Advertisement
Published: October 19th 2008
After publishing the last entry (Mc Leod Ganj and Rajastan) I just put some further fotos to that blog entry - feel free to have a look at them! The link to see them is: http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/Jaisalmer/blog-332189.html
Just arrived in Mumbai …
I was looking forward to be in a big city since such a lot of time - especially to go to Mumbai, a town people told me that you hate or love it. After my train journey with very nice Indian students and the first impression of the slums of Mumbai (55% of the citizens of Mumbai are living in slums) we arrived a little bit away from the city centre in Bandra. So I talked to a Portuguese group if we can share a taxi to Colaba - the area where most of the backpackers stay. We walked together to another train station (there was no connection within the same train station to another platform) - it was hot, stinky (the slums were just on the other side of the platform, toilets everywhere...) and loooooots of people around us, starring at us. Finally we got the tickets and went the first time with a local train - style
50 years ago in Europe.
It was difficult to find an accommodation together (9 persons, so it could have be possible to bargain a cheaper price) so I decided to go to the hostel I reserved a single room in. It wasn’t that bad - at least I had a window and a fan. What would you expect for 4 Euros a night in the backpacker centre of a 16 million citizens town? 😊
Afterwards I went out for some wine with the Portuguese group (very hot OR ice-cold red wine - but at least red wine after 2 months). We got into a nightclub without paying entrance because we were on a guest list a party planner put us; we met him in the afternoon. It’s ridiculous with what kind of clothes we got inside… more tracking than partying style - the skin bonus… I felt as in a RnB/ hip-hop club back to Europe - sometimes there was Indian music, of course, I love it - and the drinks were as expensive as in Europe! But finally I could dance since such a lot of time!!! I already missed it so much!
On the second day
On the way to Mumbai
in the train... - students from DelhiI went to Elephant Island - at the time lots of tourist guides tried to sell me their service a very nice Indian girl offered me to come with her and her family to explore the island - no question! They’re Muslims from North-West-India (Gujarat). She was there in holidays with her husband and her family (almost all of Indian woman have to live with their family in law after getting married). Her family is very open-minded so on that day she was allowed to wear a very nice dress - back home in her husbands family he has to wear a burka (black whole body dress; you can only see the eyes of the women). On the way back home on the boat it started raining very strongly - the end of monsoon season… so there was kind of panic on the way to the boats.
The day after I had a great Thali (different Indian dishes on one plate) in a very cheap Indian restaurant (1 Euro)- recommended by the lonely planet so I met some other foreigners there; also a guy from Madrid - in the night we went together with the party planner from the
On the way to Mumbai
in the train... - students from Delhi - thank you for the Hindi songs on my mps-player! night before to several night clubs. It’s so strange to see people sleeping on the street just next to the night clubs… bagging for money with their small children on the arm when you come out of the club… in the end we went to a very exclusive night club next to the airport (Bling) - it took us one hour to go there by cab (3 Euros) - on the way the party our party planner got a telephone call that the police already arrived there to close the club so we should go back to the city centre (usually the licenses for the clubs only last until 3 o’clock). Obviously the hotel (usually the clubs are located in 4 or 5 stars hotels) paid a lot of money to the police because when we arrived we could still hear music from inside so at least we knew that there’s still party going on inside - some policeman were standing around in about 100 metres distance - we were waiting on the entrance - suddenly they let us in, for free… incredible and surprising India once again!
On the next morning a Bollywood-scout talked to me in the
On the way to Mumbai
countryside just before arriving in Mumbai street - asking me if I wanted to act in a Bollywood movie on the next day; I trusted him more or less (there were some incidents in the past...)… he showed me names of Western people that also would come with me. To be more secure a guy I met in the evening eating on the street called the scout telling him he’s a friend of mine - so they exchanged information and addresses - thank you so much! In the cybercafé they also asked me if I’m going to be a Bollywood star soon - laughing… but at least they also knew that scout and knew that people are coming back from the set. It’s incredible how fast every Indian knows where you’re from, to whom you talked to, where you're staying and what you’re going to do - networking is 100% working in India!
As the Bollywood thing was canceled on the next day I decided to visit a Hindu temple and a Muslim mosque… bad idea on a Sunday… and additionally there were also festivals on that days (both Muslim and Hindu). So there were too many people and it started raining again - luckily
I got inside a local bus… standing between the legs of other sitting persons - pressed on the window - in India they don’t have any fear of body contact (in those things)! People were walking in their flip-flops in 20 cm deep water - when I arrived (after 1 hour sauna in the bus) luckily the monsoon rain of that day was already finished. So actually I didn’t do anything that day - but at the same time I experienced a lot of new things - it’s so exciting just to try to get a bus or to watch people - to be inside Indian life!
On the next day I went to the posh area of Mumbai called Malabar Hill - lots of skyscrapers, some parks, nice view at the beach (poisonous water). In a Jain temple a guy explained me about his religion and accompanied me to a small lake in wanted to see in that area. Of course he did it for a good reason: he asked me to write to lonely planet about his business as a tour guide. Afterwards I went alone to the Gandhi Museum (I'm very fast sick of Indian people
On the way to Mumbai
Indian couple travelling - they're all the day talking to you to sell s.sth., taking pictures with or of you etc.) - interesting how they explained about Ghandi! Afterwards I went to the hip area of Mumbai called Bandra, had a look at the beach path (lots of rubbish and not very nice buildings) and dinner in that area - it was nice to be in an area where not such a lot of people are bagging and sleeping on the street - I couldn’t become used to that until the very end. I’m also quiete impressed that there don’t seem to happen a lot of traffic accidents - it must be because of people (have to) drive very slowly because there’re just too many vehicles on the streets.
The Bollywood casting the next day was great! I went there with three other Germans (that was my deal with the scout). As that movie was supposed to be in the year 1912 we got dressed up in that style - great experience! They didn’t put on too much makeup because 'we need your skin'. So we just had to walk a little bit on the beach, got a lot of chai (Indian
black tea with milk and spices inside) and had a relaxing and for Mumbai quiete day on the beach.
As we read in a newspaper about a rock concert at the same evening in the Hard Rock Café of Mumbai we decided to try to go there… it's not that easy and fast as it seems! Due to our GPS it wasn’t that far away from the Bollywood set ... When we asked for the Hard Rock Café in the train they told us that there’s a love parade … strange but ok. Finally a train station had a very similar name - Indian misunderstandings. hihi/ haha. Anyway - we got out of the train there, looking for a taxi to bring us to the Hard Rock Café. There was an Indian festival starting right next to the train station: lots of lights, food, dancing people and first of all loooooots of temples in the streets - they invited us to go inside😊
After our temple experience a guy told us where we could get the best sweets in the area and tried to help us to get a cab. But no taxi driver wanted to bring us to the
On the way to Mumbai
train tracks are the best ways to moove hard rock café (we already wondered in what area it would be... - but finally we found out that is was just to near to start the car and there was no riksha at that place) so we asked a passing guy on the street to bring us with his car - and took our Indian guy with us. Our driver didn't miss to show us the beach at night time; it was also nice to be in an air conditioned car - we were sweating the whole day (humidity is so hight in Mumba). The Hard Rock Caf'e was a very nice location - our 'guide' hasn’t ever been in a place like that and obviously he wouldn’t have entered without us. He said if his mother would know where he was he couldn’t live at home anymore. The cast system is still very alive in India! We had great Western food and Heinz tomato ketchup there and a great time, dancing with lots of foreigners that live in Mumbai. The singer of the band came to our table to sing - hihi.
Esha, a girl from Mumbai just entered in the company I used to make internships
in Barcelona - I don’t know her personally - invited me to have dinner with her family and friends! Indian hospitality doesn't seem to have any limits! India is just so incredible! So I called her mum and went to the place they live. On the train station I just asked a women about a sweet shop - she spontaneously came with me to the sweet shop to choose some nice sweets for Esha's family, called the mum of Esha to ask her where the Riksha driver should exactly bring me and called her again after 2 hours if I arrived well. Isn’t it incredible?
Esha’s mum invited me to some delicious starters in a restaurant and went with me to a Hindu temple (part of the huge Hindu festival) - thank you so much for the interesting explications! Then we went to her home - her husband already cooked lamb and some friends and relatives also were there! Indians are very social - they said it’s almost every evening like that! We had such a nice time together and I stayed there for a night.
On the next day we went to the cinema. Afterwards some friends
told me that I lost the best of it because we arrived late in the cinema; in the beginning they sing together the Indian hymn… incredible!
Then I headed South to the beaches of famous GOA...!
Lots of kisses to all of you!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.094s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0587s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Ulises Abadia
non-member comment
Super
Que buenas fotos Nina!!! que chido que la pasas de lujo por alla. saludos