MUMBAI

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  MUMBAI, India
Saturday, January 13, 2007

SAT. 13 JAN. 2007

MUMBAI
(GMT +5h30m)

The Hilton Towers was home for three nights in Mumbai and it's a pretty fancy hotel (it'd want to be for the rates they charge!).  I arrived late at night and settled in for what was undoubtably the best sleep I'd had so far on the trip.  When I get home, I'm gonna find out where they get their pillows and get some shipped over, whatever the cost!  They were amazing!!!

I got up late and went for a quick stroll to sus out where I was.  That stroll was a VERY quick one as the heat outside was unbearable.  After a few minutes walking I made my way back to the hotel and got an air conditioned taxi to Colaba.  I had no real agenda for my few days so I headed for 'Leopold's'.  Those of you who have read 'Shantaram' will have read about this place.  Those of you who haven't, do - it's an amazing read!  Leopold's seemed to be doing very well from the publicity the book has given it - several places on either side of it were empty while it seemed to be constantly packed.  Had some lovely grub there and met the first Irish people that I had got talking to so far on the trip.  After my late lunch there I went for a stroll around Colaba in some crazy tempreture that had me losing about kilo in weight every 10 steps!  I had a few beers to cool down in a bar whose name I can't remember and headed back to the hotel to re-hydrate and chill out for the evening.

On Sunday afternoon I went on a 'City Tour' with Santosh, the taxi driver who had picked me up the previous day (once you get chatting to a taxi driver in India, he's yours for the duration of your stay whether you like it or not!).  He was pretty cool, good craic and had a better than average grasp of the English language which was a big bonus.  I went around a few of the touristy spots including the place that Ghandi lived when he was in Bombay which is now a very interesting museum, India Gate, Victoria Terminus and a few other spots.

One of the more interesting parts of the tour was a drive around one of the city's slums which are huge areas where the people have built their houses out of what looks like all sorts of stuff that has been pulled from a dump somewhere - random bits of timber, sheets of metal, strips of cloth & plastic, etc. built almost (and sometimes actually) on top of each other.  There might be two families or more, maybe up to 10 people, living in a little one room hut that looks no bigger than your average garden shed.

Another interesting spot was an open air laundry where everything is washed by hand (and feet!) in these big open air concrete bath type things.  Loads and loads of people dancing around like lunatics in these yokes throwing clothes all over the place and then miles and miles of clothes lines covering what must be several acres in the middle of the city.  The bridge that passes by this place seems to be a major attraction to the passengers these taxi drivers bring around every day.

When I got to Mumbai, I'd spent about two weeks in cities and, although everywhere was really interesting, I'd had my fill of the hustle-bustle, traffic, noise and pollution, and was starting to really look forward to spending some quiet time in Bali.  Having done the tour I was content to chill in the hotel for the evening and wasn't arsed going looking for the nightlife (plus I was determined to get my money's worth out of the Hilton Towers!)

On Monday, I arranged a late check-out, went for a late lunch in a place up the road from the hotel and headed off that evening to catch a flight to Singapore.  There was some kind of a security scare at the airport and every one in the place was shoved down to one side of the terminal for an hour or so but it seemed to get sorted out and my flight left on time.

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