Advertisement
Published: February 11th 2010
Day 3 - 06/02 Mumbai and Elephanta island.
The Oz girls we’d originally planned on going with were feeling pretty low as they were fairly heavy on the booze last night so we headed onwards and upwards without them. On our second time to the India Gate (the ferries to elephanta island leave from there) we didn’t get harassed too much at all, a couple of “want big balloon?” *Boom* sellers and a couple of people wanting to take a picture of us with a decent SLR and print it off and give it to us for some ridiculous price (we didn’t actually ask), my question is - how do they afford a decent SLR? Couldn’t figure that one out actually.
Throughout the hour or so from walking past the india gate, getting on a 40 minute ferry and doing the 5 minute walk from the dock to the island, we were probably offered about 10 different guide books for varying prices. Not worth it we thought as we were there just for the escape of Mumbai city for one day and to see the huge bust of shiva with 3 heads symbolising the destruction, creation and preservation of
the universe.
Anyway, the ferry ride was really fun, as we departed on the 40 minute trip that would take us 9km north east of Mumbai Harbour we realised there were probably 50 or so individually decorated ferry boats (as the owners lived on them). They were all docked in lines of 5 or 6 and some of them I wouldn’t poke for fear of collapse but some looked amazing, some had purely rust coating the hull whereas others in bright colours you’d guess of anything Indian and some even had rooftops with plants and hanging lanterns looking very modern and contemporary. These lines lasted for a few hundred metres, people are living on these boats, somehow still surprising at the time as I’d seen people sleeping in taxis, on the street and in/on wooden carts so maybe these guys sleeping on the boats had the better deal.
It still strikes me how the poor coincide with the rich in Mumbai, Its just plain odd - Scorching red ferrari’s parked next to fantastic buildings such as the Taj Palace Hotel and the modern looking homes of the many rich (Mumbai has more millionaires than London). As Gregory Roberts
says in ‘Shantaram’ “The contrast between the familiar and the exceptional is everywhere” which is so true. Mumbai has more millionaires than London yet it’s average GDP per annum is $999 or 44000Rs which is three times the national average. A fairly prosperous place then you’d imagine - mostly true, but the gap between the rich and the poor in Mumbai is of greater magnitude than I’ve seen anywhere else and it’s unsettling that they sleep on the streets every night, passed in the mornings by the millionaires on their way to work.
Just as I was thinking this, A million dollar speed yacht rumbles behind the ferry then procedes to speed past drawing almost all the Indian men on the boat over to that side of the boat with a strong sense of jealousy and awe.
The ferry ride was long and as we got closer to the misted silhouettes we’d been trying to decipher we realised why the journey was long: Dozens of oil tankers were waiting to off load at an array of different docks with pipe work heading web like through a number of islands situated around a central refinery which presumably pipes the stuff
to be distributed, consumed and coughed back out to contribute more to the perma-fog.
On the island there’s a large walkway from the dock to the island and we got chatting with a group of 4, made up of A british guy called phil, An Austrian girl called Catherine, and 2 Norwegian guys called simon and Franklin with the latter 2 the only one’s travelling together. They all seemed like a really good laugh although what impressed me a lot was the fact that Catherine had probably spend 4 of her last 5 years travelling. And she’s mad. She does everything solo and told us that this morning she’d woken up in a hostel she’d hurredly booked as she was tired from arriving in Mumbai to find about 8 Indian guys staring at her as she’d stayed in a dorm with 15 other Indian guys. They then apparently proceeded to watch her floss her teeth with pure confusion and excitement, I really don’t know how she can do stuff like that, in india, as a girl, alone. Definately the craziest person I’ve met yet. We probably wouldn’t have met them if we’d gone with the aussie girls so I
was pretty thankful for that.
The long climb up to the first of 5 caves is lined by stalls but it’s so steep that you can only shop on the way down as you’re knackered on the walk up. For 10 rupees you can get 4 guys to carry you up on a wooden chair, that works out as 3-4pence each for a good 5 minutes work, back breaking work. I wouldn’t have enjoyed it or watching someone do it - my mind started wondering who the heaviest person they’d ever carried up there was and how long it took them. The entrance to the first cave is so cool, A huge roof of solid black and white marble-esque rock held up by thick pillars. The statues inside the dark cave were mostly showing the scars of age (They are at least 1300 years old) missing legs, arms and faces etc but one carving has stood the test of time aand looked pretty damn impressive. It’s 6m high, has 3 heads (isn’t the dog from harry potter) and I wouldn’t mess with that god. I don’t understand why the meaning of the 3 faces is in the following order
of the destruction, creation and preservation of the universe. What did shiva destroy before she created the universe? Hmm...
After exploring the first cave we pottered outside and towards the wall overooking a valley on the island, Catherine put her water down and within a matter of seconds a monkey had skilfully picked it up, placed it under his arm, scuttled along the ledge (with a good 20m drop behind it) started rapidly twisting the cap off and then tilted the bottle and started drinking. Hilarious. Catherine didn’t seem to think so as she’s scared of pretty much all animals with teeth and she’d just been telling us a story about a friend who’d been mauled by monkeys so she freaked out which made everything even better. We got close and took pictures of it until it’d had enough and decided to charge us off, something it did whilst baring it’s huge 1-2 inch fangs. Scary.
The other caves were a bit crap apart from a hole in the floor filled with water and toads (therefore we dubbed it ‘toad in the hole’ cave (you can find an unexciting but lovely picture of that).
We all grabbed a cheap
spot of lunch and headed off to the docks again via the shops which were selling a fantastic array of coloured bead necklaces and bracelets, little carvings of Indian deity’s and fridge magnets (of course).
The ferry journey was much quicker as Catherine told us how mad she is, scared of various little furry things but happy enough to travel India on her own. We were also told how cheap the food is in SE Asia which I’m now looking forward to (much as we’re loving Indian food) and got the fact that laos has a decent national beer for about 30p per big bottle re-confirmed after the Dutch couple yesterday told us the same thing. I’m looking forward to Laos.
Back on land the India Gate loomed over us as we decided on a plan of action, me and Simon needed to check whether we had got seats on our train to Jodhpur and how to get from Mumbai to Vasai road (A station 50 odd km north of colaba). The station also was near where Catherine and Phil were staying so we got involved with that and walked there from the docks which took a good
30 mins but we passed some incredible indo - gothic buildings on our way to the busiest station in Asia (2.5 million people pass through CST or Victoria Terminus daily). Turns out me and simon did have seats but they weren’t next to each other and we found out we could get a commuter train from churchgate station up to vasai road station. We’d waited about 30 minutes for that information and met an Aussie guy who’d missed his connecting flight to goa which he was pretty bummed about.
From there we picked up the Nordics at the YWCA hostel after walking past some cool markets and buildings again and headed to a cafe with the slogan “Good food, but better”, The Indians haven’t quite got English slogans down to an art yet. I saw an advert for a gym with the slogan “You think fitness is expensive? Try Illness.” Ha. I’d go there if just to hi-5 the marketing guy. I got a chicken Jalfrezi but I’d managed to spill half of it over me by the end of the meal so I just turned my t-shirt around and wore my backpack over the stain - easy. We
headed back to the hostel so I could get changed and said we’d meet them at Cafe Mondegar in 30 mins or so as they walked in.
Cafe Mondegar is similar to leopolds without an upstairs and I’m surprised it wasn’t hit by the attacks as it’s also very touristy. A large Kingfisher is 170Rs (£2.20) and the table was covered in them after 30 minutes or so. Phil was heading down to Goa that evening and the Nordics to Pune in the morning so we bid our farewells to Phil and headed somewhere more exhuberant to see off the Nords, The first bar we went to didn’t let me in because I’m under 21 but Simon caught a glimpse of the sign outside saying breakfast with free wifi - Simon then proceeded to ask if they did a full English breakfast and listed all the ingredients with such enthusiasm that the guard had no real choice other than to nod along laughing and smiling which convinced me and simon that tomorrow we’d be eating a full English with free wifi - Heavenly.
We’d heard that there were a few up-market Indian bars in one area which we headed
to and we managed to find a place called Indigo which was more expensive than an English club I’m sure. The rooftop was pretty suave but as we got passed the menu we got very excited for a brief moment as our eyes scrolled to Imported beers, then down to Guinness! But then along to the price which was 500Rs (£6.80) so we instantly downgraded how awesome we thought the place was for that brief moment. Everything was really expensive but we wanted to stay so the Nordics both got a single Teachers which was served very professionally and they thought that was very upmarket until we told them how well we know that taste and that it’s in all the supermarkets for cheap as chips which they found entertaining.
We bid our farewells to the nords and organised to meet Catherine tomorrow so she can show off her famed haggling skills.
Back at the hostel we bumped into the oz girls who we told elephanta island wasn’t really worth the money and they told us that’s fine seeing as they’re off to Goa In 2 hours. Everyone’s going to Goa. I want to go to Goa (hurry up
Chimp and Fraser). These girls don’t know when to stop shopping, their room could’ve been called Colaba causeway as it’s just teeming with random crap, the picture you can see is of the Aussie girl Simone who bought a CLOTH umbrella, fantastic purchase there. They’ve said they’ll take us out in Melbourne and Simon was wanting them to take us to the neighbours set. Sigh. We also bid them farewell and went to bed. I quite like the whole transaction that goes on between friendly travellers, Greet, exchange mutually useful information, wish good luck on the rest of their travels.
Do you think I should keep writing like this or try to compact more days into a blog? Thanks.
P.sorry for the spelling mistakes I've now fixed
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 5; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0408s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Ols
non-member comment
Keep Writing
These are the highligh of my days lol. Seen as my busiest day involves 3 hours of lectures i have a fair bit of spare time so write as much as you want! Its also the most reading i think ive ever done! x