For those of you who were at my 30th at Dalmeny Towers, you'll remember the theme as above. Inspired by my obsession with every colour of the rainbow and my tendency to wear all of them at once, my darling Mum once commented "It's not that the colours you choose aren't pretty, it's just that you wear them altogether with such violence." Well, I have finally found a place where my tendency fits right in. I love the violence of the colours here, everywhere you look the women are wearing hot pinks with bright blues and greens and yellows and reds and golds and I just want to capture them all at once in my mind's eye. I love it.
I'm struggling a bit today after a rather heavy night out on the tiles where I got my first taste of 5 star luxury here. WOW!! After a friend of Ems (the gorgeous Aussie Indian dancer Jess) birthday party we all ended up at a club in the Grand Hyatt. For a city with people crammed into hovels and living on the pavements, to walk into a hotel which is so humungous that you could stage the Olympics inside is rather bewildering. Sort of sickening really.
Rich and Andy have arrived from Rajasthan and are such fun. The Bungalow In The Clouds is brimming with people who are all taking off in completely different directions in a few days (A & R back to Oz, Ems back to her Tollywood film set in Calcutta and Cam to Delhi for a big board meeting). But I'm getting ahead of myself, as I haven't told you about the shadow readings yet.
Before I left, Jez and Lise gave me a wonderful guide book called Love Mumbai that is full of the best tips and selections of out of the way recommendations that are usually spot on. Rich and Andy know Fiona who writes the books and they had decided that they were keen to have their shadows read by Anil who is a tenth generation distance healer. He and his son run a business where they measure your shadow on the roof and then ask you various basic questions about your family and astrology. Then you write a list of questions that Anil answers with his son doing some translating.
I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but it was fascinating to see how we all reacted to him and his predictions. Ems decided to bow out as each one took an hour so we would have been stuck there all afternoon, which in the end we were, so the rest of us had a go. Andy went first and urged Rich and I to come up after together so Anil could tag team our session. After standing on the roof with some dudes taking photos of us for a tourist guide they're putting together, we got our shadows measured and then went downstairs for our session.
Rich was immediately wary of Anil and asked him some probing questions that he didn't really answer satisfactorily, while I was rather wide eyed and happy to go along for what was clearly a bit of a ride. I won't go into all my predictions but despite there being a bit of a language/accent barrier, it was mostly positive and it got me thinking about lots of things and I was pleased to hear that I"m going to be enlightened in this lifetime. Yippeee!
On arriving back at the flat, a henna artist arrived and spent 2 hours covering my hands and forearms with the most incredible designs. I have always wanted to get it done properly and seeing all the ladies at the wedding on Monday looking so graceful, I have been on a mission to find someone to do it. Thanks to Asif and his gorgeous sister for coming to the flat and covering me. You should have seen the state of the flat this morning after our big henna session and night, there was stuff EVERYWHERE. God bless Anju who cleans everything up, what a crazy experience it is having a maid (such an outdated term that is still used here) and a driver. Oh the luxuries of Asia, it's easy to see how so many ex-pats find it hard to go home.
So, it really is time for me to book my ticket to Kerala, but I can't seem to find any cheap ones and trains are pretty booked up. I'm going to have another go online and see what I can find. I've spent a lot of today reading up about the south and I am jumping out of my skin with excitement to get down there. I'm going to relish my last few days in this here city though.
Oh and my quest for the best chai in India found a new front runner at Anil's office, but the cup that our charming neighbour Roland just brewed for me was delish. He lost his wife only a few days ago after a long illness (Ems was at the funeral yesterday) but he welcomed me through his door and made jokes almost constantly. The best was when the phone went and it was his brother's family from Canada calling, "You've just interrupted me as I was about to make love to an Australian girl. Life goes on!" I hope I can be that resiliant and positive and hilarious when I'm 78 and recently bereaved. He's off to see 11 local choirs perform tonight at one of the 7 churches in Bandra. He's devoutly Catholic but loves visiting churches of all faiths, I love people who are all embracing in their lives and Roland is the embodiment of this.
Namaste.
I'm struggling a bit today after a rather heavy night out on the tiles where I got my first taste of 5 star luxury here. WOW!! After a friend of Ems (the gorgeous Aussie Indian dancer Jess) birthday party we all ended up at a club in the Grand Hyatt. For a city with people crammed into hovels and living on the pavements, to walk into a hotel which is so humungous that you could stage the Olympics inside is rather bewildering. Sort of sickening really.
Rich and Andy have arrived from Rajasthan and are such fun. The Bungalow In The Clouds is brimming with people who are all taking off in completely different directions in a few days (A & R back to Oz, Ems back to her Tollywood film set in Calcutta and Cam to Delhi for a big board meeting). But I'm getting ahead of myself, as I haven't told you about the shadow readings yet.
Before I left, Jez and Lise gave me a wonderful guide book called Love Mumbai that is full of the best tips and selections of out of the way recommendations that are usually spot on. Rich and Andy know Fiona who writes the books and they had decided that they were keen to have their shadows read by Anil who is a tenth generation distance healer. He and his son run a business where they measure your shadow on the roof and then ask you various basic questions about your family and astrology. Then you write a list of questions that Anil answers with his son doing some translating.
I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but it was fascinating to see how we all reacted to him and his predictions. Ems decided to bow out as each one took an hour so we would have been stuck there all afternoon, which in the end we were, so the rest of us had a go. Andy went first and urged Rich and I to come up after together so Anil could tag team our session. After standing on the roof with some dudes taking photos of us for a tourist guide they're putting together, we got our shadows measured and then went downstairs for our session.
Rich was immediately wary of Anil and asked him some probing questions that he didn't really answer satisfactorily, while I was rather wide eyed and happy to go along for what was clearly a bit of a ride. I won't go into all my predictions but despite there being a bit of a language/accent barrier, it was mostly positive and it got me thinking about lots of things and I was pleased to hear that I"m going to be enlightened in this lifetime. Yippeee!
On arriving back at the flat, a henna artist arrived and spent 2 hours covering my hands and forearms with the most incredible designs. I have always wanted to get it done properly and seeing all the ladies at the wedding on Monday looking so graceful, I have been on a mission to find someone to do it. Thanks to Asif and his gorgeous sister for coming to the flat and covering me. You should have seen the state of the flat this morning after our big henna session and night, there was stuff EVERYWHERE. God bless Anju who cleans everything up, what a crazy experience it is having a maid (such an outdated term that is still used here) and a driver. Oh the luxuries of Asia, it's easy to see how so many ex-pats find it hard to go home.
So, it really is time for me to book my ticket to Kerala, but I can't seem to find any cheap ones and trains are pretty booked up. I'm going to have another go online and see what I can find. I've spent a lot of today reading up about the south and I am jumping out of my skin with excitement to get down there. I'm going to relish my last few days in this here city though.
Oh and my quest for the best chai in India found a new front runner at Anil's office, but the cup that our charming neighbour Roland just brewed for me was delish. He lost his wife only a few days ago after a long illness (Ems was at the funeral yesterday) but he welcomed me through his door and made jokes almost constantly. The best was when the phone went and it was his brother's family from Canada calling, "You've just interrupted me as I was about to make love to an Australian girl. Life goes on!" I hope I can be that resiliant and positive and hilarious when I'm 78 and recently bereaved. He's off to see 11 local choirs perform tonight at one of the 7 churches in Bandra. He's devoutly Catholic but loves visiting churches of all faiths, I love people who are all embracing in their lives and Roland is the embodiment of this.
Namaste.
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