First days in INDIA

Here I am, listening to bollywood sound from the radio, sitting in a small, far too hot internet cafe on a dirty road in Manipal.

Whatever you think about India, it's different. The first day here I felt more like a movie, or better like a drug trip. Everything is new and so different from the known that it's hard to associate the impressions with previous experience.

It's too much to comprehend and give any concluding statements or evaluations, but I'll try with a few impressions.
Pictures will follow later when I get internet on my own computer.

I arrived in Mumbai airport at midnight, when August 1st was starting. Mumbai airport is not a big city airport, it's more of a construction site, and it took me quite a while to get my baggage. Since there were no indications I was waiting at the wrong luggage belt for about an hour. I had to wait for my connecting flight which was at 11 am, so I left the airport and was immediately approached by a taxi driver. Despite all the mental preparations and what I knew I ended up in his car. I had a very hard time convincing him that I will not take a hotel which he was offering me for "very good price". He told me that I couldn't stay at the airport, because the domestic terminal was closed during the night (Which wasn't true), and he drove me around Mumbai for an hour, before he dropped me of at the airport again. First he drove me into some kind of slum, stopped the car and made me pay around 20 Euro, which is a horrendous amount of money here.
Anyway I saw some slums, poor people, dirt, and the coast.

I then spent the rest of the night sleeping in a chair at the airport, closely holding my bags and waking up every half hour checking my belongings. My trust in Indian people was pretty devastated.
Finally I caught my plain to Mangalore Airport. The view from the plain was great. Mangalore, as well as Manipal (close to Udupi, which one can find on google maps) are in the rain forest. I was picked up by a driver from the University and we took 1.5 hours for the 60km to Manipal. Just the ride was an adventure as such. The first thing we came across was a group of cows in the middle of the road. Then the normal indian driving. The road is bumpy and shared by cars, busses, trucks, motor bikes, bicicles, rickshaws and pedestrians. Instead of breaks people use the horn. Driving is supposedly on the left lane, but usually in the middle of the road if there are no other cars. Sometimes people also drive on the right.

In Manipal I found my flat with 3 rooms. I share a room with a Portuguese, in the other two rooms a Lebanese, an Iranian, a Romanian and a guy from the USA live. We're all doing internships at the university and part of the community of about 30 interns here. So far I'm well integrated in this international community, but I have talked to few Indians except for those from IAESTE (the organization arranging the internships). However the people here in Manipal are all nice and I have regained my trust in Indians :)

Manipal a suburb of Udupi. More accurate its a university and a number of houses and shops in the jungle. It's not comparable to a city or village in Germany. I hope to be able to upload some videos soon. A picture won't be sufficient to capture the life, noise, dirt, color and heat in the streets. It's crazy!

I haven't met my employer yet, since she's ill today and I hope to see her tomorrow.

That's it so far. More to follow as soon as I get a proper internet connection (which should be by the middle of the week, but in India things can take longer ...)

Greetings to all my friends and family!
Namaste!