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Published: February 10th 2007
Laundry Ghats
25 000 people a day come here to get their laundry beaten up.....I meant cleanedA 12 hour bus ride from hell got us to Mumbai from Jalgaon. Twice the bus got in what must have been an accident because the entire bus was thrown out of their seats, and we hit the ceiling. Other than that the bus was so incredibly shaky and bumpy that we couldn't even imagine sleeping, we could barely hold a converation!
Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay is a city of 16.5 million people. It's absolutley massive. It took the bus about 2 hours to drive from the north end to the south to where we were staying. At first the city looked extremely run down with decrepid buildings and massive poverty everywhere. As we passed all this we saw what I call "Shit Highway" There must of been 50 men taking a shit on the side of the highway togethor. They were surrounded by 1000's of piles of human shit, that went on for at least a half a kilometer. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Very sad actually. Appearanly it's a friendship thing between Indian males living in poverty around there haha
When we got out of the bus, we hopped in a cab
British Colonial Building
Mumbai is a beautiful city. We were really surprised when we arrived. This is partly because of all the amazing British Colonial Buildings. Very similar to buildings at home such as The Hotel Vancouver who insisted on charging us double for the 30 minute ride to Colaba. We releuctantly agreed without haggling, and payed the 40 rupees ($1.00) rather than 20 rupees (50 cents).
Arriving we had to ask ourselves. Are we in India? The streets are clean here. The traffic is orderly and cabs and cars stop for you. They aren't even honking their horns every second. Where are the autorickshaws? There's tourists everywhere. There's normal restaraunts and bars everywhere. There's even beef on the menu! I forgot about beef! I don't think it's available anywhere else in India!
oh how I miss beef. What was most impressive was the skyline full of tall modern looking buildings. I haven't seen this in ages. We finally confirmed we were India when someone answered our questions of directions. "You are a guest in my country, of course I'll help you!" That's typical Indian hospitality. It seems you don't even losr that in the big cities. I have doubts that someone would say that in New York or even Vancouver.
Mumbai is India's most cosmopolitan city. It where you'll see men and women holding hands. Women wearing jeans and low cut t shirts. It's
Sunset @ Chowpatty Beach
Chowpatty Beach is not a place that you could swim or suntan due to the polution, but it's a great lively scen none the less a melting pots of cultures, not only from all over India but from around the world. There's even a small but visual African community living here, that seems to liven up the party scene.
Set on the Arabian sea we headed for Chowpatty Beach. We took a beautiful, quiet and stinky 3km walk there. It's not a place where you would go swimming and suntanning. The water is filthy and full of sewage. Typical India! The beach itself is full of people, from families to head masage wallas trying to pressure you into getting a world famous Chowpatti head massge. It's an exciting scene!
We did a walking tour of the city that is suprisingly easy to get aorund on foot. On top of the tall modren looking buildings the city is littered with massive and impressive 150 year old British Colonial buildings. Actually has the look of home in British Columbia Canada. But I'm thinking more like London. Especially with the tens of thousands of yellow 1950's style London cabs driving around. We did the typical tourist thing visiting temples, mosques churches and even a Synagogue. This was especially interesting. The "pasture or priest?" gave us a
Victoria Terminus
Beautiful Train Station tour and explained how their are only 50 families in Mumbia that are jewish. many of them from places like Iran or Iraq who would be persecuted in their own countires for their beliefs.
The following day we were asked to become Bollywood extra's! Bollywood, is India's answer to Hollywood and is in fact the largest movie industry on earth! We had 4 wishes in India and they have all come true. To be attend an Indian Wedding, An Indian Festival, To see a traditional dance, and to star in a Bollywood Movie. White people are in high demand in these movies, so it's not that unsual that we were asked to join them. The pay for the day is 500 rupees ($11.00) So just over $1.00 an hour. Not something you'd do for the money. Also promised was food, water and transportaion.
To get to the studios, the 7 of us took the local train. Mumbia is the only place in the world that I know of that it makes sense to take an actual train from one end of the city to the other. Of course in typical Indian Fashion it was intense! At each stop
pimpin!
Dressed up for our appearance in a Bollywood Movie. At this point we were really excited! 100's of people would rush on the train, fighting and throwing elbows all rushing to find any available seat. Even to sit on someone elses lap. Normally all the pushing and shoving would be scary but they do this with smiles, as they are used to it. This is everyday life in a country of 1.1 billion people! It's amazing to see so many people packed on the trains all squished against eachother, not being able to move, yet they're all still smiling. There's even people hanging on the outside of the doors! After 2 hours, we fought our way off the train, got onto an equally crowded bus and headed to the studio.
From here on it was a disspointment. The glitz and the glamour of Hollywood, doesn't match Bollywood. At least not in this studio. The place was filthy and our segragated dressing rooms we the size of closets. But hey, we were their to experience an Indian movie production so we were there to make the best of it. We obviously knew we weren't going to be treated as luxury, especially as extras!
On set, the scene was very interesting. The spoiled Bollywood stars didn't
Mumbai Skyline
I haven't seen a nice skyline since home! This was a suprise! have the have the time of day for us. I wanted to let them know that they are nothing compared to real actors haha. But I didn't. The set was so incredibly hot, well over 100 degrees that made the long hours of sitting there doing nothing unbearable. The promised water came in a jug, they said its filtered but I was suspicious. Knowing that if it's tap water we'd all get really sick, I drank very little. The food was disgusting and unsanitary. This wasn't as interesting and fun as we all hoped. And there was really nothing holding us there, not even the $1.00 per hour theyb were paying us.
We decided to leave at 5pm. We made an agreement with the assistant director, that is when we were to leave. When the time came around everyone rudely said no you're staying til 6pm. We laughed it off, knowing that there's no way they'd be able to stop us. What could they do, not pay us our $1.00 an hour? Or send the dogs and after us, or better yet send the dogs that shoot bees out of their mouth after us.....oooh I'm so scared! Actually they
City tour
Impressive buildings everywhere guilted us into staying 1 more hour. 6pm I stated, and we shook on it. He replied "yeah yeah 6 or 630" As he walked away I said 6pm in a firm voice. He pretended he didn't hear us.
6pm came and we all got up, got dressed back in our normal clothes and stated we were leaving. They kept saying "oh please 1 more hour, 1 more hour!" They corned the girls in the dressing room, trying to guilt them. Stating that nobody would get paid til our job is done, and there's no way we could get home. I rescued the girls and we walked out. They followed us down the long roadway to the highway. Pleading how they need us, offering to pay us double ($2.00 an hour) I was starving and not even willing to listen. They claimed we were hours away from the city, it's dangerous and there's no way we could get home by ourselves. A bus roared by, we jumped on the moving bus and headed for the train station. They followed in a Rickshaw.
The offered us triple when they caught up to us. Not taking no for an answer!
Jewish Synagauge
India's freedom and tolerance of religeon should set as a model for the world. This Sinagauge is almost right next door to a Mosque. Something you don't see everyday! This was getting really annoying! We hopped in a cab, offering him double his normal asking price (500 rupees) to get us back to Colaba. The desperate movie industry people, speaking in hindi, in a final attempt offered the cabbie 1000 rupees to bring us back to the movie studio. Luckily the cabbie was honest, this pissed him off and almost got in a fist fight with them. He then drove us, leaving us all relieved to get out of Bollywood Hell! I feel bad, I heard they lost 100 000 rupees, because they need to do the whole days work over again. But maybe this is an expensive lesson on how to manage people properly!
That night we headed to Leopolds. A bar that has been attracting travellers since 1872. This is the first time we drank in India! Mumbai seems to be like no other city here. People were drinking, partying and dancing! The African residents really know how to party haha. A perfect was to celebrate our escape from Bollywood!
We had just a half day the next morning to do one last tour of the incredibly massive city.
We asked a cabbie to bring
@ The movie shoot
jasmien hated the dress they made her wear lol us to the Dobie Ghats and the floating Mosque. He said "Yes" The Dobi ghats were very interesting to see. It's where 25 000 people come everyday to get their laundry done, Indian style! That pretty much means guys beating the laundry against a rock til it's clean. It's in the slums, I'm sure life at the laundry ghats isn't pleasant. We must remember that although Mumbai is a beautiful city, it's also got an overwhelming amount of poverty. Most of it segregated from the nicer parts of town. There's one billboard with an advertizment for a bank, that I wish I got a picture of. It was above the slums and it read "How the Rich get Richer'
We then asked the cabbie to bring us to the floating mosque. With a sideways headwobble he said "Yes" After an hour of driving through the hectic city we realized we were by our hotel nowhere near the floating mosque. All this time he was saying yes because it's the only English word he knows. haha I guess he brought us home because he didn't know where else to bring us.
That night we took a shocking cab ride
@ the Bar
mmmmm beer. Beer is $5.00 a bottle in India. We didn't get to drink much! to the airport. As I said the city is massive! Takes 2 hours to get to the airport that is just half way through the city. The traffic is shocking. 12 lanes of traffic, but the cars do not form lanes. They just speed and honk. Squeezing into any lane they can to get by. mirculously we only got in one small fender bender which the cabbie ignored. The other shocking part was the highway slums. They were just shanty shacks on the side of the highway. It must have went on for 20kms. The living conditions of these people are shocking. I took out my video camea and filmed a lot of it, peering into their tiny little homes. To my surprise many of them had a television. The people were filthy, blackened from the exhuast of the passing traffic. I don't know how they do it but they still manage to smile!
We made it to the airport and are flying to Bangkok. We left India 2 weeks early. It was such an amazing place and I can't wait to go back. It tough, uncomfortable travelling but the people made up for it. Everyone warned me not
to go to India because it's dangerous, they said stay in Thailand. In reality we never felt in danger. Bangkok Thailand had 7 bombings, some in tourist areas on New Years. (still not dangerous place though) I think anyone who goes to India will quickly realize it's not as bad as it sounds! One of the most rewarding places on earth! After Bangkok we're either going to go to Singapore and Malaysia, heading up South Thailand again then Burma, or vice versa. So much still to see on our trip!
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Kartik
non-member comment
You liked Mumbai? Really?
Glad you enjoyed your stay in India! I find it surprising that you actually 'liked' Mumbai. I'm Indian and have lived in giant cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Kanpur; other than smaller towns like Faridabad, Chandigarh and Mohali. I've always thought that larger Indian cities are like places where you are forced to live in for the sake of convenience and would run off from at the first opportunity. They've gotten so utterly saturated with people from the rural areas seeking a 'better life' in the urban wilderness; there's hardly any breathing space left. I spent the majority of my childhood in Faridabad, a 600K-strong town in the northern state of Haryana, just south of Delhi; and it has always been my idea of an ideal place to live in. Vast open spaces to play cricket in on Sundays, fairly large independent homes (rather than those dingy apartments!), and parks at every 200 meters. There are enough malls not to have to worry how to spend your weekend, and Delhi's just half an hour away. *sigh* Nonetheless I do feel that overpopulation is destroying the serenity and beauty of India's countryside and choking its cities to death. I really do admire you Canadians for having gigantic tracts of pristine, gorgeous landscape to head out to every now and then!