A Day in Bombay - Part 1

Dhobi Ghat - where the laundry gets done.

They have a system and it works.

It's not pleasant work that's for sure.

Also - please do not send them your "delicates".

The nearby Mahalaxmi Train station - the trains are standing room only.

The work is never done.

A mother and daughter looking for some help.

Sophia and I above the Ghat.

At Leopold's - a Bombay institution.

Random street scene. You see it all there.

It has now been a year since we moved to Singapore. During that time I have visited many cities I had never seen before. I knew, or thought I knew, what to expect in many of these places from the pictures painted in my mind by books I have read, movies and TV shows I have seen and travel magazine articles. Each city has turned out to be very different in person then any book, magazine, movie or TV show can convey.

Manila with its Spanish names, jitneys, poverty and traffic - Jakarta with red tile roofed slums, mosques, modern buildings and palm trees - Singapore with its clean streets, endless blocks of apartment buildings, food courts and diverse ethnic population - Bangkok with it's smiling citizens sporting yellow shirts in support of their King, river traffic moving goods and people in all directions, street food vendors, tuk tuks and markets - Beijing with its wide streets, massive buildings, crowded sidewalks and dirty air - Ho Chi Minh City with its psycho traffic of overloaded motor cycles, sidewalk vendors and coffee sellers and Melbourne with its modern almost US, almost Canada, almost London look and its hip pubs and trendy shops. Every one of these places has a unique identity and is both attractive and daunting in its own way. I submit that Mumbai is the most interesting, satisfying, scary and exciting one of all.

Our first full day in Mumbai was spent touring with a car and driver. We hit the key sites (of which there are only a few) including the Gateway to India, Victoria Terminus, The Chhatriapati Shivaji Maharaj Vatsu Sangrahalya (formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India), the Ali Haji Mosque, the Taj Hotel, Chopatty Beach, Naraman Point, the Queens Necklace and more. Most of the key sites are leftovers from the Brittish era. The buildings built by the British with great style and grandeur are peppered throughout the city but sometimes hard to pick out as time, the elements and general lack of upkeep have made the city look, on first glance, like a city in ruins.

From the moment we left the hotel we were engulfed in a sea of people and activity. People in cars, trucks, taxis, motor bikes, push carts, bicycles and on foot traffic were everywhere. I mean there isn't one place to look in Mumbai where your field of vision isn't filled with people. The people ranged from rich to dirt poor - they were dressed in many styles including Western business suits, saris, designer wear, kurta pyjamas, Muslim attire and salwar chemises. there were beggars, street vendors, bankers and lawyers all moving in different direction. Traffic is chokingly slow so any trip afford one ample opportunity to observe.

Our first stop was at Dhobi Ghat. In Singapore, Dhoby Gaut is a nice new Subway station located in a nice neighborhood next to a nice shopping mall. In Mumbai it is a slum and an institution. The words mean something like "laundryman's place", and the scene is amazing. Set in a small low lying area next to a very busy train station one finds the place where hundreds of men do the laundry for thousands on locals. The laundry people and their families live and work in this slum. Outside of their doors are rows and rows of cement wash basins with attached flat stone areas for swatting, smashing and wringing the clothes and linens. The work looks hard and backbreaking. All day each laundry guy hand washes piece after piece of linen, pants, shirts, underwear, towels and the like.

After the rigorous washing process the clothes are hung to dry - arranged by color. From the bridge above where a few tourists venture it looks like a painting - big patches of white, red, orange and blue garments waving in the breeze hung around and above the huts and shanties while shirtless men work hard in this basins. Kids run around and women keep the shanties neat. The question that naturally comes to mind is how do they keep track of the laundry to make sure that it gets returned to the right people. I understand they have an intricate system of marking the individual pieces of laundry with dots and lines that allows anyone in dhobi ghat to immediately determine who the laundry belongs to. This life is passed from generation to generation. http://www.mumbainet.com/travel/dhobighat.htm

There is s similar system in place for lunch deliveries in Mumbai. Each day hundreds of lunch wallas pick up thousands homemade lunches in bright steel tiffins, deliver them to working men at their offices, pick up the empty tiffens and return them to the homes so the women can prepare the lunches for the next day. Unfortunately we did not get a chance to see these guys in action. http://www.kk.org/streetuse/archives/2007/04/indian_dabbawallas.php

One of the most amazing things about Mumbai is the slums. These slums are not like the ones we would see in the US where people are living in rundown house and buildings in cities but rather people who have set up squatter neighborhoods with homes made of sticks, scraps, tarps , newspapers and other found items. The slums can cover many square miles and house almost 1 million people. I've been reading a book called Shantaram http://www.shantaram.com/ which is a good semi autobiographical read about a guy who escaped from prison in Australia and ended up in Mumbai. For over a year he lived in one of the slums. The book is relatively well written and the story, while it wanders at times, gives a really good insight into many aspects of life in the city. After his many adventures the author is back Mumbai now. A movie starring Johnny Depp will be made soon so if you don't like to read I guess you can wait.

One of the Shantaram's haunts is a restaurant called Leopold's. http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/India/State_of_Maharashtra/Mumbai-1101422/Restaurants-Mumbai-LEOPOLD-BR-1.html
Sophia and I found it and stopped in for a beer. It was fun being in a place where a great deal of the action in the book took place. While it is now quite a tourist spot it was a nice feeling to sit in a place we had read so much about.

After an exhausting day we headed back to the comfort and clean bathrooms of the Marriott.

Next Stop - Mumbai

Juhu Beach - people as far as the eye can see.

Happy but lonely ice cream vendors.

Something for everyone. A sight and sound sensation.

The dancing monkey guys and their moneymakers. The monkeys didn't get to dance for us.

Everyone is selling something.

Waders and swimmers as the sun starts to go down.

The mysterious guy with the flaming plate.
Some local guys who attempted to explain the festival and who really wanted their picture taken.

The sun finally slips into the ocean as darkness sets in.

After Goa we headed up to Mumbai. We got the royal treatment on Kingfisher Airlines business class. Unlike in the US where you are lucky to get a smile from a flight attendant on a short hop, on Kingfisher we had 4 lunch entree choices on the 1 hour flight. Mumbai, formerly Bombay but still called Bombay by mostly everyone, is India's largest and most cosmopolitan city. It is said that it is the most populous city in the world. There are over 13 million people officially in the city, millions more metro area, perhaps 25 million total. It's really big and really crowded.

Upon arrival we met up with the guy from the Marriott who called us a car. The relatively short distance from the airport to the Marriott on Juhu Beach took at least 40 minutes as traffic was staggering. At every traffic stop we were approached by beggars and people selling things like books, magazines, flowers and towels. The poverty is striking. People are everywhere in cars, on foot, in tri-shaws, taxis (all old 1950s Fiats painted black and yellow). The buildings old and new all look old and decayed. The sidewalks, where they exist, are cracked and broken and there are piles of dirt and rubbish all over. We pulled up to the imposing hotel driveway. http://marriott.com/hotels/travel/bomjw-jw-marriott-hotel-mumbai/ Security guards checked out the car while I am not sure they would have found anything, even if it were there. Whenever I see these security guys who use a mirror to look under the car I truly believe that the only thing that would stop them from waving the car through would be if they saw a big red sticks with fizzling wicks tied together and marked with large letters "TNT".

The hotel is kind of boring looking from the outside but once inside there is a large well appointed lobby looking back towards huge picture windows with a view of a beautiful garden with water features, an elaborate pool and then the Arabian Sea. Quite a sight. We were shown to our small but comfortable room (no complaints as we used Marriott points). It was about 5:30PM so we decided to take a walk on the beach. http://www.mumbainet.com/travel/juhubeach.htm

http://www.webindia123.com/tourism/beach/juhu.htm


As we walked outside around the pool to the wall and gate to the beach we were met by a security guard. He had us sign out and told us to be back by 8PM. Once on the beach it was a carnival atmosphere. 1000s of people of all shapes and sizes. Women in colorful saris, men in traditional Indian dress, people in short, tee shirts, Nikes, Adidas, Louis Vuiton and Abercrombie. Many were swimming or wading as the sun sunk in the Western sky. The women swam in their saris and many of the men in long pants. Families were having fun, playing, laughing and getting relief from the hot humid city air.

As we walked down the beach we saw vendors selling Chai Tea, samosa, lime drink, paan, circus toys that fly or light up and cotton candy. There were guys with strange suitcases set up on pedestals, a DVD player, screen and a mat on the sand. I figured out that these were fortune tellers. You paid them some money, stand on the mat and the TV comes on and someone tells your fortune in Hindi or Mararathstra. Others had dancing robots and we were approached by two guys with monkeys on leashes asking us to pay to see them dance. I guess we should have but we passed. There were also small carnival rides for kids like a tiny Ferris wheel and merry go round and then just off the beach were very colorful and good smelling food stalls. Everyone was there to cool off and to watch the day end.

On the way back to the hotel we saw a bunch of people gathered around an older white bearded guy in a yellow frock. The guy was holding a bronze tray that held something that was on fire. as people approached he dabbed his finger onto the tray and rubbed some sort of yellow powder on the people. We chatted with some young guys who were hanging around nearby and they said it was a festival, the name of which we did not catch. They wanted me to take their picture so I did (see above).

That outing got us ready for the rest of our visit. The next day we were ready to venture into the city....

Last images of Goa

Scooters and trishaws - view from Sergio's car.

Fresh limeade - too bad we couldn't try any - the ice isn't quite safe for foreigners.

Welcome to Chinatown.....

Cochin is so far away they still haven't figured out the mileage.

One of the many Portuguese mansions. The white parts of the window shutters are made from oyster shells - solid yet transparent.

The Menezes-Braganza house - Split down the middle, each side is occupied by one branch of the family due to a feud from long ago. http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20031116/spectrum/travel.htm

Panagi policeman wondering what I am up to.

You have to have a hard head and a strong neck for that job.

Me and Sergio in front of one of the colorfully decorated trucks.

The coastline as seen from one of the cliff side forts.

Sophia taking a picture of some guys who had had their pictures taken with her. They thought she was Angelina Jolie. Their next stop was the eye doctor.

Would you ride in one of these boats? We saw the one one the right cruise right onto the beach at full speed.

Looks like my nephew Elijah was there with Josh and the rest of the family.

Happy ladies returning from selling their wares at the fish market.

More colorful trucks as we say goodbye to Goa and off to Mumbai.

The Spice Farm - more Sporty then Posh.

Welcome to the farm.

None of these Spice Girls will be moving to LA with Beckham or having Eddie Murphy's child.

Our guide shows us a cinnamon tree - its the bark.

I look like I am a local.

Sophia holds her ground on the rickety bridge.

Stampy!
It's tough to get to the top.

The vegges had to eat off the other buffet.

No trip to Goa is complete without a visit to a spice farm. As I am sure you know India is one of the biggest spice growing nations in the world. Many of the common and uncommon spices in your cupboard probably came from India. The spice plantation we visited was a working farm but also a tourist attraction. (http://www.indiainvites.com/Special_files/Spice/spice.htm)

We arrived, bought our ticket and were led down a path to a clearing. A woman greeted us by putting a string of flowers around our necks and dotting our foreheads with a red dot. I think the red dot on a non Indian person means either "charge this person twice as much at the souvenir stand" or "no ice in my Squishie please". we were seated at an outside table and given a hot cup of lemongrass tea (very flavorful and soothing) and a bowl of cashews (fresh and tender). When enough people arrived we started our tour.


The tour guide took us on a jungle like path stopping to point out many types of spices and fruits. We saw vanilla beans, betel nuts, bananas, banana flowers, peppercorns (black and red), super hot chilli's (yes I tried one and smoke came out of my ears), curry leaves (NOT used in curry), cardamon, lemongrass, turmeric, jackfruit, pineapples and mangos. We even spotted the resident elephant having a bath.


One of the most interesting parts of the tour was the cashew operation. I know I was unaware that the cashew is a fruit. It looks like a combination of an apple and a yellow pepper and the nut is on the outside on the top of the fruit. At the plantation they remove the nut and send it off doe processing and then they take the fruit and ferment it into a local spirit called Fenny. We sampled some Fenny after the tour and it was quite nice tasting - not too sweet and pretty smooth.


After a demonstration of tree climbing by one of the coconut pickers we headed back to the picnic area. as each of us passed into the area our guide doused our backs with a ladle of cool water. It was refreshing.


Lunch was served and the food was decent. Sophia was a bit concerned about the food that was sitting on a buffet for a while, rightfully so, so we stuck to the safe stuff like bread, rice and pealed fruits.


On the way back to town a monkey ran from the jungle into the road in front of our car. Our driver, Sanjay (We were without Sergio that day) did a good job of swerving to avoid Chim Chim so all was well with the world.

More churches then people!

The Basilica Bom de Jesus - the only church in Goa without a white facade

Inside - vast, ornate and old.

From afar as we head to the Se Cathedral.
Did I say it was hot there?
One of the alters.
Old woman at the door of the church in Margao
The front of the Margao church.

This one looked like a wedding cake.
The main church in downtown Panaji.
So many I can't recall where this one was located.
This church was on a hilltop overlooking the city.

The Goa landscape (which is pretty big and encompasses many towns and a few cities) is dotted with many churches, chapels and religious markers. Its hard to travel more then a few kilometers without seeing one or a number of these old structures. Each little town has at least one. The vast majority of the buildings are whitewashed and stand out in the drab and dusty environment. These churches are almost all remnants of the Portuguese rule. Goa still has a large Catholic population and not unlike the Spanish influence on the Philippines, many Goans have Portuguese names like - Souza, Lobos, Brito, Braganza, Menezes, Mendes, Gomes and Silva and Fernandes (not unlike the names in Plymouth, MA!). There are also many Hindu temples and a few Mosques, but most are newer.

The largest concentration of Churches is in Old Goa (http://goacentral.com/Goachurches/churches_of_old_goa.htm). Old Goa was the original capital of Goa until some type of epidemic hit and forced a move closer to the sea. It was abandoned by the Portuguese officially in 1843 when the capital was moved to Panjim or Panaji. Old Goa has what is said to be the largest church in Asia - the Se Cathedral and also the Basillica of Bom de Jesus. Both these structures are large and the alters and carvings inside are lovely. Bom de Jesus holds the remains of St. Francis Xavier, who spent a great deal of time in India. His body, minus a few body parts moved to Italy and other places, is in an ornate mausoleum with a silver casket. His preserved remains can be viewed.

Outside of old Goa are many other beautiful churches. Some on hillsides, some on the seaside and some in seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Our driver and guide Sergio Fernandes was happy to show us many of these beautiful buildings as well as the great vistas where they were located.

So take a look at the pictures as they can tell the story much better then I can.