Mumbai

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Today we flew to Mumbai. Mumbai is a really interesting place - very cosmopolitan in parts and very poor in others. Shanty town settlements were erected next to modern designed buildings and people lived on every inch of footpath that was available outside the centre of the city. Compared to Nepal and Varanasi, Mumbai seemed very modern and the centre of the city was relatively clean and ordered (in the Indian sense of the word!).

The next day we joined a NGO called Reality tours for a tour of the Dharavi slum. We were led around the slum by a local teenager. It was fascinating and the highlight of our trip so far. The slum is not what we imagined. Yes the people are extremely poor and live on less than US$2 per day and it is extremely crowded (1 million people live in 1.7 sq km sandwiched between two major railways)…however, it is well organised and industry thrives creating US$700 million per year. There was a real sense of community despite the appalling living conditions. The government takes no responsibility or interest to make sure rubbish is collected, water is only provided for 3 hours and the electricity cables are so tangled that at least one person dies every month from electrocution. Everyone we spoke to said that anything to do with the government was bad. The people were so friendly especially the children who followed us around and chatted to us. Not one person asked for money or food which was surprising given what it was like in the city. The NGO had recently opened a kindergarten which we had a look at - the only one in the slum. The children at the local primary school were gorgeous and would just say hi and bye constantly! It was unfortunate but understandable that you could not take photos.

On the way back to the city on the local train, Matt inadvertently got into the ladies only carriage! This created quite a scene and we had to change carriages at the next stop!

On Christmas day we joined the throngs of people down at the Gateway of India and caught a ferry to Elephanta Island, a beautiful set of Hindu caves with huge statues carved out of the stone. The caves were huge. People wanted to take photos of us which was very weird and a little uncomfortable. We will be in a number of family photos! We found a very nice European restaurant for our Christmas meal - not quite roast turkey and cranberry sauce but it was very good nonetheless. Matt managed to find himself a lamb shank having craved it since leaving London.

Before leaving Mumbai we headed to Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat which is were most of Mumbai does their washing! We caught a sleeper bus to Udaipur - 17 hours later we arrived….

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