My Tel Aviv Detour and First Elephant Sighting

Okay...so things rarely go as planned but i certainly didn't expect to end up in Israel... my flight out of Houston to switzerland was delayed just enough for me to miss my connecting flight to Mumbai, leaving me with the choice of staying in Zurich for the night(and missing my train the next morning) or flying to Tel Aviv and then on to Mumbai. Well the Israeli airline that i ended up on has its own extra special security process and of course they decided to pick me out (the only american on the flight). I was taken to a super secret basement room in the airport and interrogated- this on 30 hours of no sleep. On a side note- so many in the tel Aviv airport looked like Josh-very strange it was like a persky family reunion.
The flight into mumbai had the worst turbulence thast i have experienced-the overhead luggage doors flew open and bags were falling out onto everyone, people were seriously freaking out. but anyway i made it into Mumbai in one piece( the kosher meals on airplanes are actually quite good) and had no problem with the taxi driver-they have a police checkpoint set up when you leave the airport but also because of the flight change i arrived in the morning.
The ride from the airport to the train station was complete sensory overload- there are no discernable traffic laws and the road is shared by cows, people and in one case a massive elephant-close enought that i could have reached out and touched it unbelievable.
The poverty here is appalling- i read somewhere that 80% of the population lives in poverty. I wasn't as shocked by it as I thougth i would be-i thnk that Kiribati, thailand and belieze gave me a taste of the horrible conditions that people live it- the sheer numbers here though are overwhelming.
So, I caught my train and have to say that although it could have been worse I am going to avoid such a long ride again-i really hope that i hold myself to that. It was long and boring and the bathrooms were beyond description. I have never been so excited about showering as when i got here.
I'm heading to the cultural center tomorrow and hopefully will have time to write more stories-like about how two policemen chased and beat a man with sticks at the train station....