Lost luggage and the 7 Wonders

Hope that you never lose your luggage at the Mumbai airport. Better yet, hope that you never have to go to Mumbai. If they can’t spell the word luggage correctly, they probably can’t keep track of it either, especially when the lost luggage building doubles as a scrap iron collection facility, which this one apparently did. Thankfully my "laggage" stayed with me.

So it’s just my luck that the Taj Mahal was voted as one of the 7 Wonders of the World the day I arrived in India. During the sixteen hours of combined flight time to India, all I looked forward to was having the best of Bollywood television at my disposal and what do I get? Every channel broadcasting the official announcement of the Taj as a Wonder, over and over and over - all day, every day.

Unfortunately, with all of the goings-on of the 2 days of conferences in the Mumbai hotel facility, I was kept inside of the compound, with my only view of the outside world coming from my hotel room window. This vantage point also provided a scenic look at all of the residents (and their livestock) who lived underneath the nearby freeway.

Not surprisingly, the most exciting event of the 2 days in Mumbai was the ride back to the airport for my flight to Delhi. The difference between my ride from the airport and my ride to the airport was day and night. Literally. But the advantage of travel in India during the day is that you get to actually see the cars, wagons, livestock, dump trucks, motorcycles and rickshaws jammed 8-wide at the stoplight, all waiting to fight for the 2 lanes on the other side of the intersection, once the light turns green. That is if the cross traffic decides to stop when their light turns red. Apparently, stopping at a red light, along with obeying any other traffic law in India, is optional. Again, the only requirement is that you blow your horn while you're violating the law. I really didn't know whether to laugh or to be scared for my life. I soon realized that being scared to death can actually be quite funny.

I haven't seen the entire world, but I think they should vote the whole of India as one of the 7 Wonders.