At 8am when were down at breakfast this morning it was absolutely chaotic. By 1/4past it had calmed down immensely, we assumed that the early shambles were caused by the cricket teams having breakfast! We had a busy sort of day. a morning tour with A&K and then an afternoon tour with Hemali, a private guide Deb found on the net.
We met our A&K Rep and Guide in the foyer a bit after 9am to start our city tour. The tour started with a walk across the road to The Gateway of India, a large arch building, not unlike the Arc de Triomphe, but different. There are a lot of “street dwellers” in the area in front of the Gateway and some pretty intense street vendors as well. Our guide said she was responsible for organising an education bus to call on the children of the Street Dwellers to give them lessons between 5 and 7 weekdays. The Gateway was built to celebrate the visit of king George.
We then drove along the foreshore and up to the Kamala Nehru Park, set at the top of Mumbai’s last hill, it is the greenest and most peaceful park in Mumbai, and gives expansive views down over the city and the coast. It is situated right next door to a Parsi “burial” ground, I put burial in inverted comas because they don’t actually bury their dead. They don’t creamate them either, they leave the bodies of their dead out for the bugs, beattles and birds to consume. It is all about recycling your body back to nature, and we were told that occasionally, bones of the recycled are found in the gardens, dropped by the vultures! (I was fascinated by this dad and was thinking of you, an option I bet you haven’t thought about! Can’t wait to talk to you about it! 🙂 evidently when the vultures were at their peak the body was gone in 3 minutes. Very environmentally friendly, the idea of it is taking up way too much of my headspace!!)
From there we did a bit of drive by tourism, with quick photo stops, of many notable sights. We saw a house built by one of India’s richest men, that cost him around $2 Billion to build. The guy lives in it for about a month a year!
We then drove by a Jain Temple (Very ornate and coulourful), the High Courts (Very British), the Police Headquarters (Very heavily armed), and a few more, before we stopped at the Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya (Museum). It was really interesting to get a bit more information about Gandhi and read some more of his quotes, he was a man that changed the world for those who followed, like Martin Luther King, et al.
From there we drove to a Krishna Temple, Yes of the Hari variety! It was surprisingly very spiritual, we were shown around by a Canadian Monk, Karuna from Montreal, and were given a pretty good concise version of the foundation and philosophy of the Hari Krishnas. The monks wear orange (and are celebate) and the followers in white are married devotees.
After we left there it was coming up to 11:30am and because it was getting close to lunchtime, the Dabbawallas were getting ready to deliver lunches, so we headed off to watch them set-out with their deliveries. Dabbawallas deliver food to people at work that has been made for them at home that morning. The Dabbawallas pick the food up from your home around 9.30 get on a train and take it to a collection point close to your work and pass it onto another Dabbawalla who delivers it to you. The deliveries are made on foot or by bicycle. You get your home cooked meal at work and normally it is delivered within a few hours of it being made. The service costs around 500Rp ($10) per month. Each Dabbawalla delivers around 40 lunches a day but it takes 3 to do it. Amazing service for little money.
We then went to the museum formally called the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India (now its a very long Indian name 🙂 ). We had seen most of it’s contents in other locations and so were done in 15mins, after being told off for taking photos, you have to buy a permit to take pics and we didn’t have ours on us, our guide had it.
We then went to Leopold’s for lunch. It is the location of many scenes in the book “Shanatram” and was also the site of a gun battle during a terrorist attack in 2008. The bullet holes are still clearly visible, a piller right next to our table had a bullet graze in it! The food was very tasty and 1/2 the price of the hotel. The atmosphere wasn’t disappointing to what I had imagined from the book, block out some light, close a few windows, make the tables a bit bigger and fewer of them and it was there! You could imagine it. 🙂 Thats where our morning tour finished, a great way to start our exploration of Mumbai.
We had a short walk back to the hotel from Leopolds to put our feet up for a short while before our next tour. While we were relaxing, there were sirens coming from the street below, and the streets were blocked off, yep, the cricket was over and both teams were arriving back at our hotel, we jumped up and went down to the loby, but just missed them. There were hoards of people in the foyer, most of them reviewing the photos they got on their mobiles!
Our Day – Part II
We had afternoon tea at 3:30 and then waited for Hemali to collect us at 4pm. It seemed like the cricket teams were going to be leaving the hotel, or at least leaving the room they were in, as there were lots and lots of fans crowded into the foyer. There were many false calls as they rushed to areas only to be disappointed.
Hemali picked us up a little after 4 and we got on our way. She is a very personable and friendly “young” woman, she turned 41 yesterday (she shares her birthday with Charles).
While driving along the coast she pointed out all the Art Deco buildings that lined the foreshore, Mumbai has the second largest amount of Art Deco buildings in the world. Property in this area costs from $15,000/sq m.
She also explained that Mumbai is actually built on land that has been reclaimed. It was originally built by the British on 7 islands and was landfilled until all the islands were joined, something over a 100 years ago.
Our exploration with Hemali started with a visit to Bangaunda, Mumbai’s version of Varanasi. It is a large pool surrounded by steps, it must be 75m+ long and 25m+ wide, the pool is fed by a freshwater spring that it is said comes straight from Mother Ganges. The spring is used for drinking water by the locals, as well as for washing. It is the only freshwater tank left in Mumbai, the rest have been filled in and developed. Because they believe the water is from the Ganges, they also hold funeral services here for the Hindu dead, and put some of their ashes in the water to help the person reach nirvana.
As we walked back to the car we passed a small temple where there was a ceromony going on, Hemali explained that it was a ritual arranged by her parents to help them find a husband for her by unblocking the spiritual paths, it was a problem as she was 25 and still did not have a husband!! Walking the streets always gives you an insight you just don’t get any other way. We saw Chaiwallas at work, dispensing maasla tea to all that wanted it (it’s a brew of hot milk tea and spices, and lots of sugar! the Indian equivalent to Red Bull).
Next we visited a Jain Temple, and Hemali explained a lot of the Jain philosophy. The way I understand it is that they believe in not killing anything, so they are vegetarians who only eat food grown above the earth – grains, fruit, pulses, etc, they avoid leather and strongly believe in karma. They have a reputation of being very astute businessmen and of being wealthy as a consquence. Their temples are always very ornate.
Then onto the beach, it’s a haven at night for the locals to cool down after the heat of the day. The locals don’t swim, modesty issues, and they don’t need to tan, they already are! They have a real issue with the darkness of their skin, all advertisng is done with fair skinned locals (often photoshopped lighter) or with western models. There were hundreds of families on the beach enjoying meals from the local food Vendors.
As the sunset faded into night we went off to see the Crawford Markets, established in 1865, 275,000 sq ft of fruit and veg markets, they were solely wholesale until 1984, when retailing was allowed. It has sprawled out from just fruit and veg, and now you can buy almost anything there and the trading area is now vast. The merchants and stall holders aren’t agressive with the potential buyers as they are in other area of Mumbai, or indeed India, which was a great relief. The area is chaotic and full of life, so much fun. Hemali explained that her family used to have stalls in the fabric area of the markets in the early 1900’s, but due to bad times all but one uncle had to sell their stall, her uncle, well his decendants anyway, still trade there.
Hemali lives right at the markets, so we bid her good night there and the driver took us back to out hotel. We continue exploring with her tomorrow and are very much looking forward to it.
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Awesome 🙂 I’m so enjoying India! Thanks Deb and Greg. I lose myself in your blog. It’s been like a tonic, never fails to satisfy. Can’t wait to read tomorrow. xx
The burial grounds reminds me of a news article I read recently where a woman was on a hiking tour (can’t remember where!) and she fell down the side of a cliff. By the time the guides reached her, she had been eaten by vultures!