In the beginning there was the smell. Getting off the plane in the Mumbai airport, it is balmy and almost fetid.
Lufthansa has almost totally destroyed my checked bag, but we cut a deal and they pay in cash- a first!
I use the pre-paid taxi option and the driver takes me close to the hotel, before deciding that he has no idea where he's going. I'm staying in a neighborhood called Parel, of which I know nothing.
The security in front of the hotel at 4am is serious, they scan the car with some sort of device, and then nod at me. I notice that when I stay still and then nod/smile, people mimic me.
The lobby is adorned with christmas elves. What is it about non-christian developing countries and christmas? Weird post-colonial relic.
The room is terrific and the bed is amazingly comfortable.
I wake at 7:30 and run 5k on a treadmill, before meeting a woman from Philadelphia who is here with here with family to relocate to Mumbai. She has three kids, is very friendly, and seems hesitant about the move.
There is bottled water everywhere and the staff at the hotel treats me like i'm a visting emissary from abroad.
Loisaida is a term derived from the Latino (and especially Puerto Rican) pronunciation of "Lower East Side", a neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City. Loisaida Avenue is now an alternate name for Avenue C in the Alphabet City neighborhood of New York City, whose population has largely been Hispanic (mainly Puerto Rican) since the late 1960s.
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