But where are the 14 million people who supposedly live here??

Ant and I rolled into Mumbai (formerly Bombay) on Sunday morning at 6:30am. We fought with our taxi driver and still got ripped off, but on our way to our hotel we noticed that the streets were empty.

Completely empty.

Now, I know, it's 6:30-7 in the morning on a Sunday, but there was not one other car on the road besides us. Where are all the other people that supposedly crowd the streets? In the suburbs for the weekend was the answer I got from two native Mumbai'ers.

We are staying in a swanky place (by our standards) which cost us a whopping 800 rupees per night. That's $17.78, total, for both of us. It PAINED us to pay that much when it's usually more in the $4-8 range for a hotel. It is sparkling clean, has cable TV, is quiet, non-shady (doesn't double as a brothel), we get free toast and fake coffee in the AM, the sheets were clean, and THERE'S 24 HR HOT WATER!!! I had turned down a suite which would have run us $27.18 to save our budget from going over. It was a painful decision as well because it was the nicest room I'd been in since staying in India.

Anyway, we walked out, found the nearest Barista and got some quick grub. As it turns out, we have not one, but two on our nearest main street... strangely similar to a Seattle based coffee empire methinks.... We wandered over to the Prince of Wales museum which holds the usual stuffy artifacts and decided to give it a pass. Instead, we hit up a small modern gallery which was exhibiting 4 working artists. The first was a master sculptor who worked all in tradtitional Indian themes. His pieces were the best of seen so far and I was nearly temptly to buy one. Where else could I buy a sculpture of this quality for $350-400??? No where. But I tore myself away.

The trio of artists across the hall where much younger and for one, this was her first solo show. The first artist worked on black paper, and painted with guache (sorry about the spelling), chalk, and ink. He had all these liquidy human shapes in the likeness of Buddha, but they weren't traditional Buddha images at all. Very very good stuff. If the artist himself who was there wasn't such a prick, I would have enquired about possibly buying one. The second artist was also there, and his paintings were more colorful, which distracted me and turned me off after the simplicity of the first guy's stuff. He did have one called "The Priest" that Ant and I were both drawn to, but how the heck could we get a full size painting on canvas home??

Finally, the woman whose first solo show's stuff was a bit hit or miss. Mostly crap, but with some really clever pieces in between the crap with a lot of pulp sculptures and self portraits. I looked at her price list and they seemed reasonable but nothing grabbed me. It was too bad because I would have liked a really unique thing to have from India, and this would have been the perfect thing.

After seeing a bit of "high" art we decided to go to the Eros Theatre to see a movie. The only English film playing was "Finding Nemo" and I was ALL ABOUT IT. Air conditioning during the hottest part of the day and a cute movie was near perfection. We laughed our asses off, usually by ourselves because the more "subtle" jokes (like the sharks in a 12 step program to stopping eating fish or the sea turtle's surfer accent) were lost on the kids and their parents keeping them entertained. At one point, something scary was going on , and the little girl behind us suddenly blurted out "OH SHIT" in this tiny little helium voice and we cracked us up.

After Nemo, we headed back, passed the hoards of guys playing cricket on the Mumbai version of Central Park. We needed a rest.

After some sleep, we met up with Giribaba from Bootsnall, commonly known as Girish, and his friend Sanjiv. Girish and Sanjiv took us out to a bar, and then to this swanky restaurant and hookah joint. It was really fun and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. We all partook in a strawberry hookah, and I remembered how a few years ago in San Francisco, Stephanie and I thought about owning our own hookah for the apartment. I am tempted again. It's a nifty little novelty.

Finally after drinks, hookahs, and some goolabjamun (which I affectionately call "sticky balls"), we headed back to the room. It was a great introduction to a city that seems to be a lot of fun.

P.S. Thanks to Girish and Sanjiv. Hopefully someday we will get to return the favor of you taking us out should you visit the States or we meet up somewhere else....