1/26/06: Airlines That Go Bump in the Morning AKA Hello, Thali

After first class and flawless transatlantic and cross-continental treatment from Lufthansa, Susie, Anne, and your humble narrator squeezed in a few hours of restless sleep at our not-so luxurious hotel near the Mumbai airport. Down at 3 and up at 5:30am for our 7:15 Jet Airways flight to Aurangabad and an afternoon of spiritual spelunking in the Elora caves. Or, so we thought. Unfortunately, Rick’s seat was shot down by a 5am check-in attack from a 51-person Japanese tour group (and airline overbooking). After much consternation, Anne and Susie boarded the flight, while Rajen from Ventours escorted Rick out of the airport and to the luxurious airport Hyatt to freshen up and cool off (without uttering a single obscenity or deafening roar, no less). After a quick rinse and a relaxing game of computer bridge (small slam), and some downward dog, Rick embarked on a behind the scenes tour of Mumbai, with Rajen as the informal guide and Satish behind the wheel. With Republic Day (national holiday) limiting traffic and crowds, Rick got a palatable, and not so overwhelming taste for city life. First stop, the “open laundry,” a two-acre, thousand-gallon-per-hour human washing machine. Hundreds of undercastemen laboriously splash, pound, and ring the laundry the old-fashioned way, and they don’t earn much -- a mere 2 rupees per sari. The remainder of the am (that’s pm minutes 30 minutes CST) found us crusading the back alleys of a Christian enclave, strolling barefoot through a Jain temple, wandering a series of open-air markets, avoiding hawkers of 50 Rupee copies of Freakonomics, visiting a holy cow orphanage, failing to comprehend a courtyard explanation of the Gita, watching vultures hover over an open Parsis graveyard, recycling bottled water and coffee at the regal Taj Hotel’s spotless WC, and glimpsing the Arabian Sea from Chowpatty beach. Our tour culminated in a culinary masterpiece, a vegetarian thali at Rajen’s favorite dining spot, where I was the sole honky and where 40 natives patiently waited for a table as we devoured our last dollop of dhal. Back to the Hyatt for a quick catnap, before Satish returned this weary traveler to Jet Airways’ production of the MUM-me Returns, where, Rick’s evening flight landed him in Aurangabad without incident, just in time to meet up with Anne, Ronna, Susie, and Paul, and load up on the dinner buffet at the Taj.