Wake up in Bombay

The monsoon has left a dirt residue over all the buildings. High rises are cast concrete and appear to be abandoned. Everything looks like the abandoned Masonic Temple in Providence, RI. Covered in dirt, grime; like the city's been underwater for a few months. I'm assuming it pretty much has.

There is no glass in Bombay; open air, florescent lit apartments are closed in with screens and metal bars. These are taxied by slum villages, labeled the way Americans label their gated communities, with big signs, and stone entrance ways. A permanent Porta Portese. Vague, metal plated architecture held up with two-by-fours covered in moldy, rotting garbage, picked through by packs or rabbid dogs and stray cats. The taxi ride in was jaw-dropped wide-eyed red-light running amazement.

My hotel room, no windows, florescent lights, a double bed with damp sheets is comfortable enough. There's a private bathroom and shower, air conditioning. You can't tell what time it is in there.

The long hallway outside my room to the only window at the end of the hallway, shaded with palm leaves, asks the question "What are you doing here?"

On the street I'm a walking ATM machine, my zippable knees scream TOURIST so loud I might as well be walking around beneath a flashing ROUGH GUIDE LONELY PLANET sign. Every vender, every cripple, every homeless mother strapped with her infant child begs for my money, "My friend!" is around every corner.

Mumbai is a sprawling metropolis with intense, impossible amounts of traffic and almost no rules. Crowded with Hindus, Muslems, Catholic school children, and dogs. The prices here are adjusted for Western wallets; there's two prices. The Indian price, and the Westerner price; which tends to correspond with Western prices. $20 hotel, $4 drink, 25 cent bottled water.

The humidity is stupefying, the heat (even at night) is enough to stop you in your tracks. The smells around you wake you up to how little you know about this place. You can't even place the stench, let alone qualify it is a bad or good; it's simply overwhelming.

Hope to get out of Mumbai as quickly as possible.