Hahaha...wow. We're in India.

We arrived late at night in the Mumbai airport and took a two hour cab ride to our hotel in Colaba. The cab ride was our first look at India. We saw slums, dogs, crazy driving and people sleeping everywhere possible. After checking into our hotel we decided to walk around the area, even though it was past midnight, which we soon found was not the best time to wander the streets. After seeing a couple huge rats, the “grudge girl” and being harassed by a drug tout, we quickly headed back to our place, promising not to wander the streets that late again.

The next day we woke up at 5:30 in the morning, feeling like it was the afternoon, so we headed out to walk around, not knowing that India really doesn’t get going until around 10:00 am. We sat at a park for awhile that was located behind our hotel and ate at Leopolds, a place targeted during the 26/11 attacks because of its large western clientele. There were still bullet holes in the walls but we wanted to support the place and not let the terrorist attacks shut it down. We also donated money to the fund to help the employee’s families who died during the attacks.

After breakfast and moving to a cheaper hotel, we set out to explore Mumbai. It is supposedly India’s most metropolitan and clean city. If this was the case, we were in for a shock in the rest of India because it was still fairly run down and dirty. We strolled through Colaba and into the Fort Area, where we stopped at a nice park in the middle of a large round-about. We saw a cute kitten at the park and heard an Indian girl do the best ‘meow’ we had ever heard. From here we continued on to the Train Station, CST, where we purchased a ticket to Goa for the next day. In our guide book it said that everyday 2.5 million people pass through CSL, and upon arriving, I could believe it. There we were hassled by people who we couldn’t tell whether they were trying to help us or make us pay them money, but we finally found the right place to get our tickets, where we “Kindly Waited,” for the attendant to finish lunch (he left in the middle of our transaction without telling us what he was doing) before helping us.

After the train station we wandered into the Bazaars located north of the train station. These Bazaars were what I was picturing most of Mumbai to be like, very narrow streets lined with three story buildings and packed with people (and so many electrical wires—fire hazard much?). The street was only wide enough for one car and with all the people, you would think that there wasn’t even room for a car, but the power of the car horn in India is pretty amazing. The cars would just honk their horn all the way down the entire street, parting people like the red sea as the passed. These Bazaars were not very touristy, mostly they were for Mumbai locals to get all the things Indians need to get by. There were shoe smiths, people to fix electronics, people selling fans and other things for your house. It felt much like the fashion district in LA, with all like sellers grouped into areas. At one point we went through the food market area and were surrounded by every type of animal they eat, in cages. We both thought it would be best to hold our breath as much as possible while passing through here. After eating at a hole in the wall in one of the Bazaars, we decided to try and find Chowpatty beach. This took us awhile because we were completely turned around and had not idea which way was north, south, east or west. After some help from a local, we found our way to Chowpatty beach, which touts some of the most toxic water in India. There we were harassed by some girls who we were sure were involved in some begging rink right out of Slumdog. We also took some pictures with some Indian tourists from Delhi who seemed to be very excited to see us. After a little bit of walking down the boardwalk we decide to take a cab home, seeing that we had already been walking for over five hours. After getting back to the hotel and a short nap, we headed out for the night, but were too tired to stay out for long and headed home for the evening.