Landed in Mumbai

  Mumbai, India
Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Mumbai

Finally we arrive in Mumbai, and as the plane touched down we're rapidly whacked over the head with Mumbai's stench! We feel like we have inhaled a rotten boiled egg up each nostril.
We rush off the plane and fight our way through customs. Incredibly our back are first off the luggage chute. We manage to change money and organise a pre-paid taxi. We are given a complex receipt with a reg number listed and head out into the fray. It's chaos out there! and it takes all our frazzled concentration to negotiate the writhing crowd. We are soon swamped with over eager taxi drivers who try and snatch the receipt from Karen's sweaty hand. Luckily a calm and dignified police officer comes to our rescue. He takes the receipt and sedately escorts us along the row of garish black and yellow Premier taxis. One by one we read the number plates looking for the chosen one 7461. Curiously, the second last cab is 7416 and the driver is eager that his taxi is the one. Between the inspection of reg plates and returning to the pre-paid window we collect a group of raucous taxi drivers and porters who are all keen to be involved in the unfolding drama, gesticulating and shouting advice at the clerk. The police officer remains as cool as a cucumber, but the clerk is hesitant to admit his mistake and insists on a second inspection of the taxis. This time the police officer is obviously tempted to change the number on the receipt himself, but taking out his pen he has second thoughts. Again we weave back through the crowd to the window and wait while the clerk writes out a new receipt. The 7416 driver is victorious. His mate the porter wrestles the luggage trolley from me and escorts us to the taxi. A cloud of smoke engulfs us we open the cabs back door. "I think it might be on fire" Karen says. "Get in!" I yell as the beggars descend. It turns out to be a fragrant cloud of harmless incense smoke. The porter demands a tip through the window and is followed by a procession of beggars who score nothing more than some melted aeroplane chocolate from my pocket. Finally, after the receipt is stamped, inspected and re-checked, we are on our clunking way.
The traffic is dreadful - stop, start, then shudder as the decrepit taxi complains. The dodging, squeezing, incessant honking, gesturing, and head wobbling continues for a mind-and-bladder-numbing hour and 3/4. We finally begin to pass some familiar sights and we are at last dropped off out the front of the heaving Leopold's cafe in Colaba district. We attempt to dodge the inevitable touts to find a hotel where we have booked a room. After being rudely diverted by an all too congenial tout, we discover that our room has not been kept for us. By now its 10pm and we roam the rat infested foot paths of Colaba in an attempt to find a bed, however disgusting. We attract (as in a fly to a fresh turd) another annoyingly nice tout. We enter our 'last chance' building. After 4 flights of stairs we score a grungy room with walls that stop a few feet short of the ceiling and are more like partitions. The sheets are more brown than white and pillows like bricks. The floor space only just accommodates our packs.

Luxury

We are here!!!!
Mumbai feels just as good the second time around once the horror of arrival has passed.
As we walk down the street for our first late night feed we are bothered by the beggars, shop vendors, taxi drivers, tour guides, drug sellers, and any other kind of tout selling a myriad of shit! Having experienced this all over the world we have become quite good at defending the attack, but it is still as wearing as ever.