52 hours later...

You'd think a 31 hour train ride would be enough to drive a person crazy...then comes another 21 hours worth of buses. Needless to say, not much sleep was had. One thing that was reiterated during these last two days is that deluxe buses in India suck. They are full of locals who think travelling is getting on a bus with A/C and watching a bollywood movie. Honestly, I have never felt so uncomfortable than on that bus since I got to this country.

Back to the train ride, it was a nice and slow journey from Delhi to Mumbai. What made it slow was that it stopped at every single station. Only good thing about that was the guys selling everything from idlis to dosas to pakoras. Oh ya, and a chai guy, or actually 10 guys, came by every 2 minutes. We also celebrated Diwali (Indian Festival of Lights) on Tuesday night. That consisted of singing, clapping, eating, listening to endless firecrackers go off outside the train, and, of course, a creepy Indian guy who had to get escorted off our carriage by the police because the women didn't like him. Night was a little chilly and one thing you realize very quickly in a carriage full of locals is that people go to bed really early and wake up really early. We're talkin' asleep at 8 and up at 4...not exactly my style.

Got off the bus in Mumbai and immediately noticed the difference between it and Delhi - everything is much newer. Instead of staying there a day or two, we decided to go straight to Goa. Good idea in theory, but it ended up taking a lot longer than planned. We spent 10 1/2 hours on the deluxe bus that took us to who knows where. At the end of that journey, some guy came on the bus and asked me to open my bags because he thought I was "selling" something. He wasn't a cop, but I still asked him for some identification. I honestly think he was younger than me to begin with...strange incident nonetheless.

The next bus took something like 10 hours and included a unexpected climb up a mountain pass and a steep decent that featured the usual Indian sport of hurling (no relation to curling). By that I mean decorating the sides of the bus. Near the top, we stopped for some south Indian veg thali (combo of 5 south Indian dishes with chapati and rice)...not bad for the middle of nowhere. Speaking of food, had a great masala dosa just outside Mumbai - best sambar and coconut chutney yet.

Well, here we are 52 hours later...finally clean and ready to hit the beaches and eat fish curry til we explode.