Today was a travel day so we loaded the van, checked out and left the hotel at 9:30a.m and drove out of Mumbai over the amazing sea link bridge.
Our flight on Jet Airways was at 12:05 and after multiple security
checks and a bus out to the tarmac we began our one hour flight to Goa.
The humidity and heat of this place hits you immediately and you
realize why most of the passengers seem to be Europeans escaping the
cold. Manjunath our driver was waiting for us and helped load the van
and begin our journey to Belgaum. The road with many switchbacks takes
you over the Chula summitt. The foliage is lush along the side of the
road and you can see brown monkeys amongst the trees and egrets perched
on their branches. A storm must of passed through the night before as
the road was washed out in one area and one of the highly decorated
"Goods Carriers" (delivery truck) had rolled over on the side of the
road. Nobody seemed hurt and a crowd of locals were busy trying to help
sort out the incident. Our driver, Manjunath, was amazing and being
able to finesse the traffic in India takes ultimate skill. After close
to 4 hours of this winding narrow road we approached Belgaum and
stopped at a business location of Mr. Dilip Chitnis who had thoughtfully
provided us with a place to freshen up and enjoy a cold drink before we
were to view the finishing touches of the bedkit packing. We were
brought to a nearby area and lead around to the back of another factory
where a flurry of activity was taking place with an assembly line of
least 30 Rotarians packing bedkits. They were delighted to show us
how they had sourced out good quality items and contents definitely
looked impressive to us. After this stop we all felt tired after the
long day so we were brought to our hotel in Belgaum.
This
city in the province of Karnataka has 1.5 million people and is the 2nd
largest manufacturing centre in this part of India. It too has the
busy somewhat chaotic feel of Mombai.
Tomorrow is not a
distribution day and we will have time to visit some of the suppliers
and the homes of previous bedkit recipients which should be
interesting.
