Ok so back to blogging after quite a few days absence from writing anything proper!!Ok, so let's start from last Friday when we went to the slum children's charity Children Walking Tall (when we were still in Arambol)....

We decided to go to visit for the day to see what it was all about as Jade had heard about the place from friends at home, and it was fairly near us (1 hour bus ride to Mapusa then another bus about 15 mins out of town). Firstly, we said goodbye to Cody in the morning after a leisurely breakfast. It was really sad to see our travel buddy go, but hopefully by now he's made it back home to LA in one piece after an epic journey that I think was supposed to take about 2 days!So, after a sweaty couple of bus rides into Mapusa, we arrived at the Mango House, a large former family home painted bright white with blue trim. We were then shown around by lovely indian lady who's in charge of the finanaces, to our dismay there were actually no kids there as due to Indian 'red tape' (i.e.a lack of of willingness to respond bribery on the founder Robert's part), the charity currently doesn't have a license to have children in the centre, even though after several inspections by government agents the place was deemed to be license-worthy!Robert is an amazing guy though, and is obviously very frustrated about the whole situation (which has been going on for over a year) as it means they can't look after the children in-house, but he is going through a solicitor to try and get the whole mess worked out properly, which is my opinion is a really admirable thing rather than just giving in to greedy officials...anyway, the centre is great, so clean and we were shown around the classroom area, where the children are given sewing and craft classes after they come in from school, and shown where they keep all the kid's clothes (every child receives a clean set of clothes when they come to the centre, as well as things such as toothpaste, toothbrushes and combs when the centre has them to give), as well as the kitchen and office areas.The school-going children are able to have a nutritious lunch time meal after school 5 days a week, and there are also washing facilities (girls and boys are able to have a wash day about) to help keep the children registered with the centre clean and healthy. Obviously, without their licence things are difficult, but the volunteers (the centre takes on volunteers from all backgrounds and ages for a minimum stay of 3 months) try to administer all the services they can by visiting the children at the slums.

In general, the children that receive help from the centre are from two nearby slums, one named crossroads and another bigger one which I'm not sure of the name of. Every morning, volunteers go out to bring the younger to school so they don't have to walk along the roads, administer medical treatment and give the children whose parents have let them enrol in school their meals. It's difficult because a lot of parents are opposed to school, especially when they need their children to bring money into house by doing jobs such as rag-picking (basically sorting through rubbish to find things like plastic bottles that they can get money for) or minding the other younger children. The charity's motto is to give children a childhood wort remembering, and they certainly do their best to achieve that, celebrating all the major religious holidays by giving out presents to children and their families (last year they gave out 750 wrapped Christmas presents alone!!) , and we were lucky enough to be invited along to meet some of the children who come the centre as there was a Talent Show in the afternoon! We helped so of the volunteers set up a sparkly talent show sign in a very dry field at the back of one of the slums (I suggested using a car jack to bore a hole into the ground to stick a piece of branch into to hold the sign up-pretty pleased that someone as inpractical as me could actually be of practical help!), and within a few minutes we were surrounded by children of all ages, most of they wearing their very best clothes and practicing their dance routines for the contest. The children were all so affectionate, smiley and curious, wanting to be lifted up, hugged and take lots of photos of us and themselves using our cameras!!The talent show was brilliant too, it was great to see them really enjoying themselves, it's hard to imagine how difficult the rest of their lives are when you can see that. After the talent show was over (with star turns from Robert as well as some of the other volunteers- thankfully we weren't picked on!), the kids all lined up quick smart to be given a yummy orange ice lolly each as well as an orange, and vitamins from the volunteers, which they try to give them as often as possible. We were able to have a chat to quite a few of the other volunteers, and it's a shame we aren't in India longer as I think the charity itself is a brilliant cause, and I would have loved to do some longer term volunteering (see http://www.childrenwalkingtall.com for more details) . Finally it was time to leave, and (don't panic mum and dad!) Jade and I got a lift back to the bus stop on Rob's motorbike, both of our first times on a motorbike!!it was actually fine and he was obviously really aware that we were a bit nervous as he took us on the long-cut with less traffic. So, back on the bus then and back to Arambol, where we went for a yummy dinner of indian food on the beach and a quiet night in with our books!!

Next day, Saturday, we just chilled out on the beach for most of the day, but in the evening we shared a taxi with a nice English Couple who were heading to Anjuna so we could go to the night market in the nearby town of Arpora. What an experience!it felt like we were at a festival or something, same sort of atmosphere with people and stalls everywhere, lots of food going on (I just had a baked potato for dinner as I think the heat is affecting my appetite!) and great bargains to be had. I managed to haggle (I think) quite a good deal for a gorgeous purple bedspread, and a beautiful 6m length of sari material which is green and deep pink among other things. It was fun to do some serious haggling and a really cool evening thing to do. On Sunday I think we just chilled out on the beach (again!), but even though we were supposed to check out in the morning, our lovely beach hut owner let us use the room until the evening so we could have a shower and stuff, even though they were starting to dismantle the huts from that morning!!He said it takes about 5 days to take everything down, then his family go to work in the rice fields in the low season, and come back to set everything up again in October, which takes about 15-20 days. It seems crazy that all the huts and restaurants we were at in both Palolem and Arambol get removed, not to mention all the other beach villages up and down the rest of Goa, but it makes sense what with Monsoon season approaching!!

So, picking up from the last (very short) blog was on the Sunday- we got a taxi with Paul, the nice driver who took us to the night market on Saturday, but annoyingly even though our bus was at 9.30, he insisted on leaving at 7pm for the 1 hour drive over 'in case there was traffic'!of course, the roads were completely clear and we arrived in Mapusa with an hr and a half to kill before our bus to Mumbai even arrived!it was ok, the blue and pink glory that is Baskin Robbins was our saviour once again, and we spend a cool and comfortable hour or so in the ice-cream heaven- I had mango and orange ice-cream and an oreo shake for dinner, healthy haha!!So, at half past 9, sporting little buddha bellies from all the ice-cream, we hopped onto our first overnight bus. We'd chosen an upper birth (two people to a birth) and man was it tiny!!I think it was probably just about the size of an average single bed, except obviously up in the air, with only some flimsy looking metal bars to stop the person on the outside falling out!!Jade got the fuzzy end of the lolly pop and ended up being on the outside, while I had about 2cm of room to myself, squidged against the barred window, but at least I felt secure!!the bus journey itself was pretty bumpy, and the driver insisted beeping his horn about every 5 mins, which is fine when it's 10pm but no so much at 3am... suffice to say, poor Jade barely got a wink of sleep, and I fared only slightly better.the bus driver told us as we got on that the closed stop to where we wanted to go was Sion, and at 7.30am, while I was actually pretty much asleep, we got shouted to that we had arrived in Sion and there was a bus in front of us that would take us to Colaba, the area we wanted, so grabbing our massive sacks we stumbled bleary eyed off the first bus and onto the other one. That's how it goes down in India obviously!!We were able to get a quick taxi from the bus stop to the YWCA where we arrived at about 8.30am, having crossed every extremity available in the hope that we would be able to nab a room for the two nights in Mumbai. We were told to wait for a bit, so we sleep-walked our way to the a/c-ed waiting room and bonded with an American girl called Catherine who had been waiting since 6.30 for a room!!thankfully we were able to get our room, and so while it was being made ready for us we went to Barista (I guess the Indian Costa coffee?!) for a cool drink and some breakfast. When at last we got into the room, it was amazing!!Air conditioning AND a fan, a tv and-joy of all joys- actually hot running water!!We did pay a lot more than we had previously, at about 15 pounds a night each, but breakfast and dinner are included so it's a pretty good deal all in all for Mumbai.

We spent Monday afternoon doing A LOT of walking (I don't know why we punish ourselves so much!) as we wanted to try and look for replacement t-shirts and vests (handwashing+ already baggy clothing as we both took the (frankly stupid) guidebook advice to buy things a size bigger for modesty= stretched and now actually quite indecent looking clothing!).... This took a whole lot longer than we had thought, as it seems that for Indian women, western clothing all have to have slogans/cartoon characters of some sort on (i.e. stuff that 12 year old girls would wear at home), and it is nigh on impossible to get plan tshirts and tops that don't have some sort of tacky looking embelishment on them!oh well, we got a couple of things anyway and pretty cheap too. We had lunch in a restaurant (I had champ of all things, it was actually really good!!), then just relaxed for a few hours before having a yummy butter chicken curry dinner at the Y and settling in to watch 'Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights' on cable.So cheesy but what a treat for our weary little bodies!!

Next day we did plan to get up for the 7.30am-9am inclusive breakfast, and we woke up to our alarm at 8.30, then neither of us could be bothered so we had a nice long lie-in followed by falafels and humus for brunch at a nearby fast-food joint (aptly enough named 'Falafel's'!) before getting a black and yellow taxi to Crawford market, the biggest food market in Mumbai. We got shown around by a very helpful guide name Nanaji, into the various bits like the fruit and veg area (Mangos have just come into season and they smell AMAZING!), the bit where you can buy chocolates,sweets and nuts and the meat market (which we didn't go into but saw some buffalo carcasses through the door). There was also a bit for buying pets at the back, where loads of cages of dishevelled looking birds of all kinds were, as well as cages full of over-heated and unhealthy looking cats, dogs and rabbits of lots of different breeds. I found it quite distressing, especially seeing some dalmatians that were quite obviously suffering from serious heat-stroke but I'm keeping my culturally aware hat on, and trying to observe instead of judge still. In the afternoon, we took the hour long boat ride from the Gateway to India (pretty impressive but extremely Imperialist!) out to Elephant Island, where there are temple caves thought to have been created between 450 and 750 AD by Hindu stone-workers. When we arrived, we had to walk along a long jetty, and up a hill, going through a bit where we had to pay a 5R tax for some reason then up about a million stairs to the top. Bearing in mind this was at about 3pm in the heat of the day,we were both struggling to say the least!!And as usual, we were getting laughed at by lots of indians along the way, who obviously are way more adapted to the heat than we are!!the problem with the steps too is that it's not just one big flight of steps, but loads of staggered steps so it just feels like you're climbing them forever!!When we got to the top, we had a little water break and were greeted by our old friends the Monkeys, who we actually saw go for an indian lady as she was holding a bag of fruit- pretty scary stuff!!the Caves (well, the first one anyway) were really impressive actually, it's unbelievable to think that people so long ago had the skill and ability to literally carve such awesome things from a massive bit of rock. There was a small museum on sight also, that explained the meanings behind all the various carvings which were mainly depictions of Shiva and his consort Parvati, as well as the bumpy sacrificial table-thingys which you find inside the offerings part of the temples which are basically supposed to be a phallic representation of Shiva...inneresting!We caught the little toy railway from the top of the jetty to the boat (reminded me of the railway in Pickie Pool if anyone remembers that?!) and took the hour-long trip back to the Gateway to India. The marine drive area of Mumbai is crazy, as it's only really once you'r e out on the sea that you can kind of appreciate the sheer size of the city. there are skyscrapers and boat for miles and miles!!with a population nearly 3 times the size of London it's no surprise really I guess!

After a refreshing (and hot!) shower and a quick bite to eat at the YWCA (Tuesday night is Biryani night it seems, yummy!) we headed to the nearby Regal to do something we had both wanted to do since we'd arrived in India but hadn't had the chance: we saw a Bollywood film!!it was pretty funny cos the ticket guy was like to us, 'you know this film is only in Hindu, no English subtitles' and we were like 'yup, we know' and then he was like 'do you speak Hindi?' and we both obviously cheerfully replied 'no', before heading off the get some delicious caramel popcorn and gleefully taking our seats in the upper circle!The poor man clearly thought we were mental!The basic plot of the film itself (''Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai") was that unlucky in love Raj, a bollywood film runner, was in love with the sister of biggest bollywood star in India, Natasha, and in desperation after being rejected by her he said a prayer and an unbelievably gorgeous (and indian to boot!) alien from Venus literally falls out of her spaceship and into his arms, and well, I'm sure you can guess the rest!!throw in a big fat sex-mad dad and a zany best friend, as well as loads of catchy songs, larger than life dance routines (complete with unbelievably skimpy outfits and white women in the background dancing along) and there you have it!!! We both absolutely loved it, and although we didn't understand most of the words (except the odd bit of english thrown in, especially from the alien girl who had a corny american accent every time she spoke in English), we think we got the gist of it...my favourite bit was the denouement which lasted about half an hour, and consisted of all the four main characters crying sooo much (especially the hero!) and then the guy and the alien girl getting together and sealing there love with a friendly peck on the cheek and a hug!!If you get the chance, you should definitely watch or download it, we're both planning on trying to get hold of a subtitled version when we get home so we can figure out if we actually understood most of the plotline!!

Afterwards, we met up with Catherine for a beer and a chat at nearby Leopold's, which is supposed to be the traveller place but is actually quite a random bar which attracts loads of indians too and is decorated with various bits of americana. Today, we managed to wake up for breakfast (woop!), though at 8.30am I couldn't face the Dosa and spicy curry sauce option so opted for a banana and toast instead!!We had planned quite a busy day of a little bit of shopping, posting a few things home and then heading to Chowpatty beach and maybe the Ghandi museum, but due to it being a bank holiday because of some person in government's birthday (which we were obviously completely oblivious to), the post office is shut today and sending stuff DHL is unbelievably expensive, and we also found out that some of the presents we had bought for people (sorry Gary : ( ) by way of spices aren't actually acceptable to customs so we can't even send them home DHL or post anyway.... so frustrating!!So, after much deliberation, we've decided to bring all our souvenirs with us to Sri Lanka and try and get them posted at the PO there. What a trek, and kind of a downer on our last day in India, but oh well. We had McDonald's for lunch to cheer ourselves up (my first McChicken sandwhich in years since I started only eating free-range at home, was yummy and I almost didn't feel guilty about it!) and we're going to relax for the rest of the day until we head to the airport around 11pm to wait around for our 3.25am flight to Sri Lanka.

I can't quite believe that over a month of being away has flown by so quickly, and we are actually leaving India. I have really, really enjoyed pretty much almost every minute of it, and I would definitely like to come back if I ever get the opportunity too as there's so much more I'd like to explore. I know it is a massive cliche and a million people have said this before me, but India really is a place of contradictions: the rich and the very, very poor living side to side, religious and cultural tensions hitting international headlines all the time but in actual fact one of the most tolerant and accepting countries I've ever been to, and the hustle and bustle and noise and chaos everywhere which somehow seems to actually have an organised rhythm and flow all of its' own to name but a few. I hope you've enjoyed reading about the first leg of our jouney, and here's to the next big adventure:CHINA!!!!

lots of love from Mumbai xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

P.s. Happy birthday to Joanne (not sure if you read this but hopefully someone will pas the message on!) for today, and to my wonderful biggest sis Katie for Friday. Love you both lots xxx

P.P.S more photos to come but after nearly two hours of writing I'm done for the day!