Salaam Bombay!

My last Mumbai experience sucked but this time, I came prepared. Laura recommended a nice hotel that is clean and well-lit and not plagued by power outages or poor water pressure (sorry, Davina, j'adore my electricity). There's also cable! I watched a Ladytron video and a Divine Comedy video!

Nat gave me a list of what to do and see (she rocks) so I started my morning with a cappuccino (oh, don't start) from Barista, India's Starbucks, and then moseyed around Colaba, loving all the Victorian buildings and the water and the Taj Hotel to end all other Taj properties. I wish my Aussie homegirls were here to love it with me.

The weird thing about being here is that suddenly, I see Westerners. They're everywhere. Aside from the handful of guests at Davina's while I was on sick holiday, I saw about eight white people in Kerala, and more than half of those were in the airport. And Chennai's not really a backpacker's hub. So to be here, seeing shorts and the sandal-and-sock combination (note to Germans everywhere: Please stop this) and overhearing a Brit and an American on what could have only been a Nerve date last night (they covered How My Last Relationship Ended...always a tip-off) and finding a copy of Us magazine (hurrah!) and seeing streets without auto-rickshaws, only taxis: it's like India Lite.

Not that I'm qualified to hold forth on what does and does not constitute an authentic Indian experience, since after enjoying my British Marie-Claire, I got a pedicure and drank a chocolate milkshake.