Mumbai

Following our quiet few days in hippy Gokarna, a few full trains trapped us back in Palolem… what a shame (not). We browned ourselves up and only crashed our motorbike ONE TIME, sampled more yummy Indian cuisine – I’m still not sick of it – and spent good few hours learning Spanish. Las niñas comen el almuerzo. After a twelve hour sleeper train we arrived in the “cosmopolitan capital of cool”, Mumbai.

After a couple of elephant-paced weeks, I feel like the past two days in Mumbai have been chock-full and faster than a Japanese bullet train. After dumping our bags at the India Guest House (of Shantaram fame), we embarked on a self-guided walking tour of the city. Compared to idyllic Goa, India’s largest city was an electric shock to the system. The smells, sights and sounds of 16 million people smashed into our skulls; I felt like I needed six heads to take everything in. Maybe because I still have the thirty thousand things I learned today running through my head, but I’m struggling to put it all into words – apologies in advance for the jumble of dot points below, language is failing my overstuffaddled brain.

• Mumbai architecture is unique. It’s distinctly European, yet wouldn’t be found anywhere except India. Highlights include the Gateway of India; Taj Mahal Palace Hotel; Victoria Shivaji Terminus, the busiest train station in Asia; the High Court, which we walked through to observe judges swooping around Hogwarts-esque spiral staircases and citizens looking worried, and Mumbai University with its 80m clocktower and white-clad cricketers.
• It was weird seeing sites such as the Air India building which had been subject to terrorist bombings only five years ago. There weren’t any visible signs of the “26/11” attacks (but for preserved bullet holes in the walls of the famous Leopold’s Café), but it was strange to think that just a few years ago, hundreds of people had died under falling debris and fiery explosives where we were standing.
• We visited Girguam Chowpatty, Mumbai’s not-quite-Goan beach, to dodge local tourists wanting photos and touts wanting money and watch a kickass sunset over the futuristic skyline
• Found a breakfast food that almost rivals Sri Lankan hoppers: dosa, rice-flour pancakes about the size of a (hollow) rugby ball to be dipped into spicy coconut milk and hot, red sauce of some kind. They can be filled with potato dahl, or palak (spinach), or cheese and tomato for a more Western taste, and they’re simply DELICIOUS. Another thing I’m going on the hunt for back in Sydney.
• Ecked out the Haji Ali mosque, marooned on an island off the coast of the Mahalaxmi area and connected by a long, thin footpath for pilgrims to cross and pray. Reminded ourselves that religion makes people bad-crazy (26/11 bombings) and good-crazy (creating beautiful buildings because they love God).
• Observed the Dobhi Ghat, where the dirty city comes to wash – hundreds of flapping shirttails and lungis hang on tiers of washing lines above scores of men and women stonewashing the city’s clothes. A production line that Ford would be impressed with and a standard of cleanliness that even Mum might not turn her nose up at!
• So to get out of our hostel you have to fight your way up the Colaba Causeway, where a literal crush of people attack your personal space with suggestions of bangles/printing stamps/pajama pants/henna/football jerseys/watches/sunglasses/other shitty souvenirs to buy. Meanwhile you have to fend off beggars and thieves and people wanting your photo and fat Germans, and I think in the 1km stretch I probably personally touch 300 people, and glance my eyes over at least a thousand. And some of them are rich and white like me but most of them aren’t, and some of them are just so desperately poor. There are amputees and lepers and street children and you see people vomiting and digging through cow shit and babies crying and women crying and no one has anything to eat or drink and from my early morning walk I know that they all slept right there on the street under hopelessly inadequate blankets, and even if you had 100 rupees for them all you know you can’t fix it and you wonder who can fix it and then another tsunami of people washes into you and you have to concentrate on who is stealing your shoes and who is shoving incense up your nose and it’s just so unbelievably overwhelming. You emerge from this tunnel of noise and first-world guilt and then there’s Mumbai unfolded in front of you and you go off and explore the sights and take happy snaps and read Lonely Planet, and push the people-crush to the back of your mind until you have to attack it again on your way home. Anyway after one swim through that puddle of humanity too many, I decided I had to go and fill my face with beautiful things to drive out the fact of the ugliness behind me so I visited a local art gallery and gave myself a much-needed transfusion of really impressive creative activity. Sorry for that rant but yeah just saying art is great and I see why people make it now. If you’re ever feeling soulless and weary: DO ART.
• Even the most polite taxi drivers and fruit-wallahs treat women like second-class participants here; even though I carry the wallet and I pay the money they hand the bill and the change to Will and rarely look me in the eyes, I’d burn my bras if they weren’t so hard to come by in this country #getaroomofmyown
• Haven’t had an indoor hot shower since Christmas Day. Surprisingly not really bovvered.

Getting up at 5 tomorrow for a flight to Varanasi, so I’d better hit the hay – or in my case, roofless stall of a room full of the sounds of the French guys next door watching The Simpson’s. Marge’s voice in French is oddly soothing…

Dosas and dahl,

PT

Gateway to India at sunrise

Masala Dosa

Dobhi Ghat