Mumbai, India

As my intended arrival date in the former Soviet Union nears, I have decided to set the wheels in motion on my visa for Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. And by this I mean I printed out the application. I was tempted to write “make benefit” under “Purpose of Travel” and “from the Plains of Talashyk to northern fence of Jew Town” under “Places to be Visited,” but since I actually want this visa I didn’t. I then typed up the necessary cover letter requesting that a visa be issued, complete with lots of groveling to please the bureaucrats. Supposedly only one passport photo is necessary, but passport photos in India are 8 for US$1. Once I get to Delhi I will take this application to the Kazakh Embassy, along with my passport which contains a picture of me wearing a shirt with Borat’s face on it and the words “I like you, I like sex” written in faux cyrillic. Yes, this is the passport photo that I’m traveling the world with. But back to where I actually am. India has some great people. Like the people whose bodies are covered in what I think is leprousy, but I’m not sure. Either way it’s a very disturbing site. And then there are the people who shove their sickeningly malnourished infants in your face. And in Mumbai, one of the world’s largest cities, there are cows everywhere. Yesterday I wandered into a restaurant that appeard to be owned by Afghans. I quickly realized I was off the beaten track. They sent over to me the one guy who spoke a little English, who hooked me up with some mutton. Of course you don’t eat this with silverware, you break off pieces of bread and make little sandwiches. I learned this in the Middle East. The hard part, though, is to break off pieces of bread using only your right hand, since using the left hand is very offensive, since this is what is used to wipe the ass (in the absence of an ass hose, of course). They noticed I was having trouble so they brought me a fork. Minus like 100 travel points. I then needed to buy a train ticket out of here. Trains in India are usually booked up weeks in advance, but they reserve a certain number of seats just for tourists. Since I think these are the same price as regular seats, this is of course very unfair, but convenient. These “foreign tourist quota” tickets can be bought at Mumbai CST station. So I hailed the first cab I saw and asked him to take me to CST. He didn’t understand and didn’t speak any English. I kept repeating CST and “train station.” Surely, he had to know where this was. Finally he asked “Bombay Central?” Figuring that CST must stand for “central” something there’s no way this could not be the station I want. Of course it wasn’t the station I wanted. Yes, Mumbai CST and Mumbai Central are two different stations. Upon arrival at Central I was accosted by a guy who was obviously up to no good who informed me that this was not the station for tourists. Then he said “you can go inside and ask if you don’t believe me.” Oh, so you have just indicated to me there may be a reason I wouldn’t believe what you tell me. So I did go in and ask, and of course this wasn’t the station I wanted. I assume that if I had let that guy follow me, he would have taken me to a travel agency. There I probably would have been booked a ticket for way more than it should cost and he would receive a comission. Or worse, they would have sold me a fake ticket. Or even worse, I would have just been robbed and/or killed. So I got into another cab and asked to be taken to CST. This asshole kept pouring it on thick to me and calling me “my dear friend” and of course insisting I pay him a ridiculous fare because “I am poor man, I am poor man.” Despite this, he really spoke no English. He asked me where I was going. To Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. He told me the name of the train was the Punjab Mail (this is correct). Then he asked me if I was going today or tomorrow. Tomorrow. One or two tickets? One. Oh, shit. He was going to try to do this for me then I would owe him more money. We got to the area of the station and he pulled over and insisted I get out of the car and come with him. “No, I just want to go to the reservations office.” “Yes, reservations, this way.” “You will show me where the reservations office is?” He led me across the street to a travel agency. Then I got mad. I yelled at him “No! I want to book at the reservations office!” I let him know I was very angry and that I was not a satisfied customer. Annoyed, he took me to the reservations office. Here I payed him his ridiculously inflated fare and left. Outside there were of course more touts “you go to Goa? Where are you going?” I didn’t acknowledge them, which is how I usually handle these situations. There are about 100 train booking windows and the office is huge. There is one window for tourists, around which there are some yellow benches marked “Foreign Tourists Only.” I thought of segregated drinking fountains in the US. Not surprisingly, these benches were like a mini-youth hostel. When I got to the window, I told the guy I wanted to go to Agra tomorrow and he asked “do you want to leave in the morning or in the evening?” “What time does it leave in the morning?” “It only leaves in the evening.” Then why did he give me the option? I finally got a ticket, but paying for it is ridiculous and uniquely Indian. You see, tourist tickets can only be paid for in US dollars, pounds sterling or euros. Not rupees. But LP said that you CAN buy them with rupees backed up by an “encashment certificate,” which is something you get when you change money and is basically, as a foreigner, permission for you to use rupees. They were initially reluctant to let me pay like this, but it worked out. So this evening I hope to be on my way to Agra, but you never know. Emerging from the station a taxi driver got me at the door. Walking towards his car he asked me where I was going by train and I told him Agra. Then out of nowhere the taxi driver who brought me here came running hysterically claiming me as his property. He had waited for me. Fuckin eh I hate these people. I had no choice but to go with him, plus the other guy seemed even more crooked anyways. I got in the back seat and the driver got behind the wheel with the other driver leaning in through the window arguing in Not English. Then he looked back at me with a look of rage in his eyes like he was about to pull out a gun and shoot me and asked “this man brought you here?” “Yes, he waited for me.” I then turned to the driver and said very emphatically “let’s go!” But he didn’t. The other driver stared me down for about 30 seconds then asked “where you go after Agra?” I said “it doesn’t matter,” turned back to the driver and said very seriously “let’s go!!” Finally he started driving. “That cheater driver.” Of course, and so are you. When we got back to my hotel I paid him what he wanted then he looked at me and said “baksheesh.” Baksheesh means tip. It’s not the custom to tip taxi drivers here so I replied simply “no.” “Yes my dear friend.” “No, because you have already charged me too much.” Then we shook hands and I left. As a side note, while I was using the internet at this internet café the guy came over to the circuit breaker panel which was right next to me, switched off power for the entire office and switched it back on again, so I lost what I was working on. I have no idea why he did this and I just kind of looked up like “huh?” Weird things happen here.