From Gokarna to Mumbai, from beach to city, rural to cosmopolitan. lol.
Our journey started somewhat slowly, piled on top of our bags in the middle of a coach park, we managed to attract quite a crowd of Indian men offering 500 rupees for a 'cheeky squeeze'. That nightmare was avoided rather craftily by claiming that we were married to various cricket players. Don't worry mothers,we are strong independent women and managed to repel the allure of sweaty Indian ice cream sellers!
After forking out nearly 1,000 rups for luxurious beds and air conditioning, none of us slept a wink aboard the coach so wish us luck for our up coming journey: 18 hours on a non-air conditioned non-sleeper bus. Fantastic.
We've all loved Mumbai, despite it being nothing like what we expected. Perhaps due to the fact that we are now beedie-smoking bindi-wearing locals, we haven't found the crazy traffic or mass poverty as overwhelming as we once thought it would be.
Within 10 minutes of walking the streets of the city, we inadvertently adopted a postcard seller who, after following us round for an hour began rambling on about his 'friend' Manju. We struggled to understand what the bloody hell he was going on about till he whipped out a medical document that read 'schizophrenia'...we hurried into Starbucks to plan our escape! It was a success and accompanied with cappucinos we were free - hurrah!
Now, not only are we travelling through India but we are also making a career out of it, as that's right, you guessed it, supermodels. It all started on Om Beach, after sunset when Lucy Ann Reynolds aka Kate Moss and Cara Delevigne aka Ana Reis sold their first photo for a modest (yet promising!!) 40 rupees to half naked Indian men. It was only 10 mins before the profits were spent: on a plate of chips, essential in maintaining our supermodel physiques. Our next 'shoot' took a turn for the better, Ana and Lucy were joined by 2 other beautiful (yet less striking) models who took the form of Olivia Hemmings and Amelia Read. Standing under the Gateway of India, an iconic landmark, and posing with various Indians we managed to reel in money that would impress the likes of Naomi Campbell.
All the media attention got to our heads and we decided to check out the slightly more suitable accommodation of the Taj Mahal Palace. After browsing Prada and Dior one of us decided to make the most of the luxury and take a dump in the marble floored, rose scented toilets.
So it turns out we're a bit of a magnet for the loonies - after our schizophrenic there was an invitation to a 'private yoga session' and a fellow offering us a constant supply of paper napkins with 'GAYLORD' written over them to wipe the sweat from our brows! Yesterday our hotel received 3 phone calls asking after us from a mystery caller....it remains a mystery as to which one of our fans it was.
We decided that Mumbai would be the ideal place to have the ultimate Bollywood experience and so went to see the latest love story - Aashiqui 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzQ8AU5LPI - couldn't understand a bloody word but loved it nonetheless, a highlight being the entire audience standing and singing the national anthem before the film commenced. From our knowledge of Bollywood films we thought we had the plot sussed: boy meets girl, singing, cheesiness and a big happy ending....maybe not. The end was a shocker but only left us wanting to see more and more! It has also proved seriously useful as the common ground with the Indians, making us extremely popular leading to many a spontaneous rendition of the famous songs!
As the true Shantaram fans that we are we followed in Lin's footsteps and spent an evening at Leopold's Cafe where we enjoyed the company of some hilarious singing Russians aided by a couple of the famous kegs of beer.
Stay tuned for the next entry coming to yours screens in the next half hour......
Our journey started somewhat slowly, piled on top of our bags in the middle of a coach park, we managed to attract quite a crowd of Indian men offering 500 rupees for a 'cheeky squeeze'. That nightmare was avoided rather craftily by claiming that we were married to various cricket players. Don't worry mothers,we are strong independent women and managed to repel the allure of sweaty Indian ice cream sellers!
After forking out nearly 1,000 rups for luxurious beds and air conditioning, none of us slept a wink aboard the coach so wish us luck for our up coming journey: 18 hours on a non-air conditioned non-sleeper bus. Fantastic.
We've all loved Mumbai, despite it being nothing like what we expected. Perhaps due to the fact that we are now beedie-smoking bindi-wearing locals, we haven't found the crazy traffic or mass poverty as overwhelming as we once thought it would be.
Within 10 minutes of walking the streets of the city, we inadvertently adopted a postcard seller who, after following us round for an hour began rambling on about his 'friend' Manju. We struggled to understand what the bloody hell he was going on about till he whipped out a medical document that read 'schizophrenia'...we hurried into Starbucks to plan our escape! It was a success and accompanied with cappucinos we were free - hurrah!
Now, not only are we travelling through India but we are also making a career out of it, as that's right, you guessed it, supermodels. It all started on Om Beach, after sunset when Lucy Ann Reynolds aka Kate Moss and Cara Delevigne aka Ana Reis sold their first photo for a modest (yet promising!!) 40 rupees to half naked Indian men. It was only 10 mins before the profits were spent: on a plate of chips, essential in maintaining our supermodel physiques. Our next 'shoot' took a turn for the better, Ana and Lucy were joined by 2 other beautiful (yet less striking) models who took the form of Olivia Hemmings and Amelia Read. Standing under the Gateway of India, an iconic landmark, and posing with various Indians we managed to reel in money that would impress the likes of Naomi Campbell.
All the media attention got to our heads and we decided to check out the slightly more suitable accommodation of the Taj Mahal Palace. After browsing Prada and Dior one of us decided to make the most of the luxury and take a dump in the marble floored, rose scented toilets.
So it turns out we're a bit of a magnet for the loonies - after our schizophrenic there was an invitation to a 'private yoga session' and a fellow offering us a constant supply of paper napkins with 'GAYLORD' written over them to wipe the sweat from our brows! Yesterday our hotel received 3 phone calls asking after us from a mystery caller....it remains a mystery as to which one of our fans it was.
We decided that Mumbai would be the ideal place to have the ultimate Bollywood experience and so went to see the latest love story - Aashiqui 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzQ8AU5LPI - couldn't understand a bloody word but loved it nonetheless, a highlight being the entire audience standing and singing the national anthem before the film commenced. From our knowledge of Bollywood films we thought we had the plot sussed: boy meets girl, singing, cheesiness and a big happy ending....maybe not. The end was a shocker but only left us wanting to see more and more! It has also proved seriously useful as the common ground with the Indians, making us extremely popular leading to many a spontaneous rendition of the famous songs!
As the true Shantaram fans that we are we followed in Lin's footsteps and spent an evening at Leopold's Cafe where we enjoyed the company of some hilarious singing Russians aided by a couple of the famous kegs of beer.
Stay tuned for the next entry coming to yours screens in the next half hour......
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