Sensory Overload

Izzie and I are back from our lovely month long monsoon escape to London.  We really loved seeing friends, clean green streets, orderly traffic and shopping in Waitrose : ) but then again we missed the chaos and un-expected that each day brings in India.


Sensory overload on a trip into Mumbai this week. In one hour & a half we saw:

• 4 men playing cards in the middle of a paddock between the highways
• Rubbish on the roof of houses - storage space or holding it down in the monsoon winds?
• A man selling old fashioned Gramophones on the side of the highway in the middle of no where
• Tiny kids all alone on a school bus - maybe 18 months old
• People riding & sleeping on fruit & vege in the back of tuk tuk trucks
• People holding up umbrella's while riding motor & push bikes
• Kids asleep on motorbikes
• Ladies carrying a weeks worth of shopping on their heads
• Stray & pet cows wondering the roads & footpaths
• Nude kids
• Kids doing their number 2 business on the footpath
• Stray dogs hanging out in packs discussing their next meal
• Everyone using plastic bags instead of handbags/backpacks
• A million tuk tuk's buzzing in and out of traffic
• Traffic police helping (hindering) traffic flow
• Overloaded bicycles and hand carts with all sorts of weird & wonderful objects
• A new fashion - bubble wrap jackets
• Various sized Ganesha idols being transported in trucks to ponds or the sea accompanied by drummers & people dancing
• Loads of washing hanging on the safety rails in the middle of the road
• Pot holes the size of  Izzie's paddling pool
• Man having a wash in a bucket on a busy street
• Gross paan masala being spat everywhere

We reached our expat bubble (fancy pants hotel) & enjoyed a well deserved coffee after our accidental sightseeing journey.