Mumbai

We've been in Mumbai for five days now, catching a train to Goa tomorrow night, and it's been very nice. Mumbai is a good city. They have sidewalks here. I never realized how much I loved sidewalks. The people are much more relaxed and less scammy then they were in the first few weeks of our trip. We have since discovered that the northern part we were in , Rajasthan, is known for being hard to travel and full of jerks. WHO KNEW. I DO. NOW. Jesus. I doubt I will ever go back to Rajasthan (motto: We don't like you, but we love your money!). I'm not really sure what the thought process is with people who really want tourists to come, but then treat them like crap. There's been a drought there for the last decade or so, I imagine that a lot of the suckiness of the place is from people being desperate. With the climate turning into what it is, things are probably going to get worse.

I've read several travel blogs written by people traveling from south to north that talk of how much nicer the south was, which I was very relieved to hear, as well as running into other tourists that echo the same. An old man from South Africa today told us his son had been traveling around India for two months and had told him to stick to the south. I wish I'd known all this before, we could have halved our time in Rajasthan, as well as feeling less I HATE THIS PLACE knowing it would get better.

Goa, being the beach resort it is, is probably going to be more scammy then other areas, but at least there won't be the lack of humidity destroying my delicate nasal passages.