As my next traveling destination I chose South India. I have visited India already and so some people were wondering why I'm going over there again. There are more reasons, but among the main ones counts that I love this country and that the first time I saw only a small part of it. Last time I went to the north, this time to the south. India is really huge and on its territory is used not only several languages, but also several scripts, not at all similar to each other. Just on the notes the value is written in 15 languages ​​and 8 scripts.

Even after the my few trips that I've realized, I still have a problem to pack up. The scenario looks like this: I have already everything in my backpack and I start to go through those things as what do I need and what don't. It seems to me as always that my backpack is too big. I'm going there for 6 weeks – one t-shirt a day that means 42 t-shirts is it enough? I know myself, I'm a piggy, I will stain myself and then I will have to walk half day around in dirty t-shirt. I'd rather add 10. Good. Two pair of underpants. Isn't it a bit too much? Last time I brought one pair back clean and I've been abroad for longer time. I'll leave one pair here, I don't want to break my back with that backpack. This way I go through all the stuff and suddenly half of the content changes. Now I'm finally here and so according an old saying:"What you don't have, you don't need" I'm fully equipped.

Mumbai train station Architectural gem - scene of big railway station disaster

Mumbai. This city is sort of exceptional by its lot of architectural treasures of past times as well as present. From the time of colonization is for example whole trainstation Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), nicknamed by us locals as Victoria. Supposedly it is the busiest railway station in Asia. And there is something to it. As soon as the local train arrives to the station, the platform is instantly crowded and it is coming like a wave. It is getting closer and so there is no other choice than to make use of my knowledge from sea swimming and just in front of the wave dive and swim. When the wave flow past, I open my eyes a discover, that I'm doing strokes on the sidewalk in front of trainstation. For Krishna's sake what was that?! Aha, to the trainstation arrived two trains at once – it was bigger wave than I expected and so I dived too little. This reminds me of what I read on a plaque outside. Great railway accident of 1985. Thanks to poor traffic management happened that to the trainstation arrived trains to all of its platforms at the same time. People got off. The subsequent tsunami completely blew the whole lower part of the hall. Remains of the building are to this day scattered to a distance of several kilometers from the station. In the opposite building is still jammed old turnstile which they failed to pull out. These, for security reasons, never returned back and according to new rules there is allowed to arrive max. 5 trains altogether. Those two were enough for me, even now I'm trying to get Indians out of my ear.

Flood of passengers Smallish wave - after arrival of one train

The fact that India is a country of flavors and tastes knows everyone, but I would like to give you an idea of other senses. For example hearing. I won't discuss yelling of market sellers and rickshaw drivers, but there is a lot lot of sounds which are perfectly normal for locals and they go along with them. For instance shoe shining guys don't shout at all. They just sit by their boxes and when they are unoccupied they just start to beat at the box with a wooden stick. Customers really go along with the sound and when they wait in the queue for shining(which is quite common over here) and hear the beating they go directly to that unoccupied guy. Another sound is jingle bells fastened to the wheel of the sugar cane press, where is made delicious juice. From far away you can guess where to find this stall. It is possible basically to walk with your eyes closed, but it needs training. When I tried to follow the jingle bells I found just a flock of sheep with bells. Everyone can imagine what kind of juice they prepared for me.

I encountered first intestinal problems and I do suddenly recall that with those t-shirts and underpants it was supposed to be the other way around. My only underpants are "stained" and I've a backpack full of clean t-shirts. The thing that you can use the t-shirt as underpants I've seen already and for this case it's got a lot of advantages(you don't have to remove it at all), but it's got also some bugs and even swarms of them. Fortunately, local tailors are really skilled, so I think that they can make for me some shirtpants with no problems.

Many places here have a name which reminds me of some dish washing detergent (Nagpur, Jaipur) whereas others suggest some connection with bathroom or spa (Hyderabad, Firozabad). My ways head into one such - Aurangabad. More than anything else, it is a strategic place to visit two archaeological sites Ellora and Ajanta. But I'd better leave that for next time.

PS: during map examination, I found out that the way there is going through Badapur-coincidentally the largest manufacturer of bath foam in India.