95 and smoke.

in an effort to more objectively define the level of heat yesterday, i checked the weather for mumbai. the temperature was 95 (at 5pm), and instead of the usual "sunny" or "partly cloudy" the accompanying descriptor was "smoke". i might try to pass this off as some quaint mistranslation, but this was my trusty weather.com. and it's also pretty accurate. we took a boat out to the elephanta islands today, and it was like riding through a giant cloud. you couldn't even see the skyline of mumbai while riding back in because of the pollution. i have a lot of deep thoughts about this, and frankly it makes me a little depressed, but you're not here for depressing thoughts. you're here for pictures!

which leads me to...
these women. these are not sweet old village women. these are sharks.
i was pleasantly attempting to photograph a monkey when these women saw their chance. they kept posing, saying "madam, nice photo!" and surrounding me. there was a fourth. now, we all know i don't react well to being flustered, and these grandmother types were racing around me, and i had this fleeting thought of, well, i'll have a photo and i'll give them some money which they can probably use. oh heavens, no. i certainly should have negotiated my price first. i pulled out 100 rupees, the inital asking price, which then went up to 150. i declined that but they were not having any of it, circling me and yelling until i snuck past. they got me again on the way out, pointing and yelling, but i avoided eye contact. so i'm getting my money's worth out of this photo, and sharing it. to be fair, the monkey didn't like having his picture taken either, and tried to attack elizabeth, teeth bared and hissing. a kind stranger chased him off while i was running for the hills. the running meant we didn't actually get a good photo of him.

but the caves were nice.