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You wake up in Bombay

Some thoughts about Bombay:

• The food is amazing.   And super heavy.
• The weather is warm.  There are (what look like) palm trees across the street from my hotel. 
• The streets are very very crowded near my Hotel in Juhu beach.  There’s no sidewalks.  Traffic rules are followed loosely.  People are everywhere.
• Slums.  Everywhere.  There’s trash and stray dogs everywhere.  The water next to my hotel is a sort of murky blue.  And in a ‘trash everywhere’ sort of way.  Not a ‘reflecting the clear blue sky’ way.  I was photographing a slum on the way to my hotel yesterday and was shooed away by a guard.  I guess everyone cares about India’s international image.
• I saw my first kid taking a shit in the middle of the street today.  
• Dudes. Holding Hands.  On the street.  I’m told it’s not a gay thing.
• The majority of folks in Mumbai are small business owners.  It’s kind of charming.  There are small street shops everywhere. Everyone’s a hustler.   
• The culture is socially conservative relative to New York City.  
• The smell.  You get a whiff of these absolutely putrid smells every once in a while.  I’m told that eventually you barely notice.
• There’s like 12 bars in all of Bombay.  I miss the East Village, where there’s 12 bars on my block.