Finding the Unicorn

Just gotta love those antibiotics! Within 12 hours I was back to my normal self. Sorry I’ve taken so long to put in the next installment – I’ll put in extra time over the next few days. I have just been doing and seeing lots.

As soon as the antibiotics started to kick in I went out in search of food – none of this vegetarian c**p though – I was after meat! It can be quite difficult to be a meat eater here in India. After searching one side of Colaba causeway I was about to give up and go into a “Tourists” restaurant when I was saved by rasta guy. He led me across the road into hectic restaurant full of locals and helped me decide on a mutton dish – the menus in restaurants here are enormous!! We chattered away while I ate and he offered to show me around the next afternoon.

Now I’m a bit out of whack as far as remembering what happened on what day so I won’t bother writing according to date.

The next day I found a nice little restaurant that serves Shira, a sweet thick semolina style dish. It is the closest thing to porridge I have found here so far. Then I went over to Elephanta Island for the morning. Saw lots of monkeys and had a look at the caves there – but not before running the gauntlet of stalls that crowd the stairway up to the caves. The thing that tires me the most here is having to fend off the stall vendors and taxi drivers. They are at you constantly wherever you go. There is no such thing as sitting on a bench to quietly watch everything around me. I can understand why some people would prefer to spend their Mumbai visit locked away in their room.

Anyway, that afternoon I met up with Mike (the rasta guy) ad e went to the textiles market. As soon as we got out of the taxi the vendors descended on us and gave Mike a hell of a fright. Just seeing that I was with him they were at him just as much as they were at me and he got a taste of what it is like to be targeted – not a happy chappy!! He got quite angry with several vendors and for a minute there I thought he might throw a punch. But in the end sanity prevailed and we disappeared into a textile house to have a chat with the owner.

Afterwards he showed me Marine Drive, The Hanging Gardens (which don’t actually hang, they are high on a hill, so don’t know where the name came from), Dhoby Ghaut (picure below) and then back to my hotel. He recommended a better hotel for me too and got me local prices on it – I moved there the next day. He also gave me tips on the best way to get to Aurangabad. I ended up taking the bus as the trains were full. They have Sleeper buses here – definitely the best way to travel at night, seats would have been awful.

Anyway, other things I saw in Mumbai are the Museum and the Maidans. After a long search I finally found the book for Marcos – It is in the post now!! In the end it is still the hardback one, but at least I paid only half of what I would have paid if I had bought it at the swanky Oxford bookshop – I think half of their price pays for the air-conditioning.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 at 5:01 pm and is filed under India, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.