Mumbai

Trip Start Oct 10, 2007

Trip End Jun 26, 2008

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Flag of India Mumbai, India
Friday, November 23, 2007

Yes, loving Argh...medabad - not! It never helps when you feel a bit headachy and listless, and another city full of hostile stares from incredulous men, and unwelcoming cafes and hotels, streets full of pollution and cows and rickshaws trying to knock me over, open sewers smelling of nastiness.......it all amounted to too much and I retired to my room in a faint with some smelling salts and let Andy negotiate the place on his own. A wise decision, as I was much rested after a fairly good night's sleep, punctuated only by blaring horns until 2am, workmen banging away from 5am, and the calls to prayer from the muezzins; Ahmedabad seems to have a high Muslim population and the Mosques round about competed hourly from a, I suppose Godly hour to them, to pull in the most punters for a bit of a worship. It's usually a sound I really like, very calming, but the local Mosques seem to be employing YTS trainee bods to do the wailing, and as the noise escalated we both resorted to earplugs, heathens that we are

Balloon Seller. Why???

!

Anyway, on a bit of a whim we decided to come to Bombay! Just because we can!

We've slept off the results of yet another overnight train trip, in which we got about 2 hours sleep thanks to a dad (who should know better - for shame!) playing computer games noisily until 2am; my voice piping up out of the darkness must have seemed incongruous to say the least; "I say, can you be quiet?", and Andy followed this up with a "Make it quiet!" in a firm voice, followed by a Palinesque fingers to the lips and a 'ssssssshhhh'noise. All of this had little effect, dad gave a head wobble and said "Yesss, very slow volume, no problem". Andy, on the verge of violence now, got out the Maglite and brandished it menacingly; my dad has shown him how to kill a thousand different ways with this item, and perhaps sensing the killer in his midst, the dad turned down the volume on his little game, which continued to give off the odd "ha ha, sod you!" feeble beep for the next few hours. Only the sound of the hysterically wailing baby, around 4am, finally drowned this out.

Our taxi ride into town was also eventful, our informative driver telling us that Bombay was full of "dirty peoples, not nice peoples"

Gate of India

. However, first impressions were, and remain for now, that the city is pretty cosmopolitan, certainly cleaner than most places we've been, a lot more modern and Westernised with a lot of new developments and some obvious money floating about. I think if we'd flown in here instead of Delhi we'd have had a totally different view of India, as it is we feel like we're in another country now. There are actually pavements here, and I haven't stood in poo or smelt sewers for several hours.

Our hotel is near the Gate of India so we had a bimble past that (tick!), took the obligatory photie, and then true to form found a nice caf� for nourishment and, in Andy's case, a restorative beer.

The place is Leopolds, now famous as the venue in Shantaram, and is thus full of tourists like us looking for gangsters and Mumbai-mafia types, yet only really spotting a couple of balding teachers from Hamburg. However, it's a relaxing place, hasn't got carried away with the hype of the book (if you discount the novelty mugs and t-shirts on sale!) and does a cracking menu. Andy was bowled over by his Bombay Masala sandwich, which looked like an omlette between bread, but then who wouldn't be happy with 2 meals in one? I think that and the beer will become a staple over the next couple of days!

Fortified, we are now building up to the hell of the train station booking office yet again, this time to secure our 26 hour train ticket to Bangalore for some time early next week; wish us luck!