Bye Bye Mumbai...

Bye Bye Mumbai...
And hello Kerala! Yet another completely different place in India...

But first, I will finish with Mumbai. We started the day at Cushman & Wakefield, which was a makeup appointment booked last minute. I was excited since C&W was one of my clients before. I'm not honestly sure what the meeting was supposed to be about. We basically just heard the life story of our speaker - talking about how he went from being a waiter to being an EVP. Very cool. He also gave us insight into doing business in India. My takeaway: mutual respect. Love it.

From there we went to Lend-A-Hand India, which is a program that teaches rural schoolchildren life skills so they can be successful once school is over. Think - welding, construction, blood testing. Seriously, these kids surpass me. I'm sure I will write more about Lend-A-Hand because it is our group project. I shall just say that yet AGAIN I was impressed and inspired. I even made a new friend who came from Ahmedabad to work for LAH. She taught me some traditional Gudrajati dancing, and has now Facebook friended me. So sweet. :)

The bus ride back was the end of our trip. Amit passed the microphone around and various people shared their thoughts. From there, Sang & I went to Delshad's parents house to play an Indian shuffleboardlike finger flicking game. First...the place was stunning and inspired me to make a lot of money in Mumbai! Second, it was nice to hang out with friends in a low key environment... just like being home. It was a reminder that no matter where you are, as long as you have people you love around you, home is anywhere you want it to be.

I made it home around 11:30, and instead of packing I called Joe and caught up. This probably was why I was completely late for our 5:30am meet-up to head to Kerala. DOH. Nice job skipping the wake-up call, E! Lesson learned - All of my packing procrastination paid off! I was able to pack in 3 minutes. Score.

So here I am in Kerala, at the Treetop Hotel. I just took a shower with a bucket and a pitcher. Things are a little less 5-star now. ;) My smaller group (Angie, Julie, Marian, Theresa, Ryan, and Robert) flew to Kochin this morning, took a 5 hour bus ride to Periyah, and rushed to ride some elephants. We had a nice birthday dinner for Robert and now I'm ready to relax and get some sleep! I made the decision to skip bamboo rafting tomorrow in lieu of exploring the town, visiting the spice/tea farms, and getting a massage. It's like $14 for an hour here. Ridiculous.  I'm glad to be here, and I'm glad for the smaller group and some time for reflection.