(5) Mumbai and Commuter trains

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Day 4 - Mumbai & Vasai Road.

We woke up early with the intentions of getting our full English breakfast coupled with free wi-fi, the free wi-fi was true enough but the full English was us dreaming, a dream brought into reality by us enthusiastically detailing the wonder of said meal which gave him no choice but to nod along with us smiling at our enthusiasm. Our fault I guess then.

Although I’d not typed up a blog yet, it was good to get on facebook and let people know we were still alive, all be it at 5am GMT so no one probably saw it. I was feeling crap, had 1 heavy day of nasty illness and Bombay Belly brought on by what I can only assume was the chicken jalfrezi I’d had yesterday evening and splashed on my top - just to add insult to injury. The lesson learnt from this is don’t eat meat in India - well that’s my new plan of action.

Due to my fantastic condition I went for a harmless cappuccino (recommended by the hilariously funny waiter) to sip whilst youtubing ‘Gibbon Experience, Laos’ and sending a few emails. The gibbon experience looks like the one thing I would choose to do if I only had one week left.

Did you know a mixture of espresso and ice cream is called affogato? I bet you didn’t considering the American guy sitting across the cafe from us didn’t know and he was the one drinking it! He and our hilarious waiter were trying to figure it out tirelessly when I thought ‘enough of this’ quick bit of typing, a key stroke and with the beauty of the internet they both became wiser.

Simon opted for food which I couldn’t bear the thought of and after my cappuccino I’d decided I wanted to try masala chai which is like tea but with a spicy kick - Different. Something I think you’d enjoy mum.

We had to check out of Delight guest house at 12, We got back and found out that we could quite happily leave our bags there until our train at 20:00, we also discovered the beautiful place that is the rooftop of delight hotel which was mentioned to us by the Aussie girls just before they’d left. White curtains draped over shaded gazebo like structures overlooking the city of Mumbai from 6 stories up. Unbelievable we thought as we explored it 15 minutes before we had to check out. We suddenly realised that they’ll let us chill out up here for a few hours even after checkout surely? Loyal customers and all.

We picked up Catherine from Leopolds at 12:00 and went up to the rooftop of Delight Guest House for one last time and we just played dead for 4 hours or something stupid. We exchanged Malaysian mango sweets for English sherbets (thanks Alice) and all was good. When we finally moved we went back to the chicken jalfrezi ‘Good food but better’ cafe and got a banana lassi and roti (thinner naan I think?) as that’s all I could eat.

Catherine wanted some authentic Indian spices to cook with when she went home in a week so we headed to Crawford market (an indoor, British build market just north of Victoria Terminus Station). We got guided to the spice store (see the pictures as its pretty cool). He had over 100 jars of readymade mixes and raw ingredients, anything from saffron to cinnamon sticks, biryani to vindaloo. He poured them out into little metal dishes and passed them under mine, Simons and Catherine’s noses which usually followed with us nodding and going ‘Mmmm’. In fact I think I did that for all of the spices wafted under my nose except for the biryani. For a 100g bag it was £1 or so, and for that you get 3x more than you would in the UK. She expertly flirted and haggled to get the price down from 1700 to 1040 over 10 minutes as we observed taking mental notes. Not bad we thought.
As we stared to leave a small, smiling and persuasive Indian man approached us and asked us if we would like to see his silk collection, why not we thought as we followed him through the market expecting to stop any moment to see his quaint silk store inside the market. But instead he lead u son this 10 minute goose chase, out the market, down some streets, round some corners, back to the main road until we finally reached this silk store he’d been bigging up so much.

He was definitely after commissions (shock) as it was the most expensive looking store I’d seen in the previous 3 days of wandering around Mumbai. The things that gave me this impression were the following: A guard, astonishingly shiny tiled floor, organisation of stock, life-like manikins and quality silk covering them and a wealthy looking Indian couple inside. We wanted a market stall so we didn’t even enter the store much to the small mans insistence. He wasn’t happy as we started walking away.
It’s really cool how every other street has a really competitive looking game of cricket being played on Sunday. If someone hits a 6 into a stream of traffic on a main road you see a kid motivated by his team to weave in and out of heartless traffic seemingly with more concern for getting that ball back as fast as possible than for his own good health! Something tells me it’s not the safest game of cricket but then I remembered I’m in India. Ha.

We caught a taxi to marine drive and sat by the Bay and watched the sun slowly descend into the mist (something I’d been nagging Simon to do for the previous 3 days). It was nice but the polluting air ruined the last bit as you didn’t get that red colour over the water as it was all absorbed by the thick mist.
We did plan on eating at the rooftop restaurant but we changed our minds for the sakes of our pockets when we saw the clientele it attracted. Families and couples were very well dressed for going up there whereas at this point me and Simon had our full-blown backpacks on our packs looking grotty as per standard. Luckily we very easily found a cheaper alternative and sat down for a lassi and a couple of roti’s again although they cocked up banana lassis and ended up giving us a weird hybrid banana mango lassi which was actually very nice.

We bid farewell to the lovely and absolutely bonkers Catherine and we got a taxi to Churchgate station (the start of the commuter line), bought a ticket for a one hour journey for 13Rs (20p) and hopped on the train. Now, these trains are renowned for being ridiculously full at peak times, we were boarding at 8:30 which is borderline peak. The trains have a capacity of 1800 and at times have 7000 people crammed into it. As we watched Mumbai apartment complexes and slums pass by we experienced what I imagine is 5000 people on the train.

The journey would’ve been uncomfortable and boring as we leaned on our backpacks whilst holding our valuables in our daypacks, constantly vigilant of the pick pocket that can get your things without you even knowing. This feeling ebbed away as we fell in love with the cutest Indian kid I’ve seen playing with his father. Stupid little games like the kid curling into a ball and staying there until his dad patted his back and he suddenly sprung up, smiled, and went back into a ball along with people on the carriage teaming up and gently flicking an ear when he was looking in the other direction couldn’t have made me smile a wider smile than it did. I had to get a picture before they hopped off and I did, after I’d joined in a little bit to the entertainment of the non-English-speaking commuters.

Vasai Road was quite intimidating, as we headed out the station to go up and over to the other side we saw we were in the middle of an Indian equivalent of Clapham junction but in the middle of a huge area slightly more well developed than a shanty town. Huge freight and passenger trains were constantly coming and going, people crossing the tracks with large crates of refreshments and snacks offering them around. I now realise that they do this because It’s much quicker than using the stations walkway system which is a horrible complex of suspended bridges which takes a good 3 minutes to walk from one side to the other although it would take 1 minute over the rails, and hey, if they look left and right what’s the worst that could happen?

We’d waited about an hour on the platform our train was supposedly on sitting on our backpacks (great seats) when finally it ‘came in’. I say ‘came in’ because I’ve never seen a train enter a station so damn slowly in my life. It genuinely took about 5 minutes for the train to go 200m. I suppose this worked out well for us as we managed to find out carriage with ease as we pushed our way into a busy sleeper carriage. We found our seats (no one would swap so we were separated), used our valuables as our pillow and got some kip.

I remember trying to sleep but opening my eyes, looking around and thinking “Well, this should be an experience”. I smiled ear to ear and went to sleep.

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Comments

[anonymous]

I want to be there! Are you going to that place Nathan got me the tea form near kerrala?? will send you some money to get me some cardammom tea and post it back if so!!!! :)

[Gill Denne]

ps you prob don't need to avoid meat - chicken is highest risk...but yeah, veggies probably safer as long as it's not salad!!!