Welcome to Chaos!
Trip Start
May 11, 2005
1
217
260
Trip End
Ongoing
Mumbai,
India
Friday, January 23, 2009
Luckily there were prepaid taxi's so getting ripped off right away was delayed.
It just so happen that 2 Garmishers (people that worked in Germany with me) were in Mumbai at the same time. We had agreed to meet up and just like that I had some partners in crime. They filled me in on how things work whilst showing me the ropes. The bad part is that these two girls (Eva and Lynea) have been on the road for 3 months and have just finished hiking in Nepal for a month! They are in super duper shape. Due to my knee surgery I have not been trekking in the Himalayas for a month and therefore sorely out of shape
Sun Rise, (I was jet lagged)
. The first couple of days with them was like boot camp! They walk fast, they walk far and they never complain. Oh did I mention their budget is 20 bucks a day??? Taking a taxi or tuk tuk is not even in their vocabulary! More in shape and more miserly than me? I'm still in shock.....India has more than a billion people and in 30 years will be more numerous than China. My point is that there are people everywhere! Talk about a crowded place! The first thing we saw in Mumbai was the Cricket fields in the middle of the city. Cricket is massively popular in India and there are games being played at all hours. I still don't understand how the game works. It looks like retarded baseball where you can hit in all directions, a single game can last 5 days and end in a tie AND there are scheduled tea breaks......Taking pictures of the players was really easy because they wanted their photo taken. As soon as they saw my camera they would ask for a picture for no other purpose than to just have it taken.... That suits me!
After this we walked around Victoria Station (busiest train station in Asia). This is where they shot the train station scenes for Slum Dog Millionaire.....LATIKA!!!!!! (see the movie) The next couple of days we went to Elephanta Island where there were some Buddhist caves, evil monkeys and tons of Indian tourist. We also check out the area of Mumbai that is famous for laundry
Chicken scale
. Now I know that sounds really lame but its quite an impressive site. The whole section of the city is set up for doing mass quantities of laundry and only men can do it. Just walking around Mumbai for me was cool, everything is different and you never know what you will see. One morning I was trying to find some decent coffee and I stumbled across 30 or 40 live chickens tied together by their feet being weighed on a hanging scale. Random!
As you know by now I try to hash everywhere I go. Well is just so happens that Bombay has one. I was stoked! I talked the girls into going, printed out the address and away we went. Upon arrival, I had had the girls wait in the taxi while I went to find the specific apartment. Upon further examination of the printed address I came across the date....2006!!!! DAMN IT!!!! Needless to say we did not make the hash....I called the GM and they were already running at location that was a hour away! Update your website for the LOVE OF GOD!
Now Im off to catch a night train!
