We spent the night in the Orchid hotel when we arrived in Mumbai. It was very nice. The Texas team wanted to stay close to the airport since we got in at 2am and our flight to Bhuj left at 1pm.  As you can see from the picture, it was better than what we saw on many family road trips.

You know the old joke about the pool being on the roof and freshmen need to buy a special pass to get access? Well, that’s where the pool was at the Orchid. So I took a look.

This was an actual Indian. No actually it was a giant boxing dummy. It gave you the “thumbs up” when you punched it hard enough to drop his jaw.

Secret, the women’s deodorant did some test marketing here in Mumbai. It was apparently a combination of the “strong enough for a man” campaign and “sure” campaign.

From the roof of the Orchid where they have opulent statues and cool blue water with old British people swimming, you could see both sides of the spectrum.

We flew to Bhuj (pronounced similar to booze), a small military airport where we met with our peeps and tied our junk to the thing. I have to admit…I had my doubts about the tall bag on the right staying on. I tried to put my suitcase in the inside, but I got waylaid by a “helper” who lifted it to the roof for me.

We all had to wait for the train to pass. So I unashamedly took these guys picture. Then I waved so to seem friendly.

 
This is what the Dallas team came for. They are celebrating their years of work with the Kutch people. We helped set up a little…most of these chairs filled up.

All the gringos ran out side cuz we heard a cow was giving birth. I guess that is when an old guy dies or another god is born or something. So, we all wanted to get pictures of the divine deluge. We weren’t in time though, the wondering deity moseyed off…so we watched this batter play cricket with some boys half his size.

The conference has been really cool to see all the people excited about a common task. It is hard to comprehend that these people are setting out to do something no one has ever done. Equally as fascinating is the fact that there are thousands of these situations that need people to attempt.

Last night I had two strange dreams. I will be interested to see if I have more tonight.