Mumbai (Bombay) Hotels
|
  | |  |
snacks and shacks
Entry 8 of 9 | show all | print this entry |
|
[written mar. 28, 2002]
hello everyone...!
so it seems that the pace of my traveling has slowed down a bit...although i'm sure it's still a bit quicker than most people would enjoy. it is starting to wear on me...but i only have two weeks left so weariness is easily pushed aside and forgotten. i've only been to two new places since i last wrote...hampi and mumbai, both of them quite phenomenal. but maybe first a bit about gokarna. the town of gokarna (apparently it translates as 'cow's ear') is a holy hindu pilgrimage site, but there's also a series of four beaches just to the south that attracts a lot of backpackers and what remains of the hippies that once staged their occupation of goa. it makes for an interesting mix. finding the first of the four beaches was a bit difficult though. i arrived in gokarna after an overnight train directly followed by two different bus rides...i was a bit dazed, tired, and hungry. i set out from the bus station and proceeded to get completely lost...i asked people for directions and slowly made my way to the first beach, kudle beach, but only after walking an extra kilometre or two, up stairs i didn't have to climb, in the searing heat, with no water, carrying somewhere between 15 and 20 kilos on my back. in jeans and a black t-shirt. i'se a smart boy. i was planning on staying at the second of the four beaches, om beach...so named because its shape is vaguely reminiscent of the om symbol, which is another kilometre or two past kudle beach, which itself is a kilometre long. needless to say, i almost passed out on the way...but i made it, looking like i had stopped for a dip in the ocean fully clothed, but still conscious at least. one litre of water later, i felt somewhat better. om beach was actually quite wonderful...relatively big and clean. i spent an afternoon exploring the two other, and even more remote beaches, each a 20-30 minute hike further south...the first one south of om beach is half-moon beach, which is very poorly named considering it's the least shaped like a half-moon of any of the four beaches. perhaps it was just foreshadowing what was to come, because the next and last beach, paradise beach, was a dump. plastic water bottles everywhere, garbage of all sorts, rocks, and fish nets. such is paradise. at first it seems a bit odd that the most difficult beach to get to should be the most spoiled...but the mentality of backpackers is such that everyone wants to have unique experiences, find solitude and beauty in the overpacked and heavily touristed land of india...so everyone rushes for the most isolated beach and ruins it (and probably ends up being disappointed at discovering how many people had the opportunity to spoil it before they did). i discovered that i'm not overly fond of backpacker beach culture in india (and probably any developing country that has 'paradises' for westerners to run away to)...it's far too self-involved and careless. poverty becomes simply a good exchange rate allowing one to live in 'paradise' that much longer. it all involves a certain amount of putting the blinders on for the sake of a nice suntan and a hammock in the palm trees. and of course, my time in india is entirely selfish as well, my impact largely negative, both psychologically and environmentally. but i feel that at least i'm aware of it, that i try to minimize that impact, and that i intend on returning in an entirely different capacity at some point in the hopefully nearish future. i don't get that sense from a lot of people.
the next place i went to was hampi...the ruins of the capital of the hindu empire of vijayanagar. getting there involved a ten hour bus ride that should have completely destroyed my will to live, but the rapidly changing and fascinating landscape was enough to keep my mind off the crowded bus and the terrible, overloaded roads. leaving gokarna involves climbing up what's left of the western ghats in the north of the state of karnataka, gorgeous hills full of thick deciduous trees. at the top there's a huge plateau that quickly starts to feel like flat sea-level ground and the climb up through the hills recedes into memory quite quickly, like it never happened. the plateau seems semi-arrid, like what i imagine savannah to be like...dry red earth, somehow still used as farmland, and little shrubs and scrub brush everywhere. there was even the occasional cactus-looking plant. the further east the bus went the more the landscape began to get quite rocky, and slowly the terrain that makes hampi so amazing began to emerge: hills made entirely out of large boulders as though some giant had left large piles of rock lying around. and at hampi these boulder mounds are littered with magnificent ruins of what was once a very large city. it's quite difficult for me to explain what the ruins are like...even if i knew the technical jargon for the type of architecture it is and exactly when it was built and by whom specifically it wouldn't begin to explain what it feels like to wander through it all. perhaps what i'll do is wait for the pictures to be developed and then i can scan and e-mail some of them...it would be better than me trying to describe them right now.
and now i'm in mumbai (after another 4 hour bus ride + overnight train)...i've been here for three days. mumbai is a city with a bit of an identity crisis. it's a city where rich men drive mercedes-benzs beside mutilated children driving rickety-wheeled carts. it's a city where young men and women wear clothes that are only a little but behind western fashion (and for those with a bit more money and who care, right with the times) while fearless little girls and women in dirty saris holding children ask you to buy them rice or milk powder so they can go and sell it back to the store for cash. it's a city where the university campus looks like something out of 19th century england, but where a security guard whistles and chases you off if you try to take pictures, as though the clock tower architecture unlocks state secrets. it's a city where westernized teenagers sit in knock-off american franchise restaurants playing with their cell-phones, speaking english 90% of the time, and singing along to the enrique iglesias song that was popular in the west three months ago, while a few kilometres away millions of people live in a seemingly endless slum, the residents lured in by mumbai's promise of prosperity, and finding only squalor. it's a city where even people with good jobs sleep in the street because rent is so high and space so incredibly limited. it's a city where the automated mannequin outside the air-conditioned upmarket clothing store continually sends out namastes to all the passers-by. which provokes an interesting philosophical question...is it possible for a machine to greet the god in me? there have been moments in mumbai when i've forgotten that i'm in india...but never for long. the university campus is too close to the chaos of mumbai's streets; the american style restaurant has about one waiter per table; the westernized teenagers who seem so much to be my economic equals more than likely live in apartments that would form a shocking contrast to their appearance and mannerisms...only the supremely rich can afford anything resembling western comfort in their homes in mumbai. but for all that i've been enjoying my time here. which shouldn't be very surprising, i guess, since i have money (mumbai is still relatively inexpensive by western standards in everything except property and rent, although it gives you the opportunity to spend just as much on food and clothing should you want to) and since i spend the majority of my time in the neighbourhood of colaba in south mumbai, far from the slums in the north. colaba is where most of the travelers come and stay seeing as there's the greatest choice of relatively inexpensive hotels (for mumbai) and it's pretty relaxed (for mumbai). the one obviously negative aspect of having so many tourists in colaba is that it's been invaded by hawkers and touts selling all manner of things, from hash to money changing services to giant balloons to uninspired trinkets. which is nothing new for india, but the concentration of demands for your attention is startling. one mumbai specific scheme is to entice you with bollywood, india's movie industry which is centered in mumbai. i had one guy ask me if i wanted to watch a film shoot (Rs. 500, includes lunch) and i had one guy ask me if i wanted to be in a movie (no sum mentioned, but i don't trust strange men who grab my arm and call me 'friend' on the street).
i met a british guy named rob on the train and we ended up spending some time together wandering around mumbai. both of us had been approached by women and girls asking us to buy rice or milk powder for their baby/sister/brother. while i had declined, rob told me that he had decided to go ahead and buy some rice. the girl took him to a store and he picked out a bag of rice, Rs. 30. the girl, not much older than 8 or 9, picked a different, much more expensive bag of rice and asked him to buy that one instead. rob said no, bought the rice he selected, and precipitated a huge argument between himself and the girl. in the end she took the rice but told him that if he ever came back to mumbai he would be killed. an empty threat, but she obviously knew of mumbai's reputation of being run by gangsters. rob and i ran into the same girl as we were walking near the gateway of india. she recognized rob and demanded that he still buy her the rice she wanted. we ignored her and moved on. there's not really much else you can do.
i'm leaving mumbai tonight by train for ahmedabad...probably not the safest place in the world right now, but certainly not the most dangerous either. i'm going to be there for less than a day all told and i won't be staying the night...i'm really only changing trains as i head from mumbai to udaipur in rajasthan. it's unfortunate that it's my only stop in gujarat...i would like to spend some time exploring that state...but time is one thing i'm short of, and with the earthquake last year and the recent violence, gujarat is not really a great place for tourists right now, both because of loss of infrastructure and potential dangers. but hopefully i'll have time later in life, and i'm excited about spending the remainder of my time in rajasthan...there is much to see and do there. bye for now. i'll be sure to write again before i leave india.
daniel.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by tofudan, from India or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
