Mumbai

Typical street in Mumbia
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Dirty, Dirty, Dirty, Spit, spit, spit, honk, honk honk, smelly, smelly, smelly, but, enough about Kim, It's a Typical Stinking, F***ing, hot day here in Bombay!!

The flight has been the usual - Kim grabs the window seat and witters on about how high we are while I imagine plummeting earthwards with all the fuel and metal on top of us, just as I reach panic Kim goes to sleep!

Mean while, as usual on the other side of me I have a "strange nocturnal movement man". one who apparently stalks me whenever I fly. About four hours in I realise he is forming himself into the human version of famous knots - the granny, the cloths hitch the double overend loop etc!! It's all very entertaining but extremely uncomfortable to sit next to.  The twat can't seem to put his feet on the floor and appears to have more that the usual compliment of knees and elbows, all sharp, and all digging into me. I'm sure a troop of boy scouts would have been moved to storms of applause by his manipulations, me I'm just moved to try and sharpen my plastic airline issue butter knife....one more poke from his elbow and I'llhave 'im!

The gate of India
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On the plane we're served the usual "Frape a la mystique"

"Excuse me Miss what is this?"

"What color is it"

"grey"

Taj Hotel in Mumbia
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"Oh that's Chicken stuff"

" Oh yes thank you"

We're off to India so clearly it has to have some curry stuff added.  By the time we land the old tum is grumbling.....

Wouldn't you know? Mumbai airport, gate way to the Raj millions of visitors a day,  has a loo with just the two stalls!!

Outside it says theres an Western loo (ie not just a hole in the ground) so I have a 50% chance.  Theres a long long queue, I get in, shut the door Oh joy!!  Hole in the ground.

I congratulate myself for hiting the hole and missing my trousers and reach for a sheet of paper.  "Empty empty empty" the spindle chuckles at me, there is a bucket of water provided however and one learns what ones left hand is for while in India (not eating crisps that's for sure!)

Two minutes later my introduction to India complete, I walk gingerly back to the luggage belts.........welcome to India!

Immigration at bombay is surprisingly smooth and fast, just an anxious 20 minutes imagining our luggage circumnavigating belt nine at Skipol airport while we wait here for it to emerge.

Nothing you read about Bombay quite prepares you for it!! It's very very hot and smells quite a bit and is very very noisy.  New York may be the city that never sleeps, but it's probably because Mumbai keeps it awake.

Everything you need at the airport is pretty much where the rough guide says it is and we book a pre pay taxi at the booth to take us to our hotel to save facing the scrum outside the door.

Having paid a little extra for air conditioned luxury (50p extra to be honest) we look every where for an air conditioned Mercedes but get directed instead to a car about the same age and state of health as my mother who would be 82 this year had she not died in 1997.

The car is held together by bits of string and holy medals, the boot is eventualy tied down on all we have for the next year with a very threadbare looking bungy.  Children dodge the traffic to get to our car, they are hardly tall enough to see inside the car as they beg, sometimes just a tiny grimey hand flapping on the window to get your attention then a little prayer gesture with the hands and pointing to their mouths, oh dear this is going to be tough.  Its a very sorry sight.

We're only in the car 5 minutes and the driver is urging us to get out! we sense a scam and are preparing to give him a flick of the boot behind the ear when it emerges he just wants to fuel up.  With outstretched arms he and a pal herd us away froom the car where from a safe distance we watch as he pours the fuel directly into the smoking engine, they wants us out of the way for safetys sake...the fuel splashes smoking across the engine block as he tries to direct it into the requisit hole, lovely!

The trip across to Colaba (where most of the cheap accomodation is) is a real eye opener and a good introduction to this amazing city. It's a bloody maze and amazing that anyone can find their way anywhere .......course we have a proffesional taxi driver.....we can tell he's a pro by how quickly he invites a couple of strangers into the cab so they can show him the way to our hotel....We can also tell he's a pro by his fluent grasp of English, unfortunately the only phrase he knows is "I don't know where your hotel is" this despite the fact I show it to him on a map.

If you get the chance go to the Taj hotel behind the gateway to India.  It really is worth the 5 quid it will cost for tea and scones to watch all the goings on below from air conditioned splendour with service fit for a king!!  In addition the staff seem keen to keep you there to practice their english and so ply you with free biscuits and fruit cake which is really good.

A visit to toilets is fraught with danger if short of cash as of course there's a lacky there to do anything you need but he'll need a small tip.

He turns on the tap to wash your hands, puts soap on your pandies, hands you a warm towel, sprays a little au de cologne, a squirt of hand moisturiser.  All he missed was unzipping me and shaking it, where was this little git when I needed him at Mumbai airport !!?

Familys live right down to the road in mumbai in what appear to be cornflake boxes, they seem to be trying to make a living from the contents of vacuum cleaner bags. Bizarly this all goes on in the shadow of huge advertising hoardings, clustered with neon, almost inevitably featuring Sachin Tendulkar advertising everything from Condo Living (Clearly white family,2,5 kids, Mercedes, pool etc) which must appear as distant as Mars to those scratching a living at ground level, to Tampons.

Others just take the begging option.  A couple of women "stake out" our hotel, everytime we twitch a curtain, they wave! They have a child and we actually watch a kind of shift change, another pair of women turn up around 10pm, take the kid and start begging while the other two take off somewhere else.

We see lots of wild life including Rats, Mice and Cockroaches in bars, restaurants but none in our hotel yet thank goodness. Somewhat more ornate are the parrots that flap around at roof level, bright greens, blues and red they splash colour across the architecture, scant trees and roof gardens, while splashing white across the hapless comuters below.

The food is great and about six quid gets us both a good meal with plenty of beers - hoorah!! The food is wonderful, we're trying to stay vegitarian till the old tums get aclimatised, but the choice and quality is spectacular Tandoor mushrooms with cheese and garlic naan is just bloody fantastic.  I can tell you that unless you've had a curry out here........you aint had a curry.

You risk your life everytime you cross the road, the traffic is just incredible, a ceasless river of every type of vehicle - horse powered and drawn, bullock dragged, man handled, donkey hauled that you can imagine.  The noise and stink is indescribable but as a spectacle it's everything we'd dreamed it would be. The only rule as far as traffic goes seems to be  "make as much noise as you possibly can!!" I swear that at one roundabout 5 alternate lanes where traveling in opposite directions and the traffic included buses, bikes, cars, bullock carts a small herd of cattle and a handcart being pushed by half a dozen sweating and cursing blokes that seemed to contain a disassembled dormer bungalow....amazing!

It's weird here in what is doubtless a metropolis but we're still treated as something extraordinary, we're constantly hassled for photos with the family, the grandmother, the kids. and of course touts are everywhere, this years version of clackers (ask your Mum and Dad) apart from actual clackers which are still around...... appears to be human sized balloons, just what one needs when setting off around the world

"they fold very small once deflated good sir"

"Oh, I'll take a couple then"

A hopeful approaches

"You want smack? Charlie, blow? nice hash? anything is possible"

"Oh goody I'll have a pint of Abbots and a pack of dry roasted nuts please"

A hundred cricket matches go on in the same pitch here and skied balls are fair game to anyone playing in any match or indeed in the crowd of watchers.  The excitement generated here by a game of cricket has to be seen to be believed. Some one whacking a six on one pitch gets caught by a guy whose batting in another game and gets deluged by excited players, they scream, dance clap each other on the backs, wonderful stuff.

Mumbia men hawk and spit everywhere (some "grollies" of a size to require traffic cones) chewing as they do, a viscous red baccy type product.  I have never heard or seen nasal manipulation carried to such extremes as we see here, the noise is quite sickening....

The guide books say that places like Leopolds for food are not as good as they were in the sixties, well, what is??  We found the food drink and atmosphere really good and very reasonably priced for Mumbai.  If you're starting your trip to India in Bombay and are in Colaba We'd suggest you go to Leopolds to at least get your bearings.

We've always said trhe only way to see a city is to just plunge in, and that's definately the way in Mumbai, just lose yourself it's a fantastic atmospheric city.  Kim gets her bum pinched a few times (Eve teasing they call it here) as we criss cross the back streets inching round the market stalls, the piles of rotting fruit , veg and lord knows what else, and through the tiny shops, cafes and restaurants.

We make our way all the way to Chowpatty beach.  This is a magnet for Mumbai evening life, Families gather here to take the (rancid) air and buy street food, guys crushing sugar cane frying god knows what all, and check out the market stalls and buskers.  It's very colorful and atmosphereic but leave the speedos at home, it's pretty much an open sewer, The beach is bizaar.  Not only is it filthy but after a while we realise it's one of the only beaches we've seen apparently deserted by sea gulls, instead huge carion crows caper through the garbage washed up amongst the grey scum at the shore line, picking over vile looking chunks of "stuff", we don't go too close! The Maldives it aint!

A trip to elephanta island is pretty much a must .  It's worth it for the hour + boat trip alone which affords great views of the City and surroundings and gets you up close to all the water life that's here.  It was absolutely searing hot though and on arrival the 120 step climb to the caves was tough going, particularly as there are hawkers the whole way up selling all the usual crap.

The cool of the caves make for a welcome relief aprt from the acrid stench of the bat shit.  The carvings in the caves are truly spectacular, despite the attentions of the Portugese soldiers who at one time apparently used them for target practice.

4 Days in Mumbai is an eye opener, a fantastic introduction to India, to paraphrase the Chairman of the Board "If you can survive here.... you'll survive any-where" Hot, bustling, smelly, friendly, shocking, stunning Mumbai.  Come here and I gaurantee you'll never complain about council tax again.

Wouldnt have missed it for the world - now off to Goa, crawling back again through the Mumbai traffic, the beggars seem to know you're leaving and don't hassle outbound cars, to the domestic terminal that leaves it's International cousin completely in the shade facilities and comfort wise. Modern, clean, glass, and steel toilets cleary labeled European (Euro not a pean in your trouser pockets)We've arrived prompt for our flight whih will leave promptly, three hours late. The status of our flight is reiterated every couple of minutes by an announcer who has a voice similar in pitch and volume to a personal attack alarm, such is the tone that passengers are spitting out tooth enamel all over the place,...families dart out, grab it and fashion necklaces from it, waste not want not......