Mumbai!
I had JUST arrived at my friend STEVE'S hotel when I got a BlackBerry message from my friend BILLY in New York which said (in effect) -- "I've heard about a guy from Los Angeles who lives in Mumbai -- his name is Steve - you should look him up". It was quite odd that I just so happened to be sitting right there WITH Steve.
Steve and I were introduced through a mutual friend in LA and while we lived down the street from one another in LA -- we never met until we both moved to India. He moved to India just about a week or so before I did -- so we've gone through many of the same growing pains at about the same pace. Please note -- there are so many "growing pains" with moving to a place like this that the phrase doesn't even seem accurate/severe enough. We've been reading back and forth on our various blog postings and I feel like I knew him before we really even met.
Anyway -- I went down to Mumbai (about a 2 hour flight) (please add 8 hours of stress to the 2 hours flight time when calculating air travel in India) for the weekend as ANOTHER friend (Andy) is leaving Mumbai (he is also an Angelino).
In short -- I had a BLAST. Steve (pictured to the left), Ellen - Steve's boss (and friend) (center, obviously) and Andy (process of elimination - pictured right) checked into this great hotel which overlooks the "Gateway of India" -- Mumbai's most famous tourist site. [please note, no I am NOT a professional photographer for "Sears" -- though the "stacked people" look in my photo has that effect, huh?] I've been reading about the "Gateway of India" in my book, "Freedom at Midnight" which talks about the partition of India/Pakistan and the British rule leading up to it. The Gateway was often the first site of India that the Brits had as they were sailing ashore.
This is a picture of the Gateway from our hotel rooms -- what a view, huh?
Growing up on Cape Cod and living for the last nine years in Los Angeles -- I really miss just SEEING the ocean. The water in Mumbai is not quite as inviting as it is on the Cape - but it was great just to look out the window and have the ocean there. Delhi, an inland city, suffers from all of the "landlocked" issues -- namely extreme weather. Today it seemed quite cool so I checked the weather -- only 91 degrees. (The website did mention that it "feels like 102 degrees")
Incidentally the senior correspondent I work with said that the hotel Steve/Ellen/Andy and I stayed in this weekend was his "favorite in the world" (reminds me of a Pam Chamberlain comment). [Pam, who is a lovely woman, once told my parents after a dinner party they threw that it was such a GREAT dinner party... that it was probably the "best night of my life"!] Quite a compliment following a dinner party, huh?
Anyway, I digress -- the hotel - a "Taj" property is located in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Mumbai -- great shopping... and more importantly some great FOOD. It turned out that the four of us (I had barely MET them before) were wonderful traveling companions. Everyone wanted to do pretty much the same thing... hang out at the pool, eat, drink champagne, go dancing... recap the evening... and then start again.
Here, Steve and Andy are just sitting in our little breakfast nook (we never ate breakfast there but it SEEMS like a place where one could have a nice breakfast). One of the things I find I appreciate most of all now is having the "down-time" with friends... a quiet moment here or there -- where you're not really doing much of anything.
The reason I picked last weekend to go to Mumbai was because Andy was having a "going-away" party/dinner etc. He is moving back to Los Angeles and is getting married in a few weeks. We ate at a great spot called "Indigo" - which has really good food. I had lobster risotto (nice, light dish, huh?).
I went on a quest to find some Veuve Cliquot champagne to help celebrate the occasion (one of my favorite ways to celebrate -- I think it's a hold-over from all of my years of celebrating with my friend Ronnie -- who always has plenty of it in stock). Anyway... I guess Veuve isn't part of the program for any of the local wine shops -- so we settled for an Indian "sparkling wine" called Sula. It's actually not as bad as you would think.
I LOVE this photo -- it just captures the pre-dinner party. We did a bit of dancing in the room and here Steve is helping Ellen with some sort of wardrobe malfuction. I particularly like to looks of concern - with a champagne flute in hand. Classic.
It's nice to have these bits of normal life - traveling to see friends (travel that doesn't take more than 8 hours in the air) and was cool to see a new city.
Steve and I took a long walk by the ocean and chatted - found a "peace" garden to sit in for a bit -- it had all of these translated sayings from Hindi that offered these various "peaceful" sentiments. And before we left the four of us had a great meal. Mumbai is considered to be the equivalent of a Los Angeles if Delhi is DC. There is a cosmopolitan sense there -- and I found the food to be quite good (and varied).
I've already rambled on and on -- but I HAD to include this one last photo -- of my LUGGAGE about to make the trip back to Delhi. Please note that my flight number is written in CHALK on my luggage along with "Del" for "Delhi". SOMEHOW it made it to Delhi. As we discussed a lot this weekend things have an odd way of working out in this country -- even when it looks dubious. I've been here long enough that I didn't even ask if they were going to actually put a luggage tag on my checked luggage -- I just laughed to myself and took a picture for the blog.

The police blocked the road to the airport for "security" -- seems like a bad idea, right? So I had to get out of the cab with all of my luggage - throw it over the center median - climb over the BARBED wire (in flip-flops) and run across four lanes of oncoming traffic with my three bags. I ran to the terminal (sweating hot, of course) and arrived FIFTEEN MINUTES before my flight DEPARTED. Somehow... they let me check in (cutting to the front of the line - usually I'M the one being cut off in line), get my baggage screened, through security and on the plane... see, somehow things have an odd way of working out here.