has been the word of the week. Shira came down with it on Wednesday. Jordan came down with in on Thursday. Everybody (being Jordan and Shira) spent a day or two lying in bed and moaning loud enough to alert the hotel staff. Everybody is almost better, although the stomach cramps haven't quite left.
So there's not much to write about this week other than the finer qualities of Indian toilets and how fast one can lose water by as many different, exciting channels as possible (we'll spare you the details).
But for coming by, we'd like to share some more pictures from throughout our time!
For starters, this is one I've wanted to post since we took it. Nobody's life is complete until they see this MonkeyBaby. (See post below: "Life is just one long downhill after MonkeyBaby")
This is a sample of some of the ruins we went to Elephanta Island to see. Very cool, especially for a guy who's never been to a country old enough to have "ruins" before.
This is still us at the ruins. You'll notice our friend is one of the many, MANY people who will stop us and ask to have their picture taken with white people. I am not joking. We finally got a sense of humor about it and asked them to also take pictures for us as well. You'll notice this guy doesn't seem to find this joke enormously funny. We might not ask this again. You'll also notice that he's a bit smaller than us - we're generally big people here. I hit my head on door frames a TON.
The view of THE NICEST PART of Mumbai. I want to be clear in stressing that. We are in Beverly Hills Mumbai right now. But still, the coast is lovely, and it's a nice place to take walks in the evening, if you have the time to get there. We went to a sweet blue concert here.
This is what most of Mumbai looks like. Helpful hint: if you see a structure, even if its just a tarp suspended on sticks, there are probably 7-10 people living under it.
More standard housing.
A view from the tracks.
You get the idea.
The fruit market where we bought more mangoes than we could eat in our whole lives.
Crow city is full of crows (they're like pigeons here, but more). Forgive my artsy self-indulgence.
This guy was hawking us for sandwiches. Monkeys are kind of like squirrels to these folks here, so we have to apologize every time we see a monkey and fall all over ourselves spitting with excitement. When we tell folks monkeys don't live anywhere wild in North America, we get a blank stare like, what?--
Matheran is lovely. They don't allow cars up there, which is exactly why it's still lovely. (See: "DRIVING" from previous post). While there, I got to do a little thing where they sling you across a huge gorge on something like a zip line.
Lots of clay in the hills.
More fun facts: in certain areas, religious law exists parallel to, or even trumps, secular law. So, for example, if the Muslim religious board passes laws about the conditions of marriage and divorce, the state legislature basically has to rubber stamp it. Thereupon, if a challenge comes up in court, the religious board can overturn even the national supreme court's ruling on questions of that religious law. This has happened. So there will be myriad different sets of marriage law for different religious subcultures.
Also, on the subject of subcultures, there is no "Indian" accent. There are a litany of minor languages spoken around the country, and even among folks who all speak Hindi, Hindi will most likely not be all of their mother tongues. Hence, the accent they bring to English will be completely different. In Maharashtra, where we are, for example, the mother tongue is mostly Marathi. People raised in a different state have very pronouncedly different accents.
So there's not much to write about this week other than the finer qualities of Indian toilets and how fast one can lose water by as many different, exciting channels as possible (we'll spare you the details).
But for coming by, we'd like to share some more pictures from throughout our time!
For starters, this is one I've wanted to post since we took it. Nobody's life is complete until they see this MonkeyBaby. (See post below: "Life is just one long downhill after MonkeyBaby")
This is a sample of some of the ruins we went to Elephanta Island to see. Very cool, especially for a guy who's never been to a country old enough to have "ruins" before.
This is what most of Mumbai looks like. Helpful hint: if you see a structure, even if its just a tarp suspended on sticks, there are probably 7-10 people living under it.
More standard housing.
You get the idea.
The fruit market where we bought more mangoes than we could eat in our whole lives.
This guy was hawking us for sandwiches. Monkeys are kind of like squirrels to these folks here, so we have to apologize every time we see a monkey and fall all over ourselves spitting with excitement. When we tell folks monkeys don't live anywhere wild in North America, we get a blank stare like, what?--
Lots of clay in the hills.
More fun facts: in certain areas, religious law exists parallel to, or even trumps, secular law. So, for example, if the Muslim religious board passes laws about the conditions of marriage and divorce, the state legislature basically has to rubber stamp it. Thereupon, if a challenge comes up in court, the religious board can overturn even the national supreme court's ruling on questions of that religious law. This has happened. So there will be myriad different sets of marriage law for different religious subcultures.
Also, on the subject of subcultures, there is no "Indian" accent. There are a litany of minor languages spoken around the country, and even among folks who all speak Hindi, Hindi will most likely not be all of their mother tongues. Hence, the accent they bring to English will be completely different. In Maharashtra, where we are, for example, the mother tongue is mostly Marathi. People raised in a different state have very pronouncedly different accents.
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