Goa, Goa, Gone

Wednesday 15th June 2005, 8:07am

Ok, so now...I'm in The City Formerly Known as Bombay, home of The Bombay Bad-Boy Pot Noodle, Bombay Mix, Bombay Sapphire Gin and I think they make a few films here too. Incidentally, out here those pot noodles are just called Bad Boys, and Bombay Mix is just "mix". It’s totally CRAZY! Oh, and also Bombay is called Mumbai…apparently they didn’t like our name much, so they changed it very, very slightly.

“Yeah! How d’you like dem apples England? You imperialist bastards! And we’ll call India…er…Mindier? Yeah! Mumbai, capital of Mindier! YEAH!”

We left Goa on Monday after a pretty crappy week and a half if I’m honest. Ben is a really boring old man sometimes and was far happier to go to bed early so that he could get up early to go and watch a special showing of the bloody Lion King (this ACTUALLY happened) rather than going out and finding a bar, or a club, or even a dog eating a dead crow...anything would have been better than an early night. So anyway, that's pretty much sets the mood of my travels with Grandpa Ben these days. Goa was a little lame at best, but with him, it was like a SAGA holiday, except with really boring old people who'd rather go to bed early so they can watch a special showing of Singing In The Rain, than stay up 'till 10 to play bingo. Eugh.

so Goa was a bit of a loss, but the beaches were alright, and I even managed to escape Ben for a day and go to one on my own. I spent a whole day drinking ice cold Kingfisher and catching crabs (no not that kind...) on the beach like some kind of feral cave-child. Oh and there was the one good day when I played football with some real feral children (although someone said they were just local school kids, they were just too dirty to be proper people). I got a little drunk before hand though and ended up chopping one of the kids down in the surf in what would have been a straight red card and a three match ban if we hadn’t been playing on beach in a third world country. Even through my alcohol induced haze I felt pretty guilty, especially as he was too weak to struggle against the rip tide and was just sort of…carried off. Apart from that, it was the cinema and hotel cable that kept me sane. Don't go to Goa in June, especially not with someone who likes his rest and 90s Disney films.

And now?

We arrived in "Mumbai" in the early hours of Tuesday morning and checked into our hotel which is right at the top of a four floor building with three other hotels in it on each of the other stories. It's a very strange set up...like a dream or something. Very surreal. Plus there was no lift, which made it very difficult to lug our bags all the way up. I think. I don’t know…the bell boy did it. It certainly wasn’t pleasant to watch, especially when he got a nose bleed. Some of it got on my bag when he passed out, so no tip for him. Honestly, you just can’t get good service.

Yesterday we went to Elephanta Island (I thought it was a new soft drink) where some clown with too much time on his hands had carved a massive warren of caves into the mountain with some impressive statues and wall carvings. It was all carved straight into the rock face and was pretty cool. no one really knows who did it (apparently it was like years ago...like 25 or something. long before I was born, and no one thought that maybe they should keep a record, or ask the guy carving chunks out the mountain who the hell he was). Unfortunately the Portuguese came in and they damaged it pretty badly, probably by missing their piñatas and hitting the cave walls and statues instead. Bloody South Americans...

So the caves were, all joking aside, pretty impressive, but costly to get in and sadly in a pretty bad state. There were sections where reinforced steel concrete had been used to repair damage, but had eroded leaving ugly steel girders and cable visible, which is a real pity.

After that we headed back to the strange hotel and then went out to dinner and off to search out a bar or a club or something to do in the evening (I was keeping an eye out for a dog and a dead crow still). We went to one sports bar, had one drink and then Ben announced he was too tired to do anything else and went back to the hotel and to bed. Probably to…I don’t know…fulfill some old person stereotype. Wet the bed? Break a hip? Be slightly racist? Whatever. What a dufus. So I wandered around Mumbai on my own for a while (which was really cool) because it was only nine o'clock and I didn’t come all the way to India so that I could get a good night’s sleep.

I was on the lookout for some cheapo sunglasses, but was offered instead just about every drug you can imagine with people shouting "brother d'you wan' some Cokaaaaine??!" at me. Needless to say I was totally coked off my tits by the time I got back, and had brought a hooker with me to liven things up. A super night was had by all!

Or really: I just walked round the stalls, bought some sunglasses, politely declined the various drugs in my incredibly English way (“gee, er…no thank you sir, but thank you for the lovely offer. Next time I want to snort some mystery white powder I’ve bought from a decidedly unhygienic Mumbai street dealer, I’ll come straight to you”) then went back to find Ben still awake and watching…wait, you might want to sit down for this. I don’t know why you’re standing to read this e-mail, but sit down. I got back and he was watching…Sex and The god-damn City...for real. The real reason for his "tiredness" turned out to be that he was just so fatigued to find out what was happening in that Horsey Faced bitches love life. He didn’t even pretend to be flipping through the channels. He was just lying there, in bed, watching Sex and The City. He was a scented candle and some massage oils away from really scaring the shit out of me.

so that's about all that's happened recently. Not much to tell really. I look forward to getting back to Durham where people are a little bit more up for fun and games and I’m not constantly being offered drugs. Only 14 more days with Ben, and only just over two weeks left before I make my triumphant return.

see you spoon (oh lol)