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Published: February 26th 2007
Our stay in Mumbai (previously called Bombay) was a brief but necessary stop on the way down to Goa, so we spent only 24 hours there and consequently didn't get a very in-depth feel for the city. I also didn't bring my camera with me, so no photos for this one--but I do want to share my reactions to Mumbai, however briefly I was there. Our train arrived at the Mumbai railway station around 7 a.m., and we attempted to find a rickshaw to our hotel only to realize that Mumbai has no rickshaws at all, only taxis. And there are a LOT of taxis, but for some reason the drivers never seemed eager to actually drive--we usually had to ask four or five taxi drivers before finding one who agreed to take us where we wanted to go.
We had booked a reservation at Hotel Oasis, a decently-priced and supposedly modernish hotel near the railway station. Despite the hotel being less than a km from the station, we had to ask three drivers before finding one who nodded that he knew where it was/was willing to take us. After driving in circles for a few minutes it was clear that in fact had no idea where he was going, but he pulled over repeatedly to ask and finally got us there. The street-level lobby was tiny, and an old-fashioned elevator (complete with iron bars and a bellhop) was the only way to get to the rooms upstairs. Our room wasn't ready yet when we got there so they let us stay for three hours in an empty top-floor suite, complete with air conditioning, a king bed, cable TV, wall to wall windows on two sides, and excessive layers of gaudy bright red pleated curtains. for some reason (even though it's about or least favorite pizza place back home) we were craving Pizza Hut (probably because being in a big city made us realize we might be able to find some non-Indian food!) and we spent a half an hour attempting to track down a Pizza Hut that was open and would deliver at 8 a.m. The phone book had restaurants listed by neighborhood, which was completely useless without knowing what neighborhood we were in, so I called down to the front desk to ask and had a frustrating "conversation" in which no communication occurred whatsoever and I finally gave up. I spent some time watching women washing clothes and sifting flour on nearby rooftops, until we were told that our room was ready. We moved from our air-conditioned haven to a tiny and stuffy room with two hard twin beds and a small window facing a brick wall. It was clean, though, had its own bathroom (with a Western toilet!) and a working ceiling fan, and was a tenth the price of the air-conditioned room. If we're going to splurge at some point and pay for fancy windows/beds/cooling systems, it certainly won't be in Mumbai.
We decided to try to find pizza again, now that it was a reasonable time of day to eat it. The man at the front desk did at least understand "we want pizza" and told us there was a place "across from the Metropolitan Hotel." We headed outside and saw a line of taxis with bored-looking drivers, and we asked one after another to take us to the Metropolitan Hotel. Again and again we got a curt, vague head-shake, which seemed to mean "Nah, I don't feel like it." Very weird, especially when everywhere else in India we had been constantly begged to get into taxis and rickshaws. A few drivers said yes but named ridiculous prices. We finally gave in, weakened by pizza cravings, and agreed to pay way too much to a cranky-seeming taxi driver to take us to the Metropolitan Hotel. Cranky, in fact, is an understatement: he seemed more along the lines of wrathful. He drove like a madman with a death-wish, slamming on brakes and gas, narrowly avoiding pedestrians, and practically falling asleep on his horn. India driving is always a little wild, with the general disregard for lane lines, but this was completely out of control. He was spluttering and squinting like he was absolutely disgusted to be driving us somewhere, and we were about to tell him to forget it and let us the hell out of the car when he stopped abruptly outside of a huge, grand-looking hotel. Except the hotel was clearly called the Taj Mahal Hotel, not the Metropolitan. We told him this, and he became even more red-faced and began shouting. We scrambled out the car and told him to forget it, and he chased us down, screaming about money. Luckily the men working outside the Taj Mahal Hotel hurried to help us, and finally convinced the driver to leave after we explained what had happened. They got us another taxi and gave us a business card with a number to call in case we had any trouble with this driver (which we didn't--he was in fact the calmest driver we've had in India yet). We finally made it to the Metropolitan Hotel, which was indeed across the street from a decent-looking pizza restaurant! Thrilled to finally have our hard-earned pizza, we ordered way too much and left with almost a full pizza... Of course, there is no shortage of hungry people with open hands on the streets, and we had given it away to a group of street kids within a couple of minutes.
Wary of taxis and full of pizza, we decided to walk in the direction of our hotel. From what I saw of the city, Mumbai seemed very distinct from the rest of India--much more westernized and notably less friendly. Everything seemed high-paced and impersonal, at least when compared to what we'd seen of India so far. The majority of people wore Western clothing and there were modern-looking department stores lining the streets instead of roadside stalls. Unlike in other parts of India we were mostly ignored, since westerners are so much more common in Mumbai. And we didn't see a single cow! Nevertheless it was a nice day, and we found a large park and sat for a while to watch a cricket match. When the match ended we walked again in what we thought was the direction of our hotel, and found a row of familiar street-vendors selling underwear, paperback books, illegal copies of movies and software, digital watches, keychains and other odd trinkets. We perused the stalls until we got sick of being hassled to buy, then continued our search for our hotel. We finally had to admit we had no idea where to go, and attempted again to find a taxi driver who would be willing to take a break from sitting idly in his car and actually drive us somewhere and take our money. I'm still confused by the reluctance of Mumbai taxi drivers to actually drive... Why else are they sitting in their taxis on the side of the road? Why not just go home and sit on your couch instead? Very strange.
We took a brief afternoon nap in our sticky hotel room, then braved a taxi yet again to go to dinner. We actually went to the restaurant next to the pizza place from before, because we'd glanced inside at lunch and it looked fantastic. The place was called Not Just Jazz by the Bay, and inside it was dark and cool and decorated with black-and-white photos of famous jazz artists. We were told that a band was coming to play in a few hours, and we decided to make an evening of it. We splurged on drinks and appetizers, including two orders of an amazing spicy shrimp dish. Unfortunately the band, when it arrived, wasn't very exciting, so we left soon after and managed to get a cab back to our hotel to go to bed. Our train to Goa left at 7 a.m. the next morning, so we got up early and tracked down one last taxi driver to take us to the station. We actually were about two blocks from the station, so the cab was a little ridiculous, but we didn't know this until we got there since our first driver the previous day had gone around in circles for ten minutes before taking us to our hotel. Our driver tried to charge us 50 rupees for the 1-minute drive, and we left Mumbai with a very vague feel for the city but a definite distaste for the taxis.
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Harmeet
non-member comment
Mumbai
Mumbai does have auto-rickshaw's but they only ply beyond city limits (in the suburbs, main city is quite small and only taxi's are allowed to ply) General notion people of Mumbai have about Mumbai is that people drive much better than Delhi and go anywhere you want to go unlike Delhi....but seems like thats not always the case ;) Unlike Delhi, Mumbai has no rule for the life of the taxis so the old Fiat taxi's are on roads for ages (in Delhi a Taxi cant work beyond 8 years) Mumbai like Manhattan is the financial capital of India and like Manhattan is an island which can only expand vertically (hence space is a preimum) and i guess thats why tiny/stuffy rooms are more or less a norm .