WE ARE IN INDIA!

POST #1

WE’RE IN INDIA! We are safely on the ground in India! The flight from Chicago to Mumbai (Bombay), including a 2-hour refueling stop in London, was exhausting. It’s just hard to sit still that long. We boarded the Air India 747-400 at Chicago O’Hare at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, December 26. We arrived in Mumbai, India at 1:00 am on Thursday, December 28. So, we literally lost a day in the air. Go figure.

OUR BIKES MADE IT, TOO. Good news: our bicycles arrived together and in one piece on this important leg of the journey. All three bike boxes were waiting for us as we walked up to the baggage claim in the Mumbai International airport. This sight allayed much anxiety. We have one flight remaining--from Mumbai south to Trivandrum. It’s only a two-hour domestic flight, so we are hoping all goes well for our “vehicles” in the cargo bay of the Jet Airways plane.

DRINKING IT IN. We were extremely tired when we arrived in India in the wee morning hours. But the sights, smells, and culture of India are instantly invigorating. You gulp it in on the walk to the taxi and the drive along Mumbai’s roadways. It confronts you in the distinctive protocols at the hotel and in airport procedures. You do not know the rules, exactly; you just know the customs are not American. You have flown into the most internally diverse culture--or matrix of cultures--on the planet. Its poverty is excessive. Its wealth is exploding. Its burgeoning population—one fifth of the world’s population in a space one-third the size of the USA—is as dense as the smoke-thick air. Its colors are bright against the dullest of faded grays. Its people are beautiful, its customs inexplicable, its promise vast. We look forward to experiencing India outside the tourist areas, outside the barrier of a automobile—on two wheels on open roads at a pace that lets us encounter India’s heart and soul.

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