First Stop Mumbai
Trip Start
Aug 20, 2008
1
15
Trip End
Apr 14, 2009
Mumbai,
India
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
For a start this was my first stop on what was to be my first journey of this kind as a solo traveller. Backpacking in your thirties when you are more secure in your ways and comforts poses a whole host of challenges that probably wouldn't have phased me a decade ago. But undertaking a journey like this by yourself does have its rewards. From impromptu cricket games (I'm suprisingly good at batting for a novice - all that hurling experience stood for something!!!!) to offers of a dance rountine from a 9 year old and his pet monkey - "He make breakdance for you sah, like Michael Jackson!", to the bizzare yet charming experience of complete strangers walking up to me at Mumbai's landmark 'Gate of India' monument insisting I have my photograph taken with them. Oh yes and not forgetting being told by the security guard at customs after glancing at my passport (without a hint of irony or sleaziness I should add) "They say Irish people have the most beautiful eyes!". Luckily he didn't offer to buy me a drink!
So this solo travelling does have its plusses even if they manifest in the most random of ways (we won't mention the humiliating search I had to undergo at Eylat airport in Israel two years ago when I was supposed to be boarding a flight for Tel Aviv.
First meal in India
Apparently Blond Irish Terrorists are all the rage! The female head of security, at least eight and a half months pregnant, didn't help matters by saying after a long interrogation "Hmmm your accent doesn't even sound Irish". All I could do was snap back, "And that's a fucking pillow stuffed under your blouse!". She disappeared after that, possibly to load a Mossad issued silver bullet into a Glock pistol. We'll never know....)Enough digression. My first day took me as far as Juhu beach. Normally the best site in Mumbai for spotting the Bollywood princesses in their finery, all I could see was litter strewn everywhere on the sand. Not suprisingly the nearby road has an Irish name. Tara Road if you're ever there. But amid all that was a lively scene full of cricket games, food stalls and the occassional beggar. It was an accurate introduction to the city and I loved it immediately.
The day after my hotel took the hassle out of sightseeing for me (I did mention I'm in my thirties!) by locating a driver to bring me to all the main tourist spots. Any guilt I felt was assuaged by the air conditioned bliss of the car. Walking around Mumbai, (though everyone here still calls it Bombay) - even for modest journeys - is not the faint-hearted. The traffic is unrelenting. As is the humidity. My first day looking up the street outside the hotel all I could see was an army of tuk tuks advancing like a batallion of belching daleks!!!
Our jaunt around the city took us to Bandra, once a fishing village on the outskirst of the city and now part of the sprawling suburbs, to Marine Walk (home of the city's Louis Vuitton store!), the famous Chowpatty beach - horribly polluted but still the focal point for idle time in the city and of course the Gate of India.
Juhu Beach
Built to commemorate the visit of George V, it's an imposing stone Arch though its also home to a myriad of hawkers, beggars and other characters you want to qucikly escape from. Still it's the city's pride and joy and it does retain considerable majesty. One of the other remarkable sights was the outdoor laundry or dhobi-wallah......it truly is a sight to behold. It runs to several acres of man made canals and shacks threaded between lines of washing, where laundry from the city's businesses, hotels and homesteads are washed, scrubbed and beaten to within an inch of its life. It's a captivating sight, though perhaps not the best way of getting a stain out of your best designer gear. It's also a stark reminder of the huge poverty gap in this city, where a huge per centage of its residents still live in slums - all too visible as you make your way around the city. Most of the dwellings are little more than corrugated sheds and despite the city's best efforts to imrpove the housing stock, this is the depressing reality for tens of thousands of people here.The following day I decided it was time to skip the city for a few hours and take a boat accross to Elephant Island - home to some remarkable cave temples and carvings carved out of granite. As the monsoon rains lashed against the boat I queried whether this was such a good idea, but it had all but fizzled out into nothing but 'soft' rain by the time we got there. It's a great way to escape the city and if you can make it to the top of the hill, it provides commanding views of the Mumbai skyline in the distance. However be warned, while they look cute, the islands monkey population are not to be messed with. They are a vicious rapacious bunch and are well used to relieving tourists of their food. I thought I was safe enough when as I walked into a clearing and my stomach began to demand attention, I decided it would be wise to buy some fruit from the little old woman and her stall. Bad move! You see I bought bananas. Right on cue out of nowhere came a hungry and determined tribe of primates determined to get an early dinner. I quickly had visions of me screaming "Not the face, I've a TV career" while tossing the fruit into the far distance. Luckily I manged to hide it in my bag and disappeared up a hill before eating a banana in a very undignified manner, not unlike a party dare at an Anne Summers Party.
Give me cricket any day!!!
Comments
At long last!!!
Well it's taken long enough, but I KNEW eventually that you'd succumb to the lure of cricket!!!
Hope you went on to score a quickfire 50!
Looking forward to the next entry with GREAT anticipation from an overcast and heavy Dublin!
J