Blogs from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, Asia - page 21

We decide to take a tour to the famous Dharavi Slum area of Mumbai, after speaking with a number of people who had visited them they all said it was very interesting and well worth it. So our tour started by us meeting at the Church Gate railway station at 9am where we were to be met by our guide. After paying the guide 12rp each the guide bought our train ticket, this was to be a short ride on the very wide Mumbai local train. These trains have doors but they are constantly open, they have a huge number of handles hanging from the roof of the train for people to hold on to and all the bars or what look more like cages are shiny silver. Even though we were travelling after the rush ... read more

Mumbai and Home 8th to 11th November An early morning flight from a very nice Aurangabad airport took us back to Mumbai for our last 3 days. Neither of us was sure what we would make of Mumbai. would it be just another very large , dirty etc Indian city? Well we were meeting up with (very young) Aunt and Uncle, Jim and Hilary, and you can't come all this way and not spend some time in the Financial/ Bollywood capital of India, now can you?? Well we were actually VERY impressed with the place. Hotel Residency in the Fort area was, very clean and comfortable and well situated for mad people like us who like to walk to the main sites (even in 38C)!! The staff were great, though we were a little concerned ... read more

Hello everyone! To start at the start...The Sheraton hotel was very nice, me Heather and Ciaran all enjoyed one last hot shower! Everything went well with the flights apart from mine and Heathers TV didn't work for 6 hours!! Going to complain about that one.. So we land in Mumbai and sort out our accomodation (bearing in mind that it is 4am) We are going to stay in the Salvation Army for a few hours (as we have to check out at 9) I must say that the drive to the hotel was actually not as shocking as I thought it would be. Of course it is unbelievable the amount of people sleeping in the street and the shanty looking pavement houses. I think I over prepared and was expecting the entrance to Dantes Inferno. We ... read more

Between fools and guidebooks a man could acquire ignorance enough in twenty-four hours in a country like this to last him a year. - Mark Twain Ah, Mumbai. Our first view of India after wandering out into the steamy night was from the window of a fast-moving taxi, the air sweet with paan and the streets peopled with those out still celebrating Gandhi's birthday and a few cows being herded who knows where. Not so many cows in this city, or perhaps we're just in the wrong area. Plenty of stray dogs, though. We stayed at the Residency Hotel in Fort, in the area known as 'Black Horse,' which contains most the Mumbai's main museums and some wonderful old colonial-era buildings. This was a lovely and modern hotel with most-attentive staff which I can highly recommend ... read more

xo so it is just a few sleeps until i am back in cleanliness, fresh air, a place where i can communicate with people around me and where, if i am wiling to not wear a crazy outfit, i can blend into the crowd and go unnoticed. i am loving painting with water colours and am finding the process extremely enriching because it is so revealing of the extent to which my impossibly high standards that i set for myself all the time are responsible for so much angst and are so limiting. its nice to be ok with doing hte best that i can and just honouring myself for that and then being able to see that i am actually ok ,not terrible, and that being mediocre at something is no reason to give up ... read more