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Published: November 16th 2017
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We visited Mumbai twice on our travels, the first time before we headed to Goa and then again at the end of our month in India before flying to Bangkok, a total of 4 nights there altogether.
Out of all the bigger cities in India that we've visited if someone told me I had to pick one of them to live and spend a good amount of time in I think I would have to pick Mumbai. Walking around felt easier than other places and generally it felt like there was less hassle. There didn't seem to be as many people trying to get you into their shops and there aren't any rickshaw drivers in the southern area so you don't have to keep going through the "tuk tuk sir?"..."no thanks we're walking"..."where are you going, I'm just trying to help you sir?" routine! I'd be lying if I said the rich cricketing history had absolutely nothing to do with my choice as well! The last time the England cricket team toured India, Mike Atherton wrote a piece in The Times about how Mumbai was the spiritual home of cricket and not Lords. He had included a walk that took
you to many of the cricketing sights and since reading that I knew that Mumbai was definitely somewhere that I wanted to visit whilst in India - unfortunately I hadn't planned the trip well enough to be able to watch a game so I guess at some point I'll need to come back! The walk started out at The Trident Hotel and finished at the Wankhede Stadium where India had won the World Cup in 2011. We weren't allowed in the stadium, the guard didn't even accept my poor attempt at a bribe, but we did get to watch some school cricket being played at the Azad Maidan, I think there were four games being played in total complete with a path of commuters cutting through the park and through one of the games! I have to admit the standard looked better than some of the games I’ve played in recent years! I was in my element the whole way round and Julia did her best to look interested as I plied her with lots of interesting anecdotes such as the time when Sachin Tendulkar scored 326 not out in a cup semi final in 1988 at the Azad Maidan
before walking to the other end of the field to play another match where he scored 178 not out...lucky girl!
Having read the book Shantaram we also stopped off for a coffee at Leopold’s Cafe which features a lot in the book. It wasn’t as big as I’d imagined it to be but it was nice to be able to see how it compared with the image you paint in your head whilst reading. We also arranged to do a ‘slum tour’ of the Dharavi area. There was something that didn’t really sit right with going on a 'slum tour' but after reading a couple of articles and reviews online that suggested the reason the tours were put on is so that the locals can show you that life isn't as bad as the movies such as Slumdog Millionaire would have you believe, we decided to go for it. We'd also read about the thriving industries in the area and how the city of Mumbai wouldn't cope without the area and vice versa so we were keen to see that as well. Our guide was a young guy who had grown up in the area. He loved his cricket
and was working hard so he could pay for his education. We were shown all the different industries, a lot of them revolving around recycling waste from the city such as plastic, aluminium, paint cans which were then sold back to companies in the city to reuse. There was a bakery where they were making pastry and a leather factory and shop where they were creating Dharavi branded bags, purses, belts etc. that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a high street back home. It was only when you got into the residential area that we started to feel a little uncomfortable but that was more down to the cramped conditions and small pathways rather than the dirt or smells that you might have expected to find. To me it didn’t seem too dissimilar to some of the alleys and paths we’d walked along in Jodhpur or Jaisalmer but a bit more cramped. There was a real sense of community throughout the place and we heard stories of how people looked out for each other despite conflicting religions and there was also a sense that people weren’t unhappy with where they were either. At the same time we also
realise that what we saw was likely to be a small snapshot of it and I’m sure that the story might be completely different in some of the other areas that we might not have been shown and drove past in our air conditioned Uber cab back home.
When we returned to Mumbai we wanted to stay somewhere near the airport especially having sat in some pretty horrendous traffic jams the first time we'd been here and we ended up in a great hostel called
Backpacker Panda. The hostel was a breath of fresh air compared with the place we had originally booked. After a month travelling around it wasn't until the penultimate day that we had any problems with our accommodation having ended up in a place called Airport Inn Shenaaz which we promptly left due to the state of the room. The sheets were dirty and there were tiny small slugs crawling around in the damp bathroom - looking back we aren't really sure how we ended up there in the first place having reread the reviews on booking.com but the hostel made up for it with friendly staff and comfortable beds for our last couple of nights.
So our month in India had come to an end and I think we were both ready to move on, but that's not to say that we haven't enjoyed our time here. Looking back it really is a fascinating country and there is so much variation between the different regions. I think if I were to come back I’d like to head further north having seen pictures and heard stories from others who had been up in the mountains trekking. And we would also like to spend more time in Kerala and in the backwaters which we weren't able to do due to me getting ill! We've really enjoyed the food but after a month of curry I think it's fair to say we are keen to sample some more flavours in Thailand and beyond. Drinking beer hasn't really been an issue either - a lot of the time it won't be marked on the menu but if you ask they will disappear to the kitchen and return with a mug full of Kingfisher which is pretty novel. It's certainly been a lot easier than I think we'd imagined it was going to be, minus a couple of exceptions, and it's difficult to tell whether that's because we got lucky or the stories we'd heard and read had been exaggerated - probably a bit of both perhaps.
Now we move onto Thailand where we meet The Perham's for a couple of weeks, which could perhaps be a bigger test physically and mentally than a month in India could ever be!
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