Safely to Nagpur

Baggage claim in Mumbai

We are safely in Nagpur after a long, tiring journey.  We had a some delays in Amsterdam due to the snow but made it to Mumbai at 2am local time (about 30 hours after leaving Seattle). Baggage claim was a chaotic two hour ordeal but all the bags were eventually found.  There was a nice reception outside the airport and we were given lovely garlands (that helped mask the smell of 30 hours of travel). Even better, we found out that they had secured us tickets on a flight from Mumbai to Nagpur at 11:30am.

We were taken to a small hotel to have the chance to rest, shower, etc.  Once the sun came up and the streets were getting busy we decided to head out and get our first taste of India. On our walk we saw numerous street vendors preparing breakfast foods, stray dogs aplenty, and the chaotic traffic that we would be a part on not long after.  After a delicious breakfast of items whose names I can't recall, we hoped into two cabs and made our way to the domestic airport in Mumbai.  The 20 minute cab ride is something I am sure none of use will ever forget.  Traffic here is something you need to see to believe. Cars, buses, auto-rickshaws, bikes, pedestrians, all going in seemingly separate directions following a pattern that defies logic.  Hopping in a cab here should come with the Disney-esque warning to keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times. Personally I loved it but my heart did stop on a couple occasions. There are no lane markers and using your horn here is a way of life to signal any number of things.  They also drive on the opposite side from the US.

Mumbai traffic

We have arrived now in Nagpur and gone our separate ways to our host families.  My host is a mechanical engineering professor at the engineering university here in Nagpur. He lives is a 3-bedroom apartment near the center of the city with his wife and their two kids.  Families stay close here and even though the son has already graduated (mechanical engineering) and the daughter is finishing college in town (software engineering) the kids still live at home. My hosts prepared me a delicious lunch of vegetable paneer and a local dish made with pulses and a local leafy vegetable (similar to spinach).  It was pleasantly spicy (2.5 stars IMO). I told my host and his wife that I like spicy food so I think they are going to crank it up at dinner. After lunch we popped into town to see the and my host was eager to show me his university. In town we stopped and got some paan and I had my first experience crossing the road. Now I have climbed steep mountains, skied some of the toughest lines around and been skydiving, and crossing a busy Indian road for the first time is right up there with all of them. Paan is interesting, it is a mixture of a bunch of spices, sugars, and other things, wrapped in betel nut leaf then rolled up and eaten whole.  It is eaten after meals as a breath freshener and digestive.

Nagpur city center

Paan wala in Nagpur