It's Mumbai these days

We here at Marnie Talks would just like to apologize. Apparently a raving lunatic commandeered the blog yesterday and had her way with it. I want to assure you all that I'm in full control of my mental and physical faculties and was not the least bit responsible for that outburst.

Yesterday was a long day, starting with a wake up call at 4:30 AM and finishing with a quick phone meeting at 9:30 PM (luckily, with someone I enjoy talking to). That being said, there was a lot of downtime yesterday. We checked out of the hotel in the morning, had meetings until 2 PM and then began our trek to Mumbai, with a business stop along the way.

There were a couple of other detours, though:
Meet the Water Buffalo

These guys roam the streets freely. Unlike the cows, they are very mild tempered and were a perfect set piece for my vision of touristy goodness. The cars were stopped, cameras locked and loaded and I sprinted to my destination.

As you can see, though, the person charged with my camera managed only to get me in the shot. I swear, there is a buffalo near by. No, seriously, there is. I promise, others got pictures, I'll prove it to you soon.

In defense of the photographer of the above photo, I was rather lacking in decorum at the moment, resulting in a none-too-pleased buffalo. There was a moment; I am bounding over puddles and shrubs, Ms. Buffalo was partaking of a salad, she lifted her head to see what the commotion was and our eyes met. I'm not sure if it was fear or confusion but whichever it was, it did not bode well for the photo op. I would step a bit closer, she'd amble out of frame. This repeated a couple of times until she finally decided that pastures were greener elsewhere.

So my muddy feet and I got back in the van and we all headed towards Mumbai. It speaks to the human ability to adapt that I feel the ride was relatively uneventful. Playing chicken with oncoming traffic whilst attempting to pass the traffic in your own lane is simply par for the course, I believe I may now completely filter all noises that exist at the same frequency as the average car horn and even sights like this seem more or less normal.

I will admit to an inordinate amount of pleasure in being able to see some monkeys, though.

Ok, so the picture is grainy enough to end up in an Oliver Stone documentary on the assassination of Cornelius but you can sort of tell they are monkeys, right?

There was one moment, though, when my heart dropped a little. Our driver took a wrong turn and moments later, was pulled over. Immediately, I had visions of all of us being hauled off to who-knows-where for a cavity search or some such indignity. Of course, nothing of the sort happened but I have a relatively active imagination. While our driver hashed things out with the horde of local police, I sneaked a little picture through our back window.

A couple minutes and 100 rupees later (about $2 US) we were back on the road and on our way to the hotel.

I have many many more pictures to show but not another moment to spare, so for now, I'm signing off. It's time to eat and then spend the say shopping.