Day 1 - Accidentally Mumbai

Just a continuation of my many failed attempts at serenity over the past three months. After giving in to Erez' insistence that we go into this three month trip doing no planning ahead whatsoever, we land in Mumbai already tense over our starkly different ideas on what to do next, which had emerged during the flight. Of course, the one thing that we both seem satisfied with, flying directly to Nepal, proves to be impossible. This information attained only after being sent to three different terminals, four different floors, and several dark, dusty employee-only back-corridors. Stuck, we use every inch of spare space in the back of an ancient indian cab to move ourselves and our backpacks to Coloba, 'the backpacker area of the city' our Lonely Planet lets us know, and so full of the travel agents we need. Oh, and it takes two hours to get there, but unfortunately Erez doesn't read that far, and we find out when we're almost half way there.

Anyway. Fast-forward. That was 11 a.m. this morning. It's now 9 p.m. I'm sitting on a plane again, this time to Delhi.

Rewind. After arriving in Coloba this morning, both overwhelmed and exhilarated with the cab ride through Mumbai's endless slums, we do manage to find a friendly, possible reliable, air-conditioned travel agency, and sort through our options there. No flights to Kathmandu until October 13, but Goa or Kerala are tempting 'kick-back' options. Still, somewhat different to the breath-stopping Himalayan views to which we are magnetising. In conclusion, we would leave rest to another day. Instead, we decide to take the 2hr ride back to the Mumbai airport, fly to Delhi, another loud, hectic, swarming, cow-filled city, and then the following day board a 13-hour toilet-less bus to Dharamsala in northern India. We would find mountains, and possibly spiritual enlightenment, there.

That plan made, we had time to kill. Up the street we find Leapolds, the most reliable cafe on the strip, and satiate our gnawing hunger. Then we allow ourselves to get ripped off by the manager of Maria Lodge, which was the only hostel/guesthouse which would rent us a room for just 2 hours so we could catch our breath. (But not before being hassled and hustled by numerous street hotel- peddlers, each pointing in the direction of their own hostels, all of which were "down this street sir, right down this street," but none of which actually were.) Once in the seedy little room, interestingly across a narrow alleyway from a busy make-shift mosque on the second floor of a crumbling building, we peel off our backpacks and Erez lays back and closes his eyes. While he does that, I find a street phone and start making reservations for the two days ahead. Planning is suddenly back in fashion.

Now it's nighttime. I'm back in the air, the cooshy portion of our journey northward. Erez is curled up in my lap. We are feeling better, and are up for the adventure ahead.

The plan is to pass Dharamsala and also the next hill station of McLeod Gange (home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in Exile) and settle in one of the two smaller towns further up the mountain, either Bach's or deranged. There we will find ourselves a room with a view. A Himalayan view that is. And there we will sit until our energy is restored.

Thus begins our honeymoon. I await what's next with both optimism and dread.