Most of you know already that I was a bit skeptical about India. We have all seen “Slumdog Millionaire” so I honestly wasn’t too excited but you also can’t base a country/city on a movie. Especially since I have the same battle when “Jersey Shore” came out haha. I do have to be honest, it is a bit what I expected. We visited 4 cities: Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore and Cochin. Mumbai and Cochin were my favorites- the other 2 were experiences 🙂
Mumbia: A fascinating city; with almost 35 million people- from the trains with no doors because people have to rush in and out
, Bollywood movies where they make 1,000 movies a month, weddings in the temples 
where even tourists are allowed to join, their “city laundry” which I will DEF get into haha to their “lunch box” service that I will also DEF get into. Mumbai is packed, busy, and dirty, but their culture, the way they live and the way they operate life is absolutely like NO other place in the world.
We found this amazing tour guide named Lijo, from Muziris Tours who organized all 4 city tours for us and if you ever find yourself anywhere in India, I highly recommend him. It was the perfect tours- we got to Mumbai, got on the bus and was immediately given water and a beautiful lei 🙂 From there, we walked into a whole new world…
We saw some beautiful Portuguese buildings, went to the local market and the jumped on a train to go see their community laundry. After that, we came back around lunchtime to see their “lunch box service.”
This to me was the strangest, most amazing, fascinating thing in the world. Insane. No one knows how, but the people who run the laundry have their own system- and it works PERFECTLY. They go around from house to house and pick up everyones dirty clothes; colored and white, they tag it (God knows how) and they bring it there. 35 million people and not even one sock gets misplaced! It is seriously incredible- right in the middle of the slums the people live in the laundry and they clean, wash, press iron and fold to absolute perfection. Each and every person in Mumbai honestly had the cleanest clothes I have ever seen- not even in a dry cleaner can they get my stains out- AND, all my socks are missing just from my own home dryer haha!! It is a sight to see though, and not a very good one 🙁 
It’s now time for lunch, so once we got off the train again to the central station, we started to see all these guys riding these bikes with about 40/50 lunch boxes hanging from them. These people too, will go to each and every house to pick up the lunch that the wives have made for their working husbands- they pick up every lunch pale, meet at the grand train station and from there they start their journey in delivering the lunches to all the men in the office. They pick them up at 11:30am and everyone has their lunch at 12:30pm on the dot. It is absolute madness- and in these lunch boxes, there is always a 3 course meal!!
Thank you Mumbai, for real, for a life changing experience.
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Goa & Mangalore: These are little beach towns of India, both cute in their own way but honestly, I wasn’t too impressed. There were 2 things that fascinated me about this town; one thing that was incredible to me though was how fascinated the people were with me! The kids, the teens and the adults- I was getting stopped everywhere for selfies. It was as if they haven’t ever seen a blonde person before so they all wanted photos of me and with me. It was so cute- if only people at home thought i was THAT cool hahahaha!! The second thing were the cows just roaming around the streets with the people and the traffic. Cows are considered Gods here and they people would rather kill a human (and they will get away with it) then to kill a cow (you do that, you are in jail forever). It was so so nuts!!
Here too, we saw little temples, gave thanks, learned about the 300 Gods that Indians believe they have and went to some spice plantations. It was definitely an experience.
Last stop, Cochin: this was a very cute little town and the tour we had made it that much cuter! We stopped over at some temples and churches here too- it is so cool to see that there are so many different religions here and if you are not part of a religion of a certain kind, you are not allowed in the area of prayer. Example, Muslims stay with Muslims and Christians stay with Christians etc. Here too they have men entrances and women entrances just like the Middle East. See ya Pops! haha If you also look at this second picture below- this is totally what I need haha. It is a carriage where you lay down and there are about 3 people in the front and 3 people in the back taking you to where you need to go hahaha my kinda life right there- too bad those days are long gone.
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After we went to some temples and churches, we got to roam around what they call “Jewtown”- gosh what a terrible name for this little part of town haha but it was so adorable and I bought so much stuff here!! We bought things from decorated pens, umbrellas, elephant pants for Valentina and some spices like nutmeg for Massimo. I absolutely loved this little part of Cochin until we got to the beautiful resort of “Forte Kochi” where we had a little lunch and high tea that made me like Cochin even more 🙂 We had a beautiful little lunch and everyone was so hospitable. We had to get ready for a nice little harbor cruise so this was the perfect stop after sightseeing and shopping! Enjoy the photos and feel free to click on them to see where each photo takes place. Comments below are also welcome 🙂 Best part of Cochin is that “you’re not allowed to go to the bathroom on the sidewalk” HAHAHAHA WTF INDIA.
All in all, India was a complete experience that I am grateful to have done. Can’t say that I will be back, but thank you, thank you, thank you India for letting me visit and making me realize how good we do have it in this world. You have showed me that you can still be happy and grateful even if you have very little and to always keep a smile on my face.
An incredible experience that I will keep with me forever♥
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