I thought Sydney was busy

Day One in Mumbai-

Well I guess you never quite know what to expect when you first arrive in any city the size of one like this. We really didn’t have any expectations, only the knowledge it would be chaos, no surprises there it is! It is difficult put into words the sensory bombardment you receive as soon as you leave the airport, the smells, burning coals form roadside vendors, diesel fuel from just about everything with more than two wheels and a motor, the sweetness of a multitude of incense’s some of which I have never experienced and most of which I can not even pronounce correctly. The sights, the people are as diverse in appearance as are combinations of Hindi-English flashing signs all of these come together with the sounds of 6 cars, 2 trucks, 4 buses and 20 scooters, not to forget the 100 black and yellow rickshaws and taxi’s all trying to fit into a single lane all on the horn, all the same time combing to create the ever changing sensory landscape that is the flow of this great imperial Indian city. Oh did I also mention the dogs, goats and cows…. and that was just the ride form the airport to our hotel.

The Morning after

Nothing and I mean nothing can prepare anyone for this place, its totally out of control, there are no rules or at last no one seems to be following them if they no about them. Yet to my surprise there is so much fluidity in this chaos, it all seems to work really well. We arrived at or hotel and in typical Indian fashion, we got put into the wrong room, but only found out when we checked the brochure at the front desk, you know when the pictures don’t add up, well this was exactly like that. Our super deluxe, executive room package turned out to be a ”standard” room, yep that’s right Indian standard. I am pleased to say that after a little persuasion and brochure showing we eventually got into the right room…. I think, well it’s a whole lot better than the last anyway.

So we decided to go for a walk in the morning before heading out on our first day adventure, as you do when one is in a new exciting chaotic place like this. We managed to get no further than maybe 800 metre’s before the 30degree Mumbai heat, dogs, breakfast choices, children beggars and urinating men forced us to retreat to the safety of our Indian abode. That’s right time for a guided tour in an air-conditioned car, much more civilized, well that’s what we thought until after we had paid our $30 and left the hotel only to realize that our driver didn’t speak english. What a great start! We managed to get around, went into the main part of town, yet over here it is really hard to tell, cos everything looks like it should be the main part of town, just through the throngs of people who take over every available space not being used by the wheeled machines. Straight to the Gateway of India, it’s a tourist hotspot, think Kuta in bali and then remember that there are 18million people in this city, 17 million of which earn a living pushing something. If we ever hear sir or madam come here, look at this, what do you want, how much you want to pay, I give you best price, she love you long time, again it will be a very peaceful day. is But hey that’s India and for all that it has been so far it is an amazing place. So we rock up at this Gateway and straight away get spotted as the tourist’s so two holy men come up, start tying red and yellow pieces of string around our wrist, put a red dot on our foreheads, pray over us, make us eat sugar candy and charge us 500 rupee for the experience…. Wicked $10 bucks for two pieces of string and a blessing. On a contemplative note it was a great way to start our journey almost like a “blessing in disguise” By this stage we’d met so many ferry ticket touting, map pushing I’ll show you “”special wink wink around town for fee kinda guys that we decide it’s tome for lunch. One word Kingfisher (KF), it’s the beer we drink round here. Couple of 600ml KF’s, chicken tikka, naan breads and $5 later it was off to find our driver who we had miraculously explained to that we would meet him in two hours at the police checkpoint. To both of our surprise he found us, I’m still not sure whether that was because of the generous caring nature of the indian people or because we had not paid him as yet, then again I’d like to think it was the first.

A bit more shopping with the driver who can only understand basic sign language, yet was always very accommodating, he would stop other taxi drivers mid traffic, get me to explain to them where we wanted to go and then follow there directions. Amazingly we got there; there is flow in the chaos. Finally back at the hotel another $7.50 and an in room banquet was delivered to the door. Everything apart for blessings and string is so cheap in this place. Mel’s crashed I’m updating and tomorrow is another beautiful day. Lessons learnt always ask how much and divide it by 3 before you commit to anything in india, well at least that’s a good starting point, cos if they say ok sir you know they haven’t understood you.

Hope your all well, we are and will keep the updates rolling in. Have heaps more stories, just sorting through som pics, which will upload shortly.

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