What a difference a day makes...

Ok, 2 days... Well, we can't quite believe that only a few days ago we were saying goodbye to our new children at the House of Blessing. Since our couple of days of Joburg, we had our initiation to India by arriving in Mumbai at midnight [don't they all], getting a taxi with 2 flat tyres, and then careening through the dark streets, teeming with all manner of people and finding our YMCA Hotel and getting to bed at around 2am.

Now, when you think of a 'taxi rank' at the airport, I can almost guarantee you've never seen anything like this... it looked like an overspill yard at a car manufacturing plant. A few hundred identical black and yellow Fiat rust buckets called 'Kali Peeli' lined up outside. The drivers are there longer than 24hours, and sleep in their cars as they wait their turn for the front of the queue. Our guy made $10.30 [australian]. Tough way to make a living!

The Kali Peeli cabs (KP) have been around since the beginning of time. The KP is supposed to have a working life of 10 years. Road worthiness is of course in the eye of the beholder and I assume that no KP ever gets a thumbs-down as long as some rupees change hands. Obviously, the majority of KPs are [much] older than 10 years. Evidently, the cabbies tell the authorities that they have unpaid loans on their 10 year old cabs and that if their cab are pulled off the streets, they will not only be unable to feed their families, they will default on their loans. Noone wants the cabbies to default on their loans - perhaps they think it will affect the Mumbai economy the way sub-prime loan defaults have affected the US.

Anyhow, Mumbai is an amazing city... as many people as the whole of Australia, and almost as many cars. The kids had a good initiation with third world conditions while we were in Moz, so many things weren't a surprise to them. Which was good. Cause it is quite something... Then a very interesting time on the 6hour bus trip to Panchgani, south of Mumbai... but more of that later...

I waited for India with a mixture of fear and excitement, and now that we've arrived at the Asia Plateau we feel really excited about being here...

There is an internet room with 6 machines online - at once! So, if any of you are actually still reading our blog after all this time then you'll have more to read in the next 6 weeks....