Mumbai (5 - 8 Sept 2006)

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Bonjourno tutti la monde! Or perhaps more appropriately - namasta from India! We landed 11 days ago and are presently in Goa having spent three days in Mumbai. I haven't had a shave in over a week and my beard is now beginning to itch! This blog entry will mainly focus on our experiences in Mumbai - Goa will follow (assuming I get this to work correctly) in the next blog.

Mumbai

Day 1
Touchdown

Having passed through customs/ immigration control (whatever that section of the whole departing the plane and making ones way to the baggage-pick-up area is called) with relatively little fuss and then having picked up our baggage, Chris and I strolled out of Mumbai airport and were greeted by Das and Sunil, a couple of quiet friendly locals who worked for Anu and Frazer (our generous hosts in Mumbai). The weather on arrival was warm and wet; temperature was 26.2°C, humidity 100%! (MISSING)

Anu and Frazer had lent us one of their business apartments for the duration of our stay in Mumbai, located in a district in central Mumbai called Bandra. The main tourist area of Mumbai where the famous Gateway of India and Taj Mahal Hotel are located, is further south of Bandra in an area called Colaba, an hour plus drive during the day and probably only 10-15 mins from Bandra if the roads were completely clear.

The traffic in Mumbai is completely crazy - I don't think the highway code exists here! Horns are incessantly tooting, diesel trucks permanently emitting "healthy" plumes of black chokey smoke, mopeds and scooters zip and squeeze in-between other vehicles and somehow, where lane markings do exist on the road, say for example there are three lanes marked out, there always appears to be about five or six cars spanning the width - it's balloons I tell you, sorry I mean crazy!

During the evening, Anu and Frazer came by the apartment accompanied by one of their colleagues Arvind. We all went to a lush restaurant and had some delicious Indian food - lamb and chicken kebab, pea & mushroom & sweet corn curry, mutton (goat) rogan josh, fish curry, raitu (yoghurt based dip with sliced onions and cucumber infused with a variety of spices - don't ask me which ones), naan bread and roti (roti is the traditional Indian bread - much flatter and more round than naan). Also consumed a number of big bottles of Kingfisher beer.

On our way back to the apartment I heard the noise of a siren which sounded like it belonged to an ambulance, coming from somewhere behind us. The siren did indeed belong to an ambulance, which due to the crazy traffic, didn't appear to be going anywhere particularly fast. Instead of the "normal" flashing lights on top the ambulance had what appeared to be a shiny disco ball at the front - very peculiar but nonetheless interesting!

Day 2
Bandra/ Ganesh festival

Today we were left to our own devices. Despite intentions of getting up at 7am, we eventually rolled out of bed at midday! With half the day already slept through, our plan of action was to get some brunch from a nearby cafe and try and catch a Bollywood movie at one of the cinemas in Bandra. Our hosts had informed us the night before that later during the day the streets might get pretty busy due to the Ganesh (Hindu Elephant God) festival and that we should therefore not venture too far south of Bandra and that if we did, we should try and get back by four at the latest...

Having munched our way through a couple of masala dosas (large crispy round savoury rice pancake filled with spicy potato and onion filling - yum!), Chris and I hopped into a rickshaw and tried unsuccessfully to get into a couple of cinemas to watch three plus hours of Bollywood song and dance entertainment - with hindsight it was probably a good thing that we didn't get in considering the length of the movie and lack of subtitles!

After a two hour wonder around Bandra, during which we each managed to pick up a pair of "genuine copy" designer sunglasses for 300 RPs, we decided that there wasn't anything more (if at all) to see in Bandra. The time was about 4pm, the streets seemed like their normal chaotic self, nothing appeared particularly unusual... and so, despite the warnings of our host from the night before, we approached a more than willing taxi driver, jumped into his taxi and ventured southwards to Colaba.

Within 5 mins, we heard the first of many massive bangs going off around us - the street parties had begun and some of the local festival goers had started lighting fire-crackers and letting them off in the streets (I guess balloons haven't quite caught on over here!).

Approximately 10 mins later we passed by rows of massive trucks, horns blaring and the ubiquitous black smoke gradually filling the streets. The trucks were full, almost spilling over with party goers, each of them smothered with red/ orange powder and throwing flowers around the streets and pavements. Each of the trucks were either preceded or followed by floats which had statues of Ganesh of various sizes. The floats were accompanied by festival goers dancing on the streets to the beat of live drums. I suppose in comparison to back home, you could liken it to a carnival except for the shortfall in variety of "music" and the fact that it is obviously not as multicultural - each float is pretty much the same and everyone partaking in the festival celebrations are Indian!!

Several minutes later we were stuck in chocker-traffic for about 20-30 minutes. We got as far as Chowpatty Beach and decided to hop out of the taxi and walk the rest of our way to Colaba. I felt a little sorry for the taxi driver - the traffic didn't look like it was getting better, if anything it was getting worse, the poor guy was going to be stuck in it for quite a while... haha!! On approaching the beach we realised why our hosts had warned us to stay away... the streets were blocked off the beach was rammed. The whole length of the beach (approx 1km long) was spilling over with festival-goers and in the distance you could see the tiny dots of people carrying the Ganesh statues on their shoulders and submersing them in the water ... despite this we decided to try our luck and cut across the beach towards our destination, Colaba.

We could only get half way across the beach as entry to the other half was blocked off, and therefore had no choice but to turn and make our way back. In making our exit off the beach we got caught up with the thousands of other locals who also were trying to leave... this was a pretty hairy experience. Every so often you could feel a huge surge of people pushing from behind and it felt like a stampede was making its way through. Chris and I made sure that we were right against the side of the fence, that way if things did start to get nasty we could jump over into the safety of the empty streets. You might ask why we just didn't do that straightaway - we probably could have but there were police officials situated every 10 yards or so patrolling the fence. To me the whole way that the exiting from the beach was organised was very poor and extremely dangerous, particularly when considering the small children who were also caught up in the crowd. Every time there was a surge, you'd try and brace yourself from being pushed over but in doing so you'd have to be extra careful that you didn't squash one of the tiny children in front of you. Anyhow, following some deft and cunning moves we finally managed to get ourselves off the beach and back to Bandra.

On arrival back at the apartment we tried to catch the England v Macedonia game but unfortunately it wasn't showing and had to make do with watching Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx.

Day 3
Colba

This was going to be our last full day in Mumbai and we hadn't really seen much of the place. We popped around to Arvind's offices and he arranged for Das (Anu and Frazer's personal driver) to take us on a tour of South Mumbai. On our way down to Colaba, Das pointed out various interesting looking buildings. We tried to find out more about what the buildings were, but due to Das' limited command of la langue Englaise, our understanding of what the buildings were was also limited.

Das dropped us off in Colaba... we saw the Gateway of India (a mini arc de triumph), took a long and boring boat ride to Elephanta Island, had a spot of lunch on the island whilst surrounded by monkeys, returned back to Colaba from the island... the return leg was made a little less boring due to a young boy who was trying to sell 10 SA Rand which presumably had found on the floor. Chris eventually bought it for 50 RPs (actual value is approx 60 RPs). On arrival back in Colaba, we popped into the Taj Mahal hotel for a couple of minutes. Seriously an awesome looking hotel - it has a very authentic and traditional Indian feel to it. If we had more time, I'm sure we would have spent more time checking it out. Following rendezvous with Das, we made our way back to Bandra, Das pointing out some more interesting looking buildings...

In the evening Arvind and another of his colleagues, Girish, took us out for some beverages. On the way home Girish treated us to a traditional Indian mouth freshener type chew called paan. Paan is basically made up of a bright green (bettle) leaf and stuffed full of various spices (such as cardamom, aniseed, lime paste, grated coconut and different kinds of betel nuts). Basically you chew the leaf and swallow, unless it contains tobacco (which is how the locals have it) in which case you spit it out. Supposedly, paan is also believed to help in the digestion of curried foods - very peculiar but nonetheless interesting!

We get a relatively early night as we have an early start in the morning - we have to catch a 5.30am train to Goa...

Crikes dudes!! This has only taken me over the course of 4+ hours to type up... hopefully it will get quicker with practice, and hopefully I haven't bored you all! Trust all is well wherever in the world you are, especially those of you at work!! Haha!! Over n out, Kal.

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Comments

[conor]

kal takes control of delhi tigers
sounds good fun , i bet you wish you were in boring england

[Asian Priestley]

delhi bulls
no such thing as delhi tigers over here. plenty of bulls and cows tho just roaming aimlessly around the streets and train platforms. india is pretty crazy dude... but i'm loving every minute of it! we have to have a lads trip to goa too.... seriously the boys would love it! hope all well... adios amigos!