We are in Goa now, on the western coast of India. It is absolutely beautiful here, with lots of mostly empty beaches along the Arabian Sea, markets, and restaurants/bars. We rented a couple of scooters, and are having a great time beach-hopping and sight-seeing. Goa was a Portuguese colony for a long time, and there are lots of Catholic churches and Portuguese names here. It is a really interesting mix of cultures. There are little Hindu-style shrines all over, but with pictures of Jesus instead of whatever Hindu god. We visited a church called the Basilica of Bom Jesus today, in which the body of St. Francis Xavier is displayed in a glass casket. Conor - I took an "X" picture for you in front of the church.

Mumbai was awesome, and has probably been my favorite place of the whole trip. We were warned by so many people before going there about how dirty and crowded it is, but I actually thought it was a lot nicer than Delhi. We went on a tour of Darhavi, which is the slum from Slumdog Millionaire (our guide was not a fan of the movie). Darhavi has 1.5 million people living in a 1.75 square km space. It is all a maze of incredibly narrow alleys and streets - really fascinating. We also went to the house where Gandhi lived in for 17 years while he was in Mumbai, saw some good museums, visited Elephanta island where there are 1500 year-old caves with huge carvings of Shiva, and ate lots of very good Indian food.

I have some great pictures (including one of me and Nancy with some Bollywood actress who was on our flight), but don't have time to post now. Hope everyone is doing well at home!