Mumbai
Zurich was cold, very cold. I had pretty much every layer of clothes I had with me, on me. I looked like the michellen man carrying a backpack full of battery chargers and malaria medication. Stepping into the station and then onto the train where they had it warmed up to acceptable levels was a major relief, well for a while. With all the layers on me twasn’t long till the sweat was hopping off me again, sitting across from an old couple, I assume they were local I accidentally gave them a wink and then started to take my clothes off bit by bit and putting them into the bag, they must have felt tempted to check their tickets to see what kind of crazy add ons they accidentally signed themselves up for, them online booking machines are forever putting in pre ticked boxes selling insurance you don’t need or on their way to india, pasty skinned irish male strippers, ya know for 5 swiss francs extra you too could travel in style!!!
Plane journeys are pretty unremarkable, this one was long, 10 hours. I have never travelled for that length of time before! In ten hours you’d be long supping pints in the kingdom after a leisurely drive from the breffni. I really started to beat myself up on the plane, I was so bloody nervous. I cursed myself, I hated myself – I figured it was as a result of cursing and hating myself that I booked myself a one way ticket to go to india on my own. I felt so completely out of my depth, nervous as hell – for anyone who has done any kind of travel before this probably seems like idiocy but this was my first trip and before it had even started I just wanted to turn the plane around and drop me back home, back to what I know and understand. I figured the only way to calm myself down, to reassure me that the stories weren’t true that I would be okay etc etc was to talk to the guy next to me.
Now I have serious trouble sometimes starting a conversation with someone I don’t know, with someone I know I have no such difficulties, I could talk the arse off an elephant, erm if I knew the elephant or erm and if he had the ability to converse, well you get what I mean. It seemed everytime I got myself psyched up his bladder gave way from all the red wine he was consuming, eventually I managed it. And we got talking, a lovely guy. He told me all about his home town and how he was sent over to germany for 6 months for training with some engineering company based in bangalore. I asked him if he had far to go, he had a flight the following night to kerala. I thought great, I can share a taxi with this guy into big bad bombay, he’s a local, he could look after me. I asked him which hotel in mumbai he was staying in, he laughed and said ‘Mr Phil, Bombay is too crazy for me, I will sleep on airport floor until my flight leaves tomorrow’. If its too crazy for him, what the hell is it going to do to me. Back into the foetal postion.
From the gps map on the onboard entertainment system I could see that we were close, I looked out but no lights to be seen yet. The twinkles of mumbai did come into view eventually, we seemed to fly over it for an eternity. The city is huge, 18 million people, I looked out with wonder, a little part of me never wanted the plane to land. When it did, the palms started to get sweaty. I got off the plane and into immigration. It was chaotic, there must have been thousands of people there. You could see one or two western people, a couple of hippies but the vast majority were from the sub continent. It was difficult at first to see which queue was which, it seemed to be every man woman and child for themselves. I stood in the queue for 40-50 minutes before getting to the desk. I didn’t mind, it felt like a stay of execution. But there is some order in this chaotic machine, it worked in so far as I found myself out at baggage with my bag all dusty lying out on the floor as if it had a thick expression on it. I took a wee minute to gather my thoughts and work out what I was gonna do. There was nothing to work out but I felt I definitely needed the time to compose myself. I walked, almost trembling out past the pre paid taxi booth and out off the arrivals hall into the thick, warm air. You could almost chew it. There was a stunning bay of people held back by rusty old rail, their hands waving, reaching out to grab you, to consume you. I searched furiously for the guy the hotel were to send to pick me up. My heart leapt for job when I saw him, anthony, a lad of about 30 years of age and 5 ft 6 in height. I grabbed him and pushed my way past all the people. Some of them followed me, they tried to relieve me off my bag, their way of making a few rupees. Some offered no service at all, they just walked up to the car with me. I felt good when I got into passenger seat of that car with my bags in the back.
The journey is not something I will forget very soon, if ever. The way people drive is nuts, complete nuts. On several occasions I was ear flicking distance from the car/bike/auto rickshaw beside me. The poverty i was exposed to on the way in, nothing could prepare me for it. People layed out on the pavement, ontop of cars, shacks built on shacks that look to be on the verge of crumbling. It really was harrowing yet in an absurd way rewarding. I couldn’t help myself staring out at them, its not that I pitied them, in hindsight I do but the shock of seeing life this way just completely stunned me. I thought to myself that I should be taking photos, I am a tourist after all, but when I clicked on the button and the flash went off I felt really bad about it. What am I doing taking their photo, how humiliating is it for them to have some johnny foreigner with more money than sense pointing a cheap camera at them so he can show the pictures to his mates back home or future travel colleagues. I put the camera away and spoke away to anthony. He offered to take me around for the day the next day to see the sights of the city, I figured it would be a good thing to get out of the room and into the madness that is mumbai. But first, I was exhausted. We pulled up in a street just off the colaba causeway and outside Bentleys Hotel.
The hotel itself is sparce. The tv just has hindu channels and it didn’t even have them this morning. I booked an 8:30 wakeup call with the same driver who dropped me off so he could give me a tour of the city. Sure enough he arrived right on time – out into the mumbai sun to see the sights. First port of call was the Gate of India, which is this massively impressive structure built to either welcome the british back in the day or to see the hoors off, this place was crawling with hawkers trying to sell anything you could imagine and more, one man in particular worringly declared that he could arrange anything I want, absolutely anything, wonder if could arrange for the pool to win the premiership or cavan to put a decent run together for once.After I escaped his clutches another hawker, this time a young enough boy of about 14 i’d say beckoned me over, he looked non threatening enough, which should’ve been enough to make for the hills there and then. He had a cap on the ground which he pointed at, once my attention was brought to it he slowly lifted the thing up – out jumps a bloody cobra!! I thought that was the end of me, though in hindsight it was pretty cool to see one in the flesh!!!
After the close encounter with the low bellied kind we headed off to chowpatty beach where a rather intense game of cricket was taking place. after watching the boys for a while I took a stroll along the beach, this is after chickening out on getting some food from the food stalls that are there. The beach would be really lovely if and its a massive if the pollution wasn’t so apparant. there were still people going in for a swim. Braver people than I!! after a while I met back up with anthony the driver. We headed on up to the hanging gardens which gave a lovely view out over chowpatty beach and promenade. I didn’t stay too long there as the hawkers there were pretty insistent on flogging me a karma sutra book – given the amount of people in this place they should really change their reading material, ‘is nice book sir, very nice, no looking charge, see niiiice pictures’ even the deviant in me wasn’t tempted somehow. After there we headed to what was mahatma ghandis old house and now is a museum. Its a definite hilight so far.On down the road and into the midday sun and worse some pretty hectic traffic. We eventually got to this public bath which was huge, the road ran up about 20 feet higher than the actual baths. It didn’t seem right taking a picture but I somehow regret that now after that we hot footed it back to the hotel where I caught up on some much needed kip. On my first adventure at the moment to find some food – freakin starvin.Later
Tags: India, India, Mumbai, North India
Phil Gill
emmm…so i see you have written about mumbai..and didnt mention you met me there?! wasnt that the highlight of the whole india trip?
You seem to have taken away only the bad part of the city?
Didnt you see anything good at all?