Mumbai

9th of November

I could feel the freedom crushing down on me, I was on my own for the first time on the trip and I had no final destination. The man at the custom hadn’t been particularly happy about this. But I was free and it felt incredible, I could even smell it. The smell of freedom is apparently the same as old eggs with worse fish here in Mumbai, India.

The information desk, currently occupied by three cute Indian girls and me on the other side, had absolutely no idea where I could find a train going south. Their continuing attempts ask me for a destination were all in vain, mostly because I didn’t have any. It’s possible there was a language barrier here as well since not many seemed to speak English as good as I assumed they would.

After some time could they finally decide on where the closest train station was and I went for a taxi. On the way to the taxi did I ask a man in a business suit the same question and he provided a much likelier answer. The ride there with the taxi was the first smooth ride I’d gotten in months, without any massaging or even hurting vibrations. It felt exotic.

Lanes on a road is useless, as proven by the vehicle-powered citizens of Mumbai. If there ever was a need for them did people form new ones automatically, but the ones existing were just there for the looks. I tried not to breath. The smell of freedom was slowly shifting from bad eggs and worse fish to just eggs, which some might be considered an improvement. These eggs had already passed someone.

Here I encountered the same problem as before, just asking for a ticket going far south was impossible, and the place with a map was apparently not open. I had to settle for a ticket to southern Goa, otherwise I wouldn’t get any ticket at all. The next train I could get a ticket for left in the morning at 6:55. It was currently 01:30 and I really didn’t feel like going anywhere. I took a stroll around the train station.

There were people sleeping everywhere, absolutely everywhere. It was even hard for me to find a free spot when I finally decided to do the same. The smell of worse fish had returned to join the bad passed egg touch to my freedom, and the feeling that I was laying in whatever caused this smell was creeping up on me. It was a really poor sleep. Hopefully would I be a bit more comfortable on the train.

Yeah right…