Mumbai

An unexpected announcement from the cockpit on final approach always rattles the nerves. Perhaps I have watched too many episodes of ‘Seconds from Disaster’, but that ‘Ding Dong’ noise goes right through me. However, our descent in Mumbai was not delayed due to any problems with our aircraft, but due to a suspected fire on another (a cargo plane) cue sigh of relief and mental calculations as to how long a 737 can circle for and whether we might be able to make it to Pune instead.

Monali's cousin's children (you may recognise them from the wedding!)

Of course my concern was completely out of place and we all landed safely into Mumbai’s airport. The airport (for those who don’t know it) is located in central Mumbai and the approach gives unbelievable views of the city and especially the slum. Shack upon shack are stacked so tightly together, and in some cases so close to the airport that the genius slum builders have used the airport wall as the back wall of their home.

Monali’s cousin and his family kindly offered to put us up while we were in Mumbai. He also very kindly picked us up, stopping on the way back to pick ‘mishtidoi’ (sweet yoghurt), Monali’s favourite dessert. Well we call it dessert, Monali’s strong held opinion on the subject of sweets and sugar based products is that it is actually demeaning to call them just ‘desserts’ and that they should be treated as appetisers, main course and perhaps even the cheese course.

Crab for dinner

That evening we diluted some of the sugar by dining on seafood at a restaurant called Gajalee. The food was divine, best of all were the crab sticks (crab claws covered in crab meat and cooked in the tandoor). After dinner Monali’s cousin drove us downtown for a night time tour. We saw numerous houses of the rich and famous including the ‘Ambani’s’ house (Google it!), the new ‘sealink’ bridge (very impressive), marine drive and the Trident hotel (scene of the 26/11 shootings in 2008). Mumbai certainly looked a lot more modern than anywhere else I had seen in India.

The next day we succumbed to this modernity and hit the Phoenix Mills mall. It is very depressing to wander around all those fantastic new shops, many of which are offering better prices than at home knowing that (a) you are on a budget and (b) your rucksack will explode with the tiniest additional purchase. We cheered ourselves up by eating chicken kathi rolls at the food court instead.

The unpleasant path to Haji Ali

After the mall we visited Haji Ali Mosque which is set out in the sea (on the site where Haji Ali’s body is supposed to have floated to) connected to the mainland by a causeway. The mosque was tremendously busy and a little intimidating as a result. People seemed more inquisitive than threatening especially at the mosque itself, but the sight of disfigured children begging at 5 metre intervals on the causeway along with the smell of the human and other waste in the bay meant we quickly completed our tour.

Outside a very busy Haji Ali

We took a taxi back to the apartment which took 2 hours to drive the 14/15 km journey. The traffic here is crazy – nothing moves very fast, which means you are a target for hawker and beggar at every traffic light. Most of them quickly move off when you decline, however the Hijra’s (groups of transsexual who make a living by demanding money and cursing those who refuse to donate) are quite persistent – stupidly we gave one of them some money (too much money) which then just made her (him) worse. After that episode we developed excellent poker faces ignoring all approaches at traffic stops.

On our second day we got up early to go the Elephanta caves. Indians (and this may apply to the rest of Asia?) are totally crap at getting up and out early. As a result our taxi to the Gateway of India took 45 mins (the same journey that took 2 hours the previous day) and the boat to the island on which the caves are present was empty. The boat journey takes about an hour and is pretty boring, so boring that one group of young Indian men decided to occupy themselves by continually swapping seats such that each could sit next to me and have his photo taken with ‘the white man’.

The Gateway of India

The temple caves themselves are wonderful and made us a little sad that we had not planned to go see the larger complexes in Ajanta and Ellora. They are believed to have been built sometime between AD 450 and 750, the name Elephanta was given by the Portuguese as there used to be  a large Elephant shaped rock near the shore (moved by the British to a Mumbai museum after it collapsed a hundred years ago or so).

Spotty deity

Which one is the Pussy Cat?

Looking to get a taxi home we wandered down the main street of Colaba past a heavily fortified Leopold’s bar / restaurant. Leopold’s is a famous tourist hang out and features heavily in the book Shantaram (great read) where the ex-pat protagonist uses the bar to meet his pals. Sadly it is also famous as another location targeted by terrorists a couple of years back.

 As we crossed the road (avoiding the numerous heavily armed policemen) I was approached by a man who (in his words) ‘was from Bollywood’ and would I like to be in a movie. Seems that all hip Bollywood flicks now have to have at least one act full of foreigners, but there are never enough extras. Fearing that Aishwarya Rai or some other  Bollywood beauty might fall for me I declined the offer, but am still wondering if it could have been my calling!

You cannot escape Bollywood anywhere in India and least of all here and so we decided to go to the cinema that evening. Being a self-confessed idiot when it comes to the cultural appreciation and entertainment value of these drama-action-musical-religious epics we chose to indulge in a bit of Jolie-Depp action instead. Forking out a whole 300 INR a ticket seemed a little steep until we found out what the ‘premium’ section was all about. Think red velvet, fully electrically adjustable ‘lazy boy chairs’ with soft mood lighting and plenty of space – seems when the Indians design luxury they style for brothel, but the comfort was undeniable. In fact it was by far the best bit of ‘The Tourist’, yet another film where we are teased by the presence of an acting god (Depp) only to have our hopes dashed by a crap story. At least Angelina was as foxy as ever (although she pales in comparison with Monali of course).  

We spent our last full day in Mumbai wandering around Andheri West the area where we had been staying.  The area feels very relaxed in comparison the hustle bustle of tourist Mumbai. Perhaps as a result the prices around here also great – we indulged in 70 rupee chicken rolls at lunch time and I got a haircut and shave for 150 rupees (admittedly i could have bargained this down given my lack of hair).

We ended the day by walking down the park where it seems the entire grey-haired population of Mumbai takes exercise each evening. For the men (and a few women) this involves walking laps of the (small) park trying to dodge all the other octogenarians – the paths were full of them, all dressed for exercise - exactly the same clothes they always – shirt pants or sari only the footwear being changed to a pair of very white sports shoes.

We woke up early the next day and bid farewell to the family and jumped in a taxi to the airport for a flight to Delhi – we had one day left in India before we headed to SE Asia.