High on Kingfisher

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I had my second domestic flight of the trip today, from Kochi to Mumbai on Kingfisher Airlines. Kochi airport was clean and airy, and the Kingfisher staff were very helpful - the lady at check-in even managed to snare me an emergency exit row window seat. The flight was only about two-thirds full and arrived on time.

At Mumbai airport, a German guy approached me and asked if I wanted to share a taxi to Colaba (the main backpacker area), which I agreed to. There was no prepaid booth available, but we found a driver prepared to use the meter. Unfortunately the three of us had no common language, so we abandoned the idea of telling him to drop us off at our hotels, and instead asked to be dropped at the Taj Mahal Intercontinental hotel - one of Mumbai's best-known landmarks and quite possibly the most famous hotel in India. It would then only be a short walk for both of us to our respective hotels.

Once we got into Mumbai itself, the driver somehow managed to get lost. And just as we were marvelling at how he could possibly live in Mumbai and not know where the Taj hotel was, the taxi broke down and refused to start again. Like in Calcutta, the fare that appears on the meter isn't actually the fare that you pay - conversion charts are issued every time there's a fare increase, to avoid having to upgrade the meter itself. The German guy had a conversion chart that he'd used on his previous visit to Mumbai a couple of weeks previously, so he came up with one figure. The driver, who was clearly using a fake conversion chart specially made for people who really do stay at the Taj, came up with something 50% more. We flagged down another cab to take us the rest of the way, and also used his conversion chart as the tie-breaker - our original driver reluctantly accepted this fare, but refused to rip up the fake chart that he had, despite us trying to persuade him to do so.

My hotel, the Hotel Kishan, is close to the Taj hotel. On arrival the owner denied any knowledge of either my reservation or the chap who'd taken my reservation over the phone yesterday. However they had an available room, which seems slightly overpriced but that appears to be a common feature of Mumbai accommodation.

There was still enough time in the day to fit in a spot of sightseeing, so first I took in the Gateway of India, which is very close to the Taj hotel. Originally envisaged as a disembarkation point for steamship passengers, it is more often remembered as the place where the British finally departed the country. The Taj hotel itself stands serenely nearby, grey and white facade looking over the harbour.

I then wandered a bit further afield and saw the Prince of Wales Museum (from the outside), and the Oval Maidan (scene of various games of cricket). My visit to a Citibank resulted in a fistful of Rs 1,000 notes, the first ones I'd seen in the entire trip, so I guess the ATMs in Mumbai are like Vegas ones and $100 bills. I also spotted some Tim Tams in a food store, which provided a burst of nostalgia to the time when I used to stuff my face with them in Tokyo.

Though I most definitely do not have the clothes to justify going into any decent eating establishments, I decided to ignore the embarrassment and try out one of Mumbai's most trendy restaurants (at least in 2003 ...) for dinner, Indigo. Sure enough, I was the least appropriately dressed person there, but they dealt with it well by hiding me away in a corner. I managed to blow about $60, which is as much as I've spent in similar places in New York, though going there on my own definitely didn't make best use of the atmosphere. For the record, the food was excellent (and I'm not just saying that because I had my first slice of cheesecake in eons).

I then went in search of a nightclub that supposedly played Western disco music, but I discovered it had closed down a couple of years ago and had been replaced by a bar owned by cricketing superstar Sachin Tendulkar. I decided that a beer wouldn't go amiss, though there were no other customers in the bar except the DJ, who had put on a Pink Floyd CD rather than waste his mixing skills in front of an empty room. He explained that the club I'd been searching for had moved across the street and opened up again as a '70s/'80s place called Polly Esther's - not the first club with that name playing that type of music that I've come across in my life.

I then fell into conversation with a businessman from Hyderabad, also called John, who had questions about everything from religion to marriage to the perception of India in the West. This was an interesting exchange, which sent me well past my bedtime (1:30AM) and left me sufficiently "tired" that I rang the bell of the residential floor above my own in the hotel. Fortunately the guy who answered pointed out the error of my ways in a sleepy rather than annoyed tone, and I was able to find my way to the correct bed.

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Photos

Rajabhai Clock Tower
Apparently modelled on Giotto's campanile in Florence