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Good day to All!  

I definitely am the weary traveler and don't remember it hitting me quite so hard last year. For those that have followed me on Facebook some if of this may be history but I am going to repeat myself in some areas I'm sure.  My apologies up front. As most of you know I just returned from my trip to India visiting my daughter Leslie and her husband Ahbi. With Teresa not liking to fly and the boys still in school, my family did not make the trip with me so I went it alone. I flew out last Thursday March 22nd and returned to Augusta at 3 am Tuesday morning April 3rd. Some 14,000 miles later it was nice to be back, but I must admit I had one of the nicest trips I have ever taken.  

When I arrived in Goa, India I was met at the airport some 35 hours after I left Augusta. It was quite the journey and it seemed even longer on the way home. The first day in India, Leslie and I went to the beach and I made the bad mistake of eating some uncooked vegetables without giving it any thought. I had eaten some fried calamari which was delicious and still being a little hungry, decided I would eat the shredded carrots and cabbage  used more as a garnish on my plate. Mistake #1. The next morning I woke not feeling quite right and spent the next 2 hours in the bathroom and the next 12 hours in bed with Leslie providing me cold towels, sips of water and electrolytes. I also took some medicine which seemed to help. Once the fever broke I was feeling better but I was pretty useless the next day. It's awful to say but I really didn't care if I died only to realize later Leslie was pretty concerned.  

The next six days were an absolute blast traveling around Goa by car, seeing all the sights, meeting the locals and pretty much just hanging out with Leslie and her husband Ahbi. Towards the end of the week, we flew to Mumbai and stayed with my daughter's brother in law, Apoorva Lahkia, a well known movie director. We rode around the city at midnight taking in many of the sights of a city with 12 million people, with very little traffic on the road I might add.  

The next day Apu's driver took us around Mumbai and I made the huge mistake of passing some money out through the window to one of the poor children standing near by. Mistake #2. Before we knew it we had a mob scene of small children all around the car and, because we were in traffic, we were unable to move. The kids were leaning on the car and tapping the windows and the driver became very upset at the kids. I felt terrible but there was little I could do at that point. I have since learned that the driver upon returning back home told Apu that he wanted to take my "blanking" wallet from me. I will never pull that stunt again. But if you had seen the children in real life you would understand. I do have some pictures that I will share. The photo with the little boy holding up paper money was one of the first to receive my gift. The other kids in the photo came towards the car just after the windows were up and locked. The only consolation for me is that all the children looked well kept and well fed.  

We then went to three sights where the 2008 Mumbai attacks occurred at the hands of terrorists. At the train station, Chhatrapati Sciyajl Terminus, 58 people were killed and 104 injured. Today there are sand bagged bunkers with military personnel and AK 47 rifles throughout the train station on alert for the next such attempt. We then went to lunch at the Taj Mahal Hotel where 200 people were rescued and buildings were set on fire. I am not sure of the number of deaths that occurred at this location. There were no signs that anything had ever occurred. On our third stop, we went to the Leopold Cafe where two attackers opened fire on November 26 killing ten and injuring many more. Bullet holes still remain in the walls and doors as a reminder of that horrible day. It was these attacks that prevented me from attending my daughter's Indian wedding back in 2009.

On a much lighter note, we went to Bollywood one day and met Ahbi's cousin who has a lead role in a t.v. series called Choti Bahu. We were actually on the set while they were filming a scene where Aditya, Ahbi's cousin, had to cry because his daughter was leaving to live with her new husbands family. In order to cry, they pulled his lower eyelid down and placed glycerin on it which causes the eye to water profusely. It was neat watching the entire t.v. set with approximately 30 people in the crew required to shoot the scenes. At one point the director was putting as much feeling into the shoot as was the actor. Pretty intense.  

After falling ill the first day I was really careful what I ate thereafter and felt fine the rest of the trip. I had a really great time at the market place, purchasing gifts for my staff back home. They haven't seen their gifts yet because I don't have them unpacked yet!

The most amazing thing to me in Mumbai India was the extreme poverty right next to such affluence. It has been explained to me that the poorer people are the labor and serve a very much needed purpose.  Another thing that struck me is how slow construction goes in the smaller cities and villages and the lack of power tools and machinery. A project that would be completed in six months here would take 3-4 years in India, unless you were in a big city where those buildings are built very similar to the construction in the US.     

I will have much more to write about in a future newsletter but for now, I have included pictures for you to see some of what I have experienced in the last week and a half and written about here.  

We are open for Easter this Sunday from 7 am to 6 pm. We are serving breakfast from 7 am to 11 am, breakfast buffet is available from 7 am to noon and Easter Dinner starts at noon. We hope you plan to join us on Easter for breakfast, lunch or dinner!  

Happy Easter to All!

Norm                 

Indian construction workers 

Cow in India- jay walking!

Leslie on her porch in Goa 

Indian lady market vendor

Norm and market vendor

 Norm with Elder hosting house party

20 rupees for a surprise blessing, 10 rupees more for picture!

Truck in Mumbai

Dobi Ghat outdoor laundry mat

Manual labor downtown Mumbai

Boy with money in traffic

Handing out money- drew a crowd

Girl in traffic- hard to look away....

Mumbai home near beach

Modern structure in Mumbai

Mumbai- people living on streets

Victoria Terminus in Mumbai built by British  

Norm on Choti Bahu t.v. show set

Norm, Candice and Apoorva, Leslie's brother in law

Mumbai sunset from Apoorva's apartment  

Mumbai city building near places of poverty 

Taj Mahal Hotel entry in Mumbai

Mumbai from the air