India baby

After being traveling for 30 hours we finally arrived to Mumbai early Saturday morning. The level of excitement was in top when we got on the bus and drove the way to our hotel. After a couple of hours of sleep it was time for sightseeing in the city. The first thing I noticed was all the different smells. Thousands of different spices, sweat, s***, perfume and urine are some of the smells that immediately hit you, and for every 10 meter you walk a no smell will come and hit you. Also the chaos was shocking. I have never been to a place that loud as Mumbai. Not even Italy when their men’s team won the world cup in football in 2006 was as loud as Mumbai. People are yelling and cars and scooters are honking all the time. Afterwards you will be met of all the beggars, the sellers and all the other poor people. They are everywhere, and they are very intrusive. It broke my heart a little every time I saw an extremely poor person. That is definitely the toughest, and the worst thing is, that you learn to be cold after being in this country for a while. You instantly yell “no” or “go away” every time some beggar or seller comes, because you get so tired of being attacked by beggars all the f***ing time.
So, when I was laying in my bed after the first day, I was totally in shock. I was exhausted and I was like “oh my god, I’m never gonna survive this. What a terrible country I’ve come to. It’s gonna we the worst travel ever!” But already the following morning I got relaxed and stated taking in all the new impressions. I started to see the beauty of the country behind all the garbage. People were very friendly. It was amazing. This day we spend a couple of hours in Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia. To me that was the most important trip we went on during the journey. We had hired some guides from Reality Tours who divided us into small groups, when we walked around the slum. They told us about the things going on, and we asked questions. The whole tour was highly recommendable, because you get to see a sad but real part of India. It’s very authentic.

The third and the fourth day did we spend on our friendship school, HVB Global Academy. It was an awesome experience to finally meet them, since we had being writing with them the past year. We had a lot of fun sharing and learning about each other’s cultures. We both danced and sang a lot, and we were also divided into small groups, that went out to visit one the indian students homes. It was pretty interesting to see the differences and to talk with them and hear their opinions and views on subjects like politics and religion.

After 5 amazing days in Mumbai, it was time to leave. We went to the train station in Mumbai, and after a little chaos, we got on the train to Udaipur. Now we faced a 17 h long train journey. The journey was surprisingly comfort. The train carriages we divided into small compartments, that roomed eight people. In the evening were the seats made into berths, so we all were able to sleep comfortable – which I actually did. I slept until the next morning, when a chai seller walked through the train yelling “chai, chai, chai…” with a very annoying nasal voice.