3 Days in Mumbai
We flew in to Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport on one of Thai Airway's pov pack planes. We were surprised to find ourselves in an airport (in fairness: under renovation) that closely resembled a large bomb shelter. We walked through, regaining the use of our limbs and hoping like hell we didn't get hit up for a bribe or as it is more quaintly referred to a Baksheesh. I located the baggage carousel and we were introduced to the Indian queuing system; a system where the least pushy is last. Then we walked outside, Mike to find an ATM and I to guard the bags. To say the heaving mass of people was a shock would be about right - I mean who brings their entire family to pick up one person at the airport at 1 in the morning? Fortunately Mike finds an ATM that is plugged in (the one in arrivals wasn't) and secures us a fixed price taxi.
We thought we'd gotten away without having to pay baksheesh. Or so we thought, it was just short of 500Rupees for the taxi to our hotel and the guy who got our taxi changed (so that we wouldn't have to wait) wanted a tip. First he said 100Rps then he saw Mike open his wallet (holding all the rupees that we had) and suddenly he wants 500Rps! Mike gave him 250Rps as we weren't about to tip more than the fare! While all this was going on, I was staggered by the yellow & black cabs (non-air conditioned) that were parked across from us and went on for as far as I could see. It was a sea of parked cabs!
Mumbai drivers are something else! It wasn't just that they are constantly on the horn, it was that I thought we would crash so many times. Playing chicken It seems that India drivers operate on a "if you don't crash it doesn't matter how much you miss by" mentality. I noticed that many taxis don't have side-view mirrors - no points for guessing how they got removed. Finally we arrived at the Hotel Manama. We had booked a deluxe room but ended up with a tiny room with a renovated bathroom. I was feeling ripped off and ready to do battle with the front desk but Mike checked out the other rooms that were available and he said we had the best of what was left. I mean Mike could almost touch the wall while laying on his bed. It was all too much but knowing that tomorrow was a new day gave me hope and helped me sleep.
We ventured upstairs to the Manama restaurant for breakfast. If last nights less than helpful service was a downer then the food and help from the solo waiter was a bit upper. Mike discovered his first favourite dish of the trip Aloo Chaat, it was full of potatoes, coriander and cumin - other spices too I'm sure. It was so delicious I completely forgot to take a photo of it - oops!
We walked out of the hotel with a spring in our step and a plan. A walking tour plan! We were armed with LP's Best of Mumbai and had found the walking tour called "Footsteps of the Raj"; seeing as we were staying next to the end point of this walking tour, we decided to do it in reverse! We saw some cool stuff and took plenty of photos! The photos miss out on one important thing: The Maiden Oval. There is an amazing number of boys & men playing cricket, some in whites, others wearing tees and shorts. There are batting nets - all in use and more games than I can count. This seems to go on all day long. Cricket rules Mumbai.
The end of our tour was the Gateway of India. It was massive! It stood looming over the harbour, surrounded by a multitude of people and barren cement. A few different people, all Indians, approached us to have their photo taken with us. It was very weird. It's not like we were the first tourists here, we'd seen plenty of tourists on our tour - some doing the tour in the correct order. I started to wonder if someone was going to pick our pockets or something. Fortunately that didn't happen. What did happen that as we were admiring the hazy view, there's a lot of pollution, a priest of some kind came up to us to give us a blessing, he put string on our wrists and a red dot on our foreheads. He then expected that we "re-imburse his time because he'd travelled so far to bless us" as was explained by a man who'd previously been trying to sell us a boat tour. Mike took care of it and we decided to vacate the area. I couldn't help feeling like we'd just been marked as easy marks.
So as we're walking along in the meagre shade, an Indian man walking towards us says something to Mike which neither of us understand. He seems to be saying Mike has something on him, so Mike stops but then he pulls out two long metal sticks and looks like he's about to put them in Mike's ear. So I yell at him No, No, No! and pull Mike away from him. He shouts something else after us but no way in hell am I going to let some weirdo put something in Mike's ear. Shortly afterwards I work out the trick, the man would have poked around in Mike's ear and then produced an ugly bug from up his sleeve. This would have led to insisting on Mike needing some special cleansing or something, probably at a price. Honestly this freaked us both out and we got away as fast as possible.
We venture back to CST to arrange train tickets to Goa and found we couldn't go through the ticket office if we wanted 1AC tickets (1AC means a sleeper compartment for 2 people only with AC). Fortunately we had some assistance in finding someone to book internet tickets - turns our they were emergency tickets! It cost extra - I think we had to pay a bribe to get the tickets and not be wait listed. So in trying to get to the coffee shop we'd spied earlier, we are caught by 2 small street urchin girls. They tried to attach themselves to us with cries of "ice cream". I clicked faster than Mike as to what was going on and freed myself much faster than Mike did.
We find ourselves a little café called café Coffee Day and we hide from the madness outside. In a surprising turn of events we get chatting to a couple of Korean University Students. It's really nice to swap stories and to agree that Mumbai is in your face. Walking around we find we can't even look at a stall without being harassed to buy whatever we looked near. The chillout does us good but we're not enjoying Mumbai, it's not a fun city but one overflowing with people & cars. We're glad that we'll be moving on soon - Goa can't be worse can it?
After the chillout, we grab our tickets and decide to walk to a mall. We've seen plenty of street stalls today but no actual malls. We end up at Chowpatty beach - near the mall we were heading for but we couldn't find it. It's late enough for dinner by now, so we try a vegetarian joint of Mike's choosing. While we're waiting the standard 30 mins for our food, Mike confesses that right now all he wants to do is hop on a plane and leave. I try to encourage him (quite the role reversal!). After all we have a plan for our second day in Mumbai and then the next day we're out of there!
Elephanta Island. That's our plan - we'll take a deluxe ferry out (apparently it just means larger seats) and hopefully have a better day. We get down to the Gateway of India by taxi and then we manage to find the grumpiest ticket seller to purchase our deluxe tickets from. Our "Luxury" boat took 50 mins to get out to the Island, we saw a few oil refineries and mega ships on the way. At the bottom entrance we are hit with our 5Rps entry tax. It's almost 12pm so we stop for lunch, after giggling over the mini-train on the pier. It's a non-veg thali with a view of a cow & a goat & the people streaming past. It's not brilliant but it's not bad either. Refreshed we start walking up the stairs and are amazed that you can pay to have 4 men carry you up! It's not just that the chair doesn't look comfortable, it doesn't, but surely it's not that hard to walk up. The stairs are lined with stalls, monkeys and trees. It's a lot cooler than Mumbai city and the stairs while long don't go on forever. We reach the top and have to pay an entry charge - this is somewhat more annoying as we don't even get to keep the ticket. While queuing, to pay, we watch the monkeys attack a girl holding a bottle of juice - she squeals and the monkey gets the juice. No one is hurt but these monkeys sure aren't scared.
We start in the main chamber, a cave temple. It's enormous and what remains of the wall sculptures are beautiful. When the Portuguese landed on Elephanta Island they systematically chopped off arms, heads, legs from the statues and wall carvings. It's such a shame as the detail in these carvings is incredible. We even come face to face with the Brahmi - the 3 headed dude and he's very very big! We spend the next 2.5 hours wandering through the smaller caves, taking photos and enjoying ourselves. The crowds aren't too bad as it's a Friday. We head back down the stairs, having decided that trekking to the top of the island just to see some old cannons is not for us. The Island isn't that much cooler! On the way down, Mike finds me a pretty pair of purple earrings and I find a pink bracelet. This price is very cheap and we barely haggle over the price. It's not until that afternoon that I notice that my pink bracelet has had the pink added and now it's transferring to my wrist.
The next day, Mike is feeling poorly, so we hide out in our room until it's time to hop on the train to Goa. I'll tell you all about the train ride in the next post :)
All the photos from this trip are online here.
Here's a map showing the main places that we visited over the 3 weeks.
View Larger Map
Quick Hotel Manama Review
If you are thinking about staying at Hotel Manama - don't bother paying for the deluxe room because deluxe is the one thing it won't be, the rooms are noisy (traffic & pigeons), the bathrooms are NOT spacious, there was no safe in our room - it wouldn't have fit! Also we saw no computers or internet access high speed or otherwise within the hotel.
We requested a double room and were given a twin, which I can accept, but then we were only given 1 towel and no soap - this was rectified quickly but shouldn't have required my complaint.
The rates, if you walk in, are cheaper than their Internet advertised rates and I saw people get given discounts purely for complaining about the first rate given.
Honestly they are convenient to CST and that is all.
The other plus to this hotel is the restaurant, it's delicious, cheap and the solo waiter is kind and helpful - he patiently explained many of the terms on the menu to me over the 3 days.
Having said all this; if I go back to Mumbai, I'll stay in Chowpatti next to the beach - I'll also be prepared to spend more money because Mumbai accommodation is disproportionately expensive.
