Saturday 16 February 2013

Mumbai: Travelling to Belgaum

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. 
Pat Corlett for Team Mumbai 2013
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