17 Nov 2013 Mumbai and Goodbye

We were picked-up by Hemali at 9:30am and we took a drive along Marine Drive the main beach front street of Mumbai, she gave us the choice of going out to Haji Ali , the island mosque of Mumbai, or just looking at it from afar. We chose the later as it isn’t meant to be anything special close up and the view from the coast is impressive. It sits about 500m off shore taking up the entire area, and some, of an old rocky island. During very high tides during the monsoon it becomes cut-off from the mainland as the causeway out to it goes underwater. On average about 8000 people visit it per week, and judging by the stream of people walking out to it and coming back this number maybe increasing.

We continued on to the Mumbai flower markets. We got there at about 10am and the sales of flowers from this essentially wholesale market were almost finished. It was a large market, and because of the habit/requirement of Hindus to decorate their shrines to their Gods, flowers are in continual demand above what maybe required at home, even the poorest buy flowers to satisfy their Gods. Most of the flowers sold are marigold heads of various colours, and they are very cheap. A bunch of roses from the market costs as little as 15Rp (30c). Over 1 tonne of fresh flowers are sold every morning.

From there we went to our most anticipated tour of our whole holiday, the Dvari Slums, 1 million people live there, there are 3 other slum areas in Mumbai each with a million people.   We didn’t visit the residential slum areas, but rather the enterprise areas, and these were absolutely amazing. The first area we went to was the recycling area of the slum. Almost every non perishable piece of scrap and litter generated in Mumbai comes through this area of the slum. They recycle everything from plastics to timber, to the nails in timber, and shockingly even medical waste is processed there, with used IV tubes, with needles attached in great abundance. We saw them stripping back all sorts of plastics and processing it into pellets then into moulded products. They make MDF boards from scrap, rubber products of all description and they even recycle old cooking oil cans and sell them back to the edible oil manufacturers (this is very hush hush, no photos allowed, as it leads to the odd outbreak of food poisoning, even in the best of restaurants! We saw bread being cooked and then prepared to be sent to the shops all through the slum and the city (we actually ate some for lunch, but more on that later). We moved onto the leather works in the slum, they take all sorts of hides, from goat, camel, sheep and cattle, and tan the hides and process the leather through to fine quality products for the worlds fashion houses, to finished leather wallets that we saw being made. Even in the leather area, our guide was told off by the owner of one workshop, as he thought we may have been journalists spreading “bad” press about the slum workshops OH&S(which there isn’t any).

(Well meaning journalists from overseas publish stories about the slums, then in outrage people stop buying their products, then the workers are out of a job and they obviously get very annoyed.   Such a complex problem!!  Life is full of shades of grey!!)

We saw women making papadums, rolling prepared dough out to a desired size and thickness on a template then drying them in the sun for 30 mins, before packing them away (again, this was a no photo area, as the manufacturers of these papadums swear that they are made in clean factories!).

Moving on we walked through a few very narrow passages, avoiding walking in the open sewers, getting a glimpse into the homes of the workers, which were another world away from the outside of the building, small but neat and tidy.

Next was the pottery area, where master potters plied they trade producing 100’s of pots of various forms each per day. Then onto the textile area, where people work on old sewing machines producing clothing at rates as little as 10Rp (20c)a piece. The items they produce again are for well know branded lines.

We found that everything down in the slums is done on very old equipment, often powered by “stolen “electricity, but the people, the workers were very inviting, happy and proud to show us what they were doing and the quality of their work.

The children were amazing, most of them were very keen to have their photos taken, and often got their parents or grandparents into the shots. We had so many laughs mixing and interacting with them. We had to move on, but we were so glad we had made the effort and taken the chance to seen a little of life in the slums, such an education.

A short drive and we came to the Chou Bazaar, (formerly known as the Thieves Bazaar because there was a time when if you had something stolen from you, you could always go there and by it back! The area is predominately an antique shop area run by muslims. you can go there and buy old antiques, or brand new ones, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

We took a short detour down a side street to the car parts area, this is a place where they literally strip cars down to every component, down to the wiring. There are shops exclusively selling car horns, or stripping the copper wire out of alternators, clutch plate shops, you name it they had it or could get it.

As we were waiting for our car to go for lunch, we saw a guy ride past on a horse, in the middle of Mumbai, in all the traffic chaos, riding a horse bareback!!!

Hemali then took us to a local restaurant, Baddhah, not a westerner to be seen within a 100m of this place, for lunch. We trusted her to order for us, so we could try what the locals might ordinarily eat. She ordered some Bhel Pun and Pav Bhaji for us (and a club sandwich, just in case  🙂  ). The meal was delicious, but way too much to finish. With one of the dishes, I can’t remember the name of it, we had the bread rolls made in the slum that morning with it. You tore the bread roll apart and scooped up a rich, spiced vegie mix. The only concession she gave us was mineral water, instead of local water! The meal that was too much for the 3 of us to finish plus a large bottle of water was 300Rp ($6).

Once we’d finshed she invited us back to her home for Chai, but we didn’t have the time, unfortunately!! So we went back to our hotel and said goodbye to a new friend. She made such a huge difference to our Mumbai experience. If your ever in Mumbai and need a local guide try her, www.bravobombay.com and tell her we sent you.  🙂

We were picked-up from the hotel at 7pm, just as we were leaving a Bollywood Actress, a new star, walked through the foyer, our brush with Bollywood, and arrived at the airport at 8, and were in the lounge by 8:45 waiting for our 00:05 flight to KL. As we walked into the terminal Shoaib Akhtar, the former Pakistani cricketer we saw at our hotel, walked in at the same time, and he and Deb had a friendly bit of banter. Due to the disputes between India and Pakistan, there are no direct flights to Pakistan, so to get there you have to fly via Dubai, about 4 1/2hrs flying time and the quickest way to get to a country that is only a few hundred kms away. Never a dull moment here in Mumbai right up to the exit gate!!