They say India is a land of extremes and opposites, I suppose every country is if you look hard enough, and I hope to be able to prove that true of many places.
But India hits you hard, in both ways.
I have had a great day, since getting all the aggravation off my chest this morning it feels a little more like I've spoken to all the people who, the first night, I missed terribly. Which is all of you, so pat your own back and kiss your arse, this hippy misses the lot of ya.
Yes, you can wipe away that tear now, no-one saw you 
The genuine excitement and all positive feelings were truly killed by getting ripped off that night, and it was even more annoying thatn I mentioned already; I also forked over $30US to the guy who took me from the airport to the `hotel`, he was argumentative as hell and it was the first time I'd paid anything out. I gave him ten bucks and he stopped the car and said `not enough` in a clear, angry voice - looking outside there were about half a million stray and dead dogs ambling about in a suspiciously leprous fashion, and a dozen people clothed in rags either limping along in the gutter or crashed out spawled over the pavement. Some of them may have been dead too. I was not in the mood to have a non-moving vehicle being the only thing between me and apparent hell, so, I paid.
But aaaaaaanyway, this is not how today has been at all, and indeed last night I was in Leopold's bar talking to some lovely folk; a French couple called Carol and somethingsomethingsomething, pretty sure it was georges or gonzalez or something; he wasn't really the talkatiove type. Also a French-Canadian guy called Josh who was the epitome of helpfulness, and who ran a running translation of my semi-drunken rant to the French guys, and what a nice man he was too 
The joy of being abroad and somewhere unpredictable and exciting is coming back now and I should have a full tank of happy juice in a day or two. It turned as I was writing this morning, as it happens, as in the cramped but agreeable internet cafe I asked painfully middle-class group of Englanders about any cheap ways they knew about to get to Goa, and understanding at last what I should actually be doing, I took their mildly condescending (and likely well-deserved) advice and just went out looking!
They were travelling in a group 3 so maybe it's easier to be confident in your surroundings when you have people to talk to and bounce ideas off, or then again maybe I'm just being a pussy, who knows 
I do know that not having anyone to talk to was my biggest concern yesterday, and the fateful night leading up to it.
So I trundled out of the 'net cafe, and went down Colaba Causeway in search of anything I felt like looking for, which turned out to be batteries for the camera which proved unhagglable and suntan lotion from a charming old boy in a tidy little shop which was hagglabale to a degree of about 30%. Score one for the pasty Englishman!!
And then, having promised you lot plemnty of pictures, I got a taxi (having bloody well got the price up-front, thak you so very much) to the Gatewat To India whic would have been massively more impressive had the formal gardens in front of it not been in the process of being decimated by the local sewage company, or possibly just a group if itinerant navvies who live in a secret underground bunker complex and who just can't help but take their work home.
I'n betting on the former option myself, but just thought I would share anyway
Next up was the Victoria Terminus station (now called Chharatraparvati Shivaji terminus but still better know here as VT) and boy, if you thought the Gateway might be impressive (which it was, I couldn't actually stand back far enough to get it all in the frame! This wasn't helped by the navvies/sewage workers blocking off 80% of the nearby ground mind you, but hey. It's still very very big) then the chief railway station in Mumbai is something else entirely - I had to take a video to get about 3/4 of one side in, and that didn't reach the top!
Talk about empirical might and dominance, this thing looked like a shopping mall in a very empty part of the USA, I dread to think how many thousand lines and platforms it has.
Haven't gone inside, and unfortunately I now wont.
I have booked a flight to Goa tomorrow at midday.
Getting back from the VT I retained a cab - all of which are modelled after 1950s Fiats and are apparently designed to decapitate/spinally crush anyone over 5'2" tall, or are simply made this way for the amusement of Bombay cabbies - driven by an oustandingly Muslim guy who in turn was very interested in my camera, I took a video of him and the station together and when I showed him he laughed like a drain for a whole minute, he was one happy cabby.
Up until the point when he asked if I was married.
It is a huge cultural creed here that anyone over the age of about 19 without a spouse is a no-goodnik of the highest order: he quoted me with `low-life, no wife` after someone tried to sell me some map or other through window in a traffic jam, jabbing at the culprit with an angry digit.
Apparently their lack of proper job and general oppourtunist nature when it came to selling junk was due to the lack of precious metals adorning their 3rd finger (and the third finger of someone else, of course).
I can almost see what he means, especially in this culture as the `proper people` who have regular jobs (i.e. not selling stuff on the street - stallholders not included in this by the way -, begging, stealing etc. are doing so because they don't have their own family, are not decent enough to have a family (apparebtly) and don't have the associated family morals as a result.
Simplistic view, yes, but broadly one that seems to be held here. I was telling the cabbie how in England, it's not the same and had to refarin from tellin him what a low-life scumbag unable-to-get-a-girlfriend sonofabitch I, in truth, must be
Incidentally, despite him being both muslim and foreign, he showed not the slightest inclination to get aboard a ship bound for England in order to sponge off our taxes. Wow. Colour me surprised
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One thing I have to say I'm universally impressed by is the staff at ATMs - yes, there is a uniformed guard at every ATM/cashpoint, even in the semi-slums (where I had to get money out yesterday).
They are the epitome of helpfulness and when the locals subtly barge into the queue in front of you the guard guy remembers every time, and only lets in the person who's place it really is. Not easy on a busy street in the tourist district of India's second city.
The flight people were also very helpful and polite, and spoke the best English I've encountered so far in the local community, about 45 quid to get to Goa, one hour flight, booked the very day before in mid-class seating. At such short notice I couldn't be arsed to argue and the price really isn't too bad, airline flights are not subject to the same diminishing values as everything else paid for in ye good olde Rupees.
The best part of today really is avoiding paying for anything that anyone actively wants to sell to you, and buying only what you want. The street outside my hotel and the Leopold bar is immensely crowded, with stalls and prowling sellers launcing their wares at you from both sides simultaneously.
Moving down their corridor of enticements you simply have to ignmore every single thing, even when they follow you half a block to try and grab a sale. It's strangely satisfying, I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I know, deep down in my soul, that I am better off not owning vast numbers of replica ivory elephants, or sawthes of gold-effect jewellery that would put Mr. T to shame.
The only one who got me today was cunning; he confronted me when I wasn't moving, having just turned back from a mini mall thing on the main street, and he was dressed in saffron robes.
Proffering sweet candy and flowers, and taking my hand to tie a cord around it he launched into a small and pleasant tirade about something or other, ending on a question to which there was but one possible answer: Baksheesh.
Grease of the city's grubby axles, baksheesh is the term for bribery, tipping, the paying of appropriated `guides` who show you to the places you've already spotted and were headed for, more often than not, and anything else involving the paying of small sums for basically nothing at all.
And we all love a bit of semi-legalised bribery don't we?! Yay!!!
He claimed it to be for his Ashram but I'm fairly sure the guys in Ashrams don't go into big cities and hawk candy and flowers on the street for profit - Sarah, if you can shed any light here that would be great!!
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And of course traffic, loving the traffic, it's just like a busy night in London although admittedly even the London cabbies don't use the 3-lane roads they are gifted with as 5-lane racetracks - there are no lanes on most roads and they simply made them wide enough to accomodate an entire marching British military regiment/73 autorickshaws gunning for death or glory in the pursuit of the next fare.
Roundabouts are also direction-optional - if it gets them ahead of at least one other vehicle and the route is at least semi-clear then most of these guys have no problems with cutting off a right-hand turn by going to the right, the wrong way through oncoming traffic, around a roundabout.
Yes, they drive on the left here. Days of colonial empire, and all that jazz.
Another thing worth mentioning is that I'm eating almost totally vegetarian now, it's easier and more trustworthy and I like not having to take an hour to digest my meal. I had something with rice and beef in last night though and, in a statement sure to shock some of you (I'm looking at you, Chris) I felt sick about eating it as I was trying to sleep last night.
Then again it may have been the flagrant mis-use of soy sauce when cooking it, I dunno.
Well that's me for the day, I got a flight tomorrow and I plan to get up and get to the aiprort early to use the internet there to get on with that big article I promised: `What you need to go travelling`, although now number one on the list is going to be "An overly suspicious mind and high level of natural cynicism, for the first day or two"
'Hippy Out!
PS No photos yet but I will find a PC with card reader soon, no worries!