Bonde Hair and Missing Husbands

It's been a few days since I've been on internet so this may be a long one!! My second day in Mumbai I spent touring around the city. Went to a temple, a couple gardens, one of the laundry areas (all the laundry in the city from hotels, hospitals etc gets sent to outdoor launders), the fishing area where the terrorists who bombed mumbai a while ago landed (apparently one of the women who lives there told the police when they arrived but they ignored her as she was just a poor fisherwoman...), then the gateway to India. In the afternoon I took a one hour boat ride over to the Elephant Caves. On the boat met a young Indian family (two couples and a baby) who sat next to me and wanted pictures with me. They wanted a picture of me holding their baby (he was around a year old) but he was a bit freaked out to be held by me. Eventually he came and sat beside me and wouldn't look at me but kept reaching over to hold my hand and look at my white fingers!
At the Elephant Caves you have to climb a bunch of stairs to get to the caves. At the bottom I had stopped to get my camera out and set down my bottle of lemonade(which I had just bought and had one sip out of) when one of the hundreds of monkeys ran up and snatched it and ran off to try and drink it! Freakin' monkeys!
As I was leaving the caves I ran into the family again and they wanted a couple more pictures. While they were taking pictures, a swarm of young boys crowded around wanting to take pictures. Eventually I had to make a dash for it or I would have been stuck there all night with people wanting to take pictures.
Every man/boy wants to know if I am traveling "single". This is pretty common here as it's very unusual for Inidan women to travel alone. Sooo... my "husband" has been in various places from back in Canada working to at the hotel as he didn't feel like doing whatever I happen to be doing. If I say I am single I will be in big trouble as I will then not be left alone AT ALL. Depending on how persistent the person is, helps me decide whether my husband is in Canada or meeting up with me shortly!
Friday I flew to Kolkata. Fairly uneventful. We were loaded onto the plane and then sat and waited for an hour before the pilots finally showed up!
When I arrived in Kolkata it had started to rain, so by the time I got out of the airport with my bags and prepaid taxi receipt it was a downpour (the type the leaves the streets flooded within 20 minutes). Of course my rain jacket was buried somewhere in my bags so I was completely drenched just from crossing the road to get my taxi! Then, when I finally got my taxi, he didn't know where I needed to go and couldn't speak english. Eventually I broke down and called the guest house (which I'm sure will show up as about $100 for the 1min 35sec phone call but needed to happen!).
Finally I arrived at the guest house. The room was about the size of a small prison cell with no windows and just a bed (which I'm pretty sure I've picked up some bedbugs from :( not nice) and a shared squat toilet and shower. But for 230 Rs (just under $5)/night you make do until you can find something better!! Which I did!
Yesterday morning a met a girl from Spain who is here doing some work with a small NGO in one of the Islam slums here. She invited me to come with her yesterday even though they weren't going to be doing much. 6 of us went and we stopped at one of the private hospitals along the way to pick up some medications pay for a procedure one of the children had. We spent the morning and early afternoon visiting the families and having many pictures taken!
In the early evening we met up with a friend of hers (from previous visits) and he took us to one of the parks where we had a view of Howrath Bridge (very famous bridge here)!
Today I moved into a new hotel!! Thanks to Laura. It is much nicer with my own shower and toilet!!!! It costs "alot" 995Rs/night (about $20/night) but I think I can afford to pay more then $5 night!!
Oh, just a sort of funny/could have been not good story. This morning I woke up having to pee really, really badly. So into the toilet I went. It's not an easy task trying to squat over a whole, not pee on yourself or your clothes, and trying not to step in anything from other people. So while I was squatting there trying to pee, my foot slipped sending me into a one legged very low sideways squat as I tried to regain my balance and not go falling backwards or forwards (both of which would have been fairly unpleasant!). Somehow I managed and recovered my balance without a mishap! I'm not sure how the women here do it with the long sarees!!!
Anyhow, more in the next day or two!