Bombay Sapphire

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My night bus to Mumbai was much nicer than the one I took to Jalgaon. This one had sheets, a blanket and a pillow! I just wish I felt as clean as my sleeper having for the second time in a row, caught a night bus straight after a journey from somewhere else during the day, meaning I had no chance to take a much needed shower.
About halfway through the trip however, I realised that my wallet had fallen out of my pocket - or even worse, had been pick-pocketed from me during my sleep. Asking the crew riding with the driver in the 'cockpit', there was a bit of a language barrier as I tried to explain what had happened. I was even beginning to think it might have been one of the crew. Getting increasingly desperate, my mind went back to the time when I had my wallet pick-pocketed in Guatemala - also on a bus. One of the crew asks me how much money I had in there. I tell him that I had about ₹2,500. I wasn't quite sure what to make of what they were trying to tell me but it seemed like they hadn't seen it. When I tell them I also had cards in it, it seems to trigger an "a-ha" moment and he produces my wallet. I assume he was winding me up earlier with the questions and I praise him for a good joke. He tells me not to leave it in my pockets and I promptly lock it up in my bag.
The thing was however, was that when leaving the bus, I am asked for ₹200.
"For what?!" I ask.
Apparently, I should be grateful they didn't decide to keep my wallet by rewarding them financially for their honesty. I tell them "no way" and that they had done what any honest and righteous person should've done by returning it and that that is what all people should do as decent human beings, rather than for reward or gain. I couldn't believe it but I could at the same time. Is this the expected thing to do over here? When I think back on things, the man who eventually handed my wallet back did seem to handle the notes in my wallet a lot - what I thought might've been a hint for me to give him something. Jesus, it's all about money and something for something over here.

I wasn't dropped off as close to my hotel as I was expecting but it was still walkable - and it was a walk that shocked me. I don't think I have ever seen so many homeless people; it got to the point where I had to wheel my backpack on the road because there would have been too many sleeping homeless people - and at that time of the morning, fishmongers with the catch of the day - to get through on the footpath. Like much of the situation in India, I wondered how it had all come to this.

The hotel was pretty dirty and crusty and I'm sharing a dorm in it as it was the cheapest place I could find with a central location close to the sights. The place still functions like a hotel however and has an army of porters and cleaners who cook you your complimentary breakfast, take your laundry and bring water to your room. Housed in an old building, the hotel nevertheless had a charm to it - with the chequered floors, the old fans and the Mumbai heat, it did feel like I was having a classic Indian hotel experience from the 50s.
Laundry however, has been comparatively expensive in India as they charge per item of clothing. I have had to pay £5-£7 each time which is half my daily budget and is expensive even by European standards. It reminded me of two extortionate laundry fees I paid in Latin America - once in Chile and the other for self-service in Nicaragua.

Perhaps more than any other city in India, the British have well and truly left their mark in Mumbai - or Bombay, as it used to be called. It seemed a bit incongruous to see Victorian, gothic architecture through jungle vines and palm trees and it makes me think that this would be what London would feel like if it had a tropical climate. Speaking of climate, it is noticeably hotter and more humid here in Mumbai than it was further north and further inland, even in the evenings which have a lovely balmy feel, where you can just go out for the evening in shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops. Anyway, Mumbai's architectural highlights include the old Victoria train station - much more ornate than its London namesake - now called the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, which reminds me a lot of St Pancras International Station in London. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum also boasts some stunning British architecture as well as some lovely gardens; the High Court is imposing but annoyingly hidden by trees; and the old Bombay University and its Rajabai Clock Tower reminded me of the gothic clock tower at my old university, The University Of Auckland. The high court and the university sit opposite Oval Maidan, where the sea used to be; now it is a big park where local cricketers exhibit gentility in genteel surrounds.
And this has been the most striking thing about Mumbai so far, especially around the Fort area where my hostel is; everything is so orderly! There is actual space between people, it is relatively clean, you're not always dodging motorbikes and there is significantly less noise than any other place I have been to in India. It was so unexpected with Mumbai having a population of some 21 million inhabitants. The street the hostel is on is even leafy and quiet!

Mumbai's two most iconic sights in reside right next to each other on the sea. First, there is the Gateway To India which is perhaps symbolic more than anything but this arch is such a popular meeting spot that there is security to pass through and on the first evening I tried to get in, the line stretched back several hundred metres. Opposite the gateway is the Taj Mahal Palace which as well as being a grandiose landmark, has had a fairly significant role to play in India's history. It was built by a local industrialist after he was refused entry to a European hotel for "being a native"; it was the first hotel in the country to employ women; it housed freedom fighters free of charge during the struggle for independence; and it was where several were killed during the 2008 terrorist attacks. Thanks to the angle of the sun, the Taj is best visited in the morning while the gateway is definitely an late afternoon affair with the western sun illuminating the arch.

India in general has it, but perhaps Mumbai has it the worst - pollution. Ever since I've arrived in India, my snot has been black. Sure, it was black in London too, but that was because of the Underground. Here there seem to be no restrictions on burning or fumes, or if there are, then no-one gives a shit. When I look at the weather forecast, Yahoo tells me every day that the weather is "smoke". I didn't even know that that was a type of weather! Something was always burning close by in the middle of the night and had me waking up coughing. All of this can't be good for my general health, particularly for my lungs. It must be like smoking a pack a day.

Perhaps more annoying than the pollution however has been dealing with some of the locals. You can never seem to get a straight answer out of anyone. If they don't understand something you're asking them, they'll simply nod their head and say yes - they never seem to want to admit that they don't know something, which sends you on a wild goose chase, and it's infuriating. They'll give a vague 'yes' even if it's not a yes/no question. If they don't want to give you an answer - either to keep a bargaining position or because they want to cover something up - then they'll either smile, nod and say yes, or give you an answer to a completely different question. Often, you'll have to ask two or three times just to make sure they understand what you have asked or to even get something done. There always seems to be some sort of misunderstanding in every conversation.

There was one truly outstanding exception however. While watching cricket in the Oval Maidan, an old man shouts from a park bench an enquiry about where I was from. Instantly, you could tell that he was a bit different to anyone else trying to get something out of you; for a start he spoke excellent English which made it easier for him to engage you in normal conversation, but you could detect genuine sincerity from what he was saying. Perhaps it was easier for him this time as we both had a shared love of cricket. I was after a ticket to the test match between India and England here the next day and upon learning that I was going to the wrong place to try and get one, Javed offered to walk me to the actual ticket office. Along the way, we talked about cricket - which he was very knowledgeable about - and about each other's lives and families. There is a massive queue when we arrive at the ticket office but one of the stewards - who he seemed to know - said that it would be quicker for me to buy my tickets online before coming back to collect them. Javed of course knows an internet cafe nearby (they're still a thing here in India) and I make sure he is looking away when I enter my card details; but I don't need to as he was already looking away. We go back to the ticket office with my printout and within five minutes, I have my tickets! The guy has already managed to save me a load of time and hassle. When I ask him why he was helping me and what he was getting out of it, he actually gives me a straight answer; he admits he is a "tour guide" but that his way of making money was to build up a good, trusting relationship with potential clients like myself and then leaves it up to his clients as to how much they want to pay him or even if they want his services. Most importantly he says, he never complains about the amounts given to him, no matter how small - even if people use him for free. It's a bit like those free walking tours that rely on donations; the better the tour, the more you feel compelled to give. He definitely seemed to be working his charms - I already felt like I owed the guy for his selfless help.
As it was now around lunchtime, I offer to buy him lunch, which he accepts. He takes me to a nice-ish restaurant that is still fairly cheap and he recommend dishes to me as well as telling me that we could share one curry, since the servings here were big. And he was right - one curry was definitely enough for the both of us. He was also giving me loads of advice about booking trains, buses and accommodation - including a lowdown on Goa, my next destination. Everything he was telling me was about how to save money and make my life easier. I could tell he was steering me towards allowing him to take me on a tour of Mumbai; but when I decided to part ways after lunch, he was totally OK with it. When I offer to give him tickets to the cricket for the days I'm not going, he refuses; he wasn't too bothered about going to the game and he says he is too righteous to sell them on the black market, which I encourage him to do. All he asked for was ten rupees so that he could buy a cigarette; which I was more than happy to give him. Although he was ultimately looking to make some money like everyone else in this city, he has chosen to give without expecting anything in return and was at peace with that; because even if he didn't receive anything back, he was happy in the knowledge that he has been able to help someone and show off his city and country in the process. It is a noble and trusting business model and it was so refreshing to see, especially in India; if only everyone else in this country - and indeed the world - was more like this.

Instead of going on a tour with Javed, I took a walk along Marine Drive, the Malecón of Mumbai. Coastal cities seem to have another dimension and this is certainly true of Mumbai. Marine Drive - as well as around the Oval Maidan - is full of beautiful art-deco buildings, my favourite architectural style. So Marine Drive has even more in common with the Malecon other than being a walkable waterfront looking out into the ocean.
At the northern end of Marine Drive is Girgaum Chowpatty, the city beach. The Arabian Sea is far too polluted to go for a swim unfortunately but nevertheless this was the first time I had set foot on a beach since I was in Odessa, Ukraine, some two-and-a-half months ago.
Not far from the beach is Kotachiwadi, a peaceful hamlet of two-storey wooden mansion blocks that may have been built in the 19th century. It was a pocket of tranquillity from the noise and chaos just outside and gives an insight into what life used to be like in Mumbai back in the day. It was also full of colourful streamers and decorations.
I then walked back to the hostel via the crazy central markets, which was madness. This was more like Old Delhi (but still not as crazy). Bhuleshwar Market sells fruit and vegetables, Zaveri sells jewellery, Mangaldas fabrics and the Victorian style Crawford Market...well...everything.

I remember watching live broadcasts of test cricket matches from India as a kid and remembering how crazy and fanatical the crowds were - for test matches no less! I was hoping to experience something similar here as I rocked up to the Wankhede Stadium, which was a twenty minute walk from the hotel. While not exactly as crazy as I remember from TV as a kid, the atmosphere was still far noisier and colourful than perhaps any other country in terms of a test match crowd. The drums and percussion were particularly fascinating and much more lively than the droning brass band that follows the English football team.
Although I've never exactly been fond of the English cricket team, I found myself rooting for them here. After all, I am a British citizen now and they are the underdogs on this occasion. But more than anything, although the Indian crowd are amazingly passionate and noisy - sometimes putting the English batsmen under tremendous pressure when they were going through a tricky spell, like a good home crowd should - booing and whistling the English for having the nerve to review decisions (which the English are entitled to do) and for having the audacity to appeal, didn't make them the most likeable crowd. This is a gentleman's game after all. Nevertheless, attending a couple of days of test cricket in India was an enjoyable and fascinating experience.

With 60% of Mumbai's population - so that's 12 million people - living in slums, my Mumbai experience would not have been complete without visiting one. The Lonely Planet-recommended Reality Tours did a tour to Mumbai's biggest slum and the inspiration behind Slumdog Millionaire; Dharavi.
Dharavi however is more than just a slum - it is a thriving hotbed of industry, resourcefulness and enterprise. The first place that we visit on the tour is a plastic recycling plant and our guides gives us some sad facts about the place. While the entrepreneurship and ingenuity is admirable, it is a hard life working here - and a short one too. For just ₹250 (£3) a day, men work for eight to ten hours next to hot, smoking furnaces; as if Mumbai wasn't hot enough. They breathe in so much smoke however, that life expectancy working in the furnaces is only 45-50 years.
As we snake our way through the impossibly dark and narrow alleys that separate the buildings here in Dharavi, I am reminded of the tour I did through a couple of Rio's favelas. Here however, each family normally has about a 10sqm room to live in; there would be a "wet corner" for people to wash in but otherwise this one room smaller than the size of my bedroom back in London, would be the entire living space. During monsoon season, the majority of houses would flood up to knee-deep - floods that would contain sewage and industrial waste. This becomes apparent when we pass a filthy canal full of sewage and pollution that goes straight into the Arabian Sea. Sanitation is a major issue in the slums; in Dharavi, there are just 700 toilets for half a million people that are only cleaned weekly.
But perhaps what angered me most is the fact that corporations are exploiting the hard, sometimes deadly work done in Dharavi. For example, women slave away making poppadoms which they then sell to restaurant suppliers for less than ₹10 a kilo. However these suppliers then go on to sell the same poppadoms for around ₹40-₹50 a kilo. It's just not right. The tour overall was both eye-opening and heartbreaking at the same time - but it was an essential thing to do nonetheless. And at least my visit gave something back to the community; Reality Tours give 80%!o(MISSING)f all their profits back into Dharavi in the forms of free English lessons, life skills sessions and computer training.
My tour of Dharavi was in stark contrast to my evening walk as I strolled along Marine Drive as the sun went down over its southern end, full of hotels and corporate office towers. There are 21 billionaires in Mumbai - the inequality is shocking and it's just not right when millions in the city are literally slumming it; even more so when corporations are exploiting the people working in the slums. It just goes to show that conscience and empathy take a back seat when it comes to money.

The next day, I along with two Yorkshiremen I was sharing a dorm with at the hotel, Sam and Matt, visited the Mahalaxhmi Dobi Ghat - the city's massive open-air, human-powered laundromat made up of 1,026 concrete baths and about the same number of dhobis getting through much of Mumbai's dirty laundry. My hotel had managed to lose a pair of my favourite underpants when they did my laundry so I wondered if they were lurking around somewhere here in the ghat.
After visiting the ghat, we then walked to Haji Ali Dargah, a crumbling island mosque just off the coast and reachable by a narrow causeway. It wasn't quite Mont St Michel or even St Michael's Mount, but it is nevertheless a popular attraction and there are plenty of hawkers lining the causeway. The mosque itself is nothing special and is falling apart - it really is all about its setting.
We skipped the nearby Mahalaxmi Temple when we saw the queue for it; and the Hanging Gardens were a bit of disappointment - they were far from the Hanging Gardens Of Babylon that were considered one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. They did provide some OK views over the city though.

For a place with so much English influence and where all the signs are in English, I expected the locals' command of the language to be much better than it is. Many of the uneducated locals don't understand any at all. I'm not saying that they should be able to speak English - but it was surprising and it made things difficult at times, especially when normal modes of sign and body language don't seem to work here.
One place where they definitely knew what they were doing was at an Irish bar Sam and I went to on our last night in the city. A fairly big pub that wouldn't be out of place back in the U.K., they were charging ₹300 for a bottle of Budweiser. I felt so ripped off. That is almost the price of one night's accommodation, two meals, or even worse, more than a whole day's work in Dharavi. Shocking.

To sum things up however, I can describe the hour or so we spent at the Oval Maidan after watching a day's test cricket at the Wankhede Stadium. There was an official-looking game of cricket taking place in the middle with a proper pitch, proper umpires and everything; but all round were rogue games of cricket and football more than just encroaching on the field of play. It was ridiculous - the fielders would have to dodge football players, fielders from other matches and people picnicking in the park when trying to field the ball or take catches. There was so much potential for a serious accident. Yet everyone just went on with things, just like how Indians get on with their daily lives. Sharing space is just an unavoidable fact of life and somehow, everyone manages to cooperate and get things done.

It was time now however, for a bit of a break from 'real' India as I head for the western beaches of Goa and all of the Westerners on holiday there, for a Xmas holiday of my own.

बाद में मिलेंगे । (baadh mem milengae),
Derek

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Photos

Gateway Of India
The most iconic monument in Mumbai was built to commemorate the royal visit to India of King George V.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus
The facade of Mumbai's beautiful CST station.

Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat
Mumbai's massive, human-powered laundry.

Girgaum Chowpatty
Mumbai's beach. You can't swim in the water unfortunately.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya
The old Prince Of Wales Museum is Mumbai's biggest.

Taj Mahal Palace
This iconic and historically significant hotel is India's second-most photographed monument after the mausoleum that it is named after.

Brihan Mumbai Mahanagarpalika
City government office right opposite Mumbai CST station.

Oval Maidan
Cricketers play on the green field of the Oval Maidan, watched over by the gothic High Court in the middle and the University Of Mumbai's Rajabai Clock Tower on the right.

CST Station - South Side
The south entrance to Mumbai's CST station.

Chai Walla
My local chai maker doing his thing in front of a regular gang of happy customers. This is the Indian pub after the work; hanging out and chatting around the chai stand.

Art Deco Building On Marine Drive
This building on Mumbai's western waterfront, designed in my favourite architectural style, wouldn't look out of place in Miami or Havana.

Marine Drive
Waterfront boulevard that is Mumbai's most popular sunset watching spot.

Test Match Cricket
I went along to the Wankhede Stadium to watch India play England. Here, Indian captain Virat Kohli is batting, on his way to a double century.

Bazaar District
Perhaps the maddest and busiest part of Mumbai.

Dharavi
The only picture I could take of Mumbai's biggest slum.

Ironing Room
Inside the Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat. They use old school coal-heated irons in here just like they wash the clothes old school style too.

Haji Ali Dargah
Dramatically set island mosque just off the coast which is reachable by a narrow causeway.

Khotachiwadi
Quiet, traditional Christian neighbourhood in the middle of Mumbai.

Wooden Houses Of Khotachiwadi
A wonderfully tranquil hamlet in the middle of Mumbai's hustle and bustle.

Bhelpuri
Mumbai snack of puffed rice, dry noodles, potatoes, onions, coriander and chutney.

Vada Pav
Delicious snack of a fried potato pattie served in a bun and topped with a green curry sauce.

Streets Of Mumbai
In the financial district. This could be in New York too. It was strange seeing how orderly the streets were compared to other Indian cities.

Inside The Haji Ali Dargah
Most of the complex is crumbling but it still manages to maintain an air of elegance and calm.

Crawford Market
Apparently, Rudyard Kipling's father did the bas-reliefs on this Victorian building, which now houses an all-sorts market.

Inside Crawford Market
Opposed to its elegant exterior, Crawford Market's interior is a little chaotic.

Modern Mumbai
A look one of the high rises where the 1% lives.