Our Indian Orientation- Kochi, Goa, Mumbai

After sending our students packing for the holidays, one final poker game of 2015, a couple hours of sleep and a short but very early flight to Kochin, we had our feet firmly planted on Indian ground for the next three weeks. As catching a glimpse of India has been a life-long travel dream for me, we had our sights set on seeing as much of the country as reasonably possible within our Christmas vacation. With that in mind, we clocked in with three flights, eight cities, fifty-four butter chickens (a low-ball estimate), seventy-five hours on the train, a hundred cups of chai and just over 4000 km of land travel.

Hanging around Kochi and waking up in our little train nook!

We landed in Kochi, in the South of India, ready to get our first taste of India (figuratively and literally) before boarding the night-train bound for Goa. We had an amazing day strolling the waterfront, stalking the free-roaming cows and gawking at the gaggles of beautifully sari clad women. It was a good day. However, as we were wandering the quaint, clean streets of Kochi we found ourselves often alone, no throngs of people, no animals, no chaos. Had all the fictional books set in India that I'd read been wrong? Nahhh, patience young grasshopper.

 That night we spent 15 hours on the train (of which I slept an amazing 10) to get to the beach. We spent a few nights in a beach hut with intermittent electricity, no wifi, easy access to butter masala and an ongoing parade of yoga posing beach-goers. Agonda Beach in Goa is the perfect mix of nothing going on, tiki bars and simply watching the cows come home. Although we could have easily whiled away our vacation at the beach, that was not the plan....onward to Mumbai!

Nothing to do but squat in a boat!

 As we rolled into Bollywood in the early morn, we were feeling a bit nervous about what was to unfold. Mumbai is a huge city and again our imaginations were running wild with the sights and scenes that danced in our heads (along with sugarplums..tis/twas the season). We checked in, had some sort of meal that was served on the hallway floor and hit the sights by foot. Amazingly, unlike the South, Mumbai is an absolute perfect temperature so we were happy to stroll around town all day and night--the pedometre was bouncing off the charts. We mainly stayed in the southern area of Mumbai called Colaba, the old British part of the city where the colonial architecture was oh so grand, grand, grand!  Besides strolling the streets, hitting up the monuments, the hectic Crawford market and ....Madonna themed slot machines, we spent our time declining roles in Bollywood films and posing for pictures--We couldn't help ourselves-- It's been awhile since we've felt the pseudo-fame that accompanies being in, but not a member of a mono-culture.
One of the best things we did in Mumbai was visit the Hanging Gardens in the late afternoon. Although the gardens themselves are nice to walk around, they are not overly impressive. They are however on top of a hill offering a sweet view of the stretching coastline of Mumbai. After grabbing a walking-chai and samosa to see us through until our next curry, we meandered back down the hill to catch the sunset along the coast, followed by a beautiful stroll home on Marine Drive. It was such a breath of fresh air to be in a city where the temperatures and sidewalks were made for walking. We enjoyed ourselves and the views so much that the next night we hit a rooftop and splashed out a bit. What a view, and a perfect example of the stark disparity in India; Life is moving in a million different directions in the same space and no one seems to notice. Bravo, to the clean, cosmopolitan *side of* Mumbai- We'll be back for our Bollywood film cameo :)

We briefly took a break from eating to check out the sights!

After clean, big-city bliss, relaxing beach-time and what felt like a good orientation to India, we had become (somewhat) accustomed to the constant honking, and lost the fear of food poisoning (clearly); We were poised to head north into Rajasthan looking for new landscapes, people and scenes!