No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem?

We knew it was bound to happen. Besides the mysterious disappearing of our cell phone in the first 2 weeks away, we haven't had anything stolen. In fact, I have taken pride that we have been so careful and held onto all our belongings. But, you put your guard down for one minute and BAM!, someone steals your shoes. Here is an account of the couple days leading up to the incident.

Our last day in Mumbai was interesting, to say the least. A couple days before we had met a little boy with one eye and he bargained with a taxi driver for us. We loved him but thought we would never see him again...we were wrong. As we were walking around the city we ran into him again and bought him some McDonald's. I thought we would go our separate ways after some fries and a coke but again, I was wrong. He gave us a tour of the city and tried to get us to take him to the movies. I'm sure he was homeless, not sure if he had a family, but he was definitely well known by everyone throughout the city. Just about all of the vendors laughed as we passed by and I got the feeling they knew something we didn't. After some dinner (which he ordered) we tried to head to the train station alone....at this point his previously outgoing, happy demenour turned into one of a sad, quiet boy, who was distraught at the fact that we would not buy him a train ticket out of Mumbai. As much as we would have liked to help him, 1000 rupees was a little steep and we had to hope that 2 meals was generous enough. Here is Jess with little "one eye."


Our first overnight trip on the train was uneventful. We arrived in Anjuna beach safe and sound (despite the fact that Jess had strep throat) and immediately went to the beach. As in most places we have been so far, a lot of Anjuna's beauty and charm was overshadowed by the poverty, dirt, and constant begging. However, once we got past that it was really beautiful. Cows roam, men do yoga in their chairs, and women in colorful sarongs stroll along the beach. It was a sight to see. Anjuna's main attraction is their Wednesday market. Let me tell you...these Indians know how to put together a market. At first we were a bit intimidated with the constant badgering by vendors. But, by the end of the day we bargained hard and got some good deals. We were there until after the sun went down and would have stayed longer if we could have. Here is the jewelery portion of the market:

So here begins the horrible journey to Hampi. I like to refer to our bus as the vehicle from hell. Consider the worst bus you have ever been on in your entire life. Now, ram that bus into a couple of poles, maybe pee on some of the seats, and then pack it over capacity and put all the luggage in the aisles. Besides the fact that there was no air conditioning and our seats didn't recline at all, there was no ventilation, no shocks on the tires, no muffler, sharp metal wires sticking out of the seats in front of us and barely a shell of metal surrounding the exterior of the vehicle. To make matters worse, our seats were above where the muffler should have been. So, you can imagine the "fresh" air that we were breathing in for the 14 hour journey. Stupidly Jess and I moved to different seats and I left behind my backpack and shoes. Although I did consider the fact that someone might steal them, I didn't think that they would have far to run since we were on a bus (plus I brought my valuables with me...or so I thought). What is one man's garbage is another's treasure - someone not only stole my headlight, camera wire, date book, sewing kit, pictures of my family (!), princess playing cards, and t-shirt....but my shoes and deodorant to boot! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. At this point I began to interrogate everyone on the bus, but to no avail. Men who previously spoke fluent English magically lost all knowledge of the language. So, I have accepted that my shoes are gone, as is my deodorant (and Jess's deodorant too). We can only hope to see them on sale somewhere on the streets of India in order to buy them back. Oh yea, I also got the famous Indian stomach disease right before we got on the bus. I'll leave the details up to your imagination.

Right now we are in Hampi. After a day in bed and a trip to the "doctor," we were up and running again today. This city is full of ruins from the 1500's and good for people watching. Women wash clothes in the nearby river and boys go jumping off rocks into the water. Oh yea, we also got blessed by a elephant today...very odd but definitely something to try. We also walked around with red dots on our heads all day and got laughed at by the locals. Fun times. Tomorrow we head south to Mysore to check out some more ruins.

Oh yea, don't expect many new pictures anytime soon....you can blame that on an India thief we encountered on the vehicle from hell. Erin, you will be interested to know that he threw back the Mark Twain book you sent me to read.