a whiskey before jumping on the semi- sleeper for the trip up the valley to Manali. It felt like we had been in India for weeks, though stool samples would attest to it being a mere 48hrs.