Mumbai Madness

Eating Paan


There are these paan shops all over town, where a guy has a little cart with all of these bottles and large paan leaves. They fill them with various things and then you put the paan in your mouth and chew it and when your mouth is full of juice you spit it out. The juice is a staining red and the stains are all over India from so many people chewing it. I decided to try some and I told the guy to make it sweet. It looked like a brightly colored ice cream sundae and then he wrapped it in the leaf and handed it to me. The thing was enormous, I stretched my lips as wide as they could go and stuffed this thing into my mouth. It barely fit with my jaw fully released, to make my mouth as large as possible. Then the taste hit me, it was like sugar covered flowers mixed with dirt. I started to chew and spit and chew and spit but it was so sweet and weird that I finally spit it out. It was interesting to try once but I think it’s better to not pick this habit up.

Instead of sitting in traffic all day to get to some other attractions we took an Auto to the train station. Then we literally ran and jumped on the train that we wanted to take us to a central location from which to see attractions. First we stopped at the Dhobi Ghat, Mumbai’s oldest and largest human washing machine. They have these concrete basins filled with water that the clothes are dipped in and then scrubbed and then beaten and dipped again. When I read that there are 1026 open air troughs, I was imagining lanes and lanes of these as far as my eye could see, but it was only two lanes and I could easily see to the end of them, it was a little disappointing but still interesting.

Next we headed to Haji Ali’s Mosque located down a long concrete walkway out into the Arabian Sea. This is where the floating casket of a Muslim saint who died on a pilgrimage to Mecca was found. Lining the walkway are beggars, mostly those who have lost at least one hand or foot. The beggars lay on the ground bouncing around and chanting various phrases to get your attention and more importantly your money. People bring flowers and candies to the Mosque to offer and then some are taken and placed around the casket and then some of the flowers and candies are given back for people to take the newly blessed items home with them. They also have a feather broom that a man who works there uses to hit and bless people with, Praj waited in line to get his smacks.

Then we made our way to the Siddhivinayak Temple, similar to Haji Ali’s Mosque only that it is for Hindus. Instead of a casket they have a golden god statue, but again flowers and sweets are offered up. The cab driver didn’t have change for the smallest bill Praj and I had, so I got change from a guy selling flowers and in turn purchased some. Then cameras were not allowed inside, so I had to leave my camera with a shop keeper who locks it up and isn’t allowed to charge for it. He is however allowed to insist that you pay too much for some sweets to offer in the Temple. Praj and I went inside with our sweets and flowers. The smell inside was so strong from the incense and flowers and reminded me of my paan from the night before, I felt nauseated.
Both the temple and the Mosque are supposed to be holy places for people of their respective faiths but they both felt like tourist traps to me. Vendors were pushing for people to buy things and workers were trying to get people to leave as quickly as possible. I hear the monasteries feel more like religious places and I look forward to visiting them.

Our last stop for the day was to be the Zoo. We hopped into a cab and asked the driver to take us to the zoo. Praj asked the driver if he knew what kinds of animals were there and the driver looked confused and said he wasn’t sure. After we had been driving for 10 minutes, I asked Praj to talk to the driver, the zoo was supposed to be 5 km away and it seemed like we had driven that far already. Praj spoke with the driver who told us it would be at least another half of an hour. We were really confused and discussed it with each other and the driver, figuring he was taking us to another zoo further away to get a larger fare. Then we discovered that he wasn’t taking us to the zoo at all but to Juhu Beach, a popular tourist beach. By the time we figured out where he was taking us, we decided to go anyway since we were now so far from the zoo and so close to Juhu. The beach was awful, it was dirty and there were many beggars. Praj drank some fresh coconut juice and ate some street food before we hopped in another cab to leave.
Last night we met up with some friends at a Karaoke Bar that was doing a tribute night to Michael Jackson. The Indian friends that were with us noticed some Bollywood celebs that were present and they talked about the various movies that they were in. Praj asked to borrow my camera and then turned to the celebs and asked “Can you please take a picture?” The face of the woman light up as she was recognized and then she understood Praj’s request, he didn’t want a picture of her or with her, he wanted her to take our picture. The look on her face as she went from elation to devastation was priceless.


Inside Haji Ali’s Mosque

Thanks Gauri Karnik

If only I were painted gold

Coconut Milk

After the Siddhivinayak Temple

Dinner with friends

Outside Haji Ali’s Mosque

Dhobi Ghat

My paan

Bollywood

The Sun was in my eyes!


*Check out my first ever Video the end of this post.*

The family that got us this great room, I will call them the L family, was also able to get us inside of Movie City. This is a place that many Bollywood movies are made and Indian TV shows are shot. This is not a place that normal tourists are allowed to come so we were very excited. Movie City is located in Mumbai, but once you enter its hard to believe that you are still in the second most populous city in the world because you feel like you are in the jungle or the mountains. We had a guide show us around to all of the buildings that they have and tell us the movies that were filmed there. Unfortunately I have seen fewer Bollywood films than I have fingers so I didn’t know any of the films they mentioned. We did get to see one place that has a “Who want to be a Millionaire” set and maybe “Slumdog Millionaire” was filmed there, but I don’t know for sure.

After the tour we went to Mr. L’s brother Mr. L2’s house. I know I am so clever. Mr. L2 had purchased a beer making machine and we were coming over for dinner and to try the first batch. The beer machine, I think that is also the brand name, looks like a keg with a spigot on the front. The machine was pulled out of the fridge, put on the table and started to pour. Unfortunately there was no pressure and the beer only dribbled out and was very flat. Nine of us stood around examining the instructions and the machine trying to get it to work. We decided that it needed more pressure so a CO2 canister was added to the machine. The pressure gauge didn’t move and still the beer dribbled out of the spigot. We played with the CO2 canister and had a large amount of CO2 escape in a white vapor into the room and we all jumped and screamed. Finally we figured out how to get some CO2 into the canister, but we had already let most of it out into the room and they did not have any more canisters. We all had a small glass of the flat beer and then switched to regular beer and whiskeys.

Most of the people whose houses I have been to while in India, take their shoes off at the front door. I have been wearing sandals here everyday, but my sandals got wet and now have the vilest smell in the world so I have switched to tennis shoes with socks. When I take my shoes off I have socked feet, while most other people have bare feet. I went into the bathroom, I know I have a lot of bathroom stories, and flushed the toilet. Instead of the water going inside the toilet, like normal, it squirted out the sides of the toilet and quickly flooded the small bathroom. I screamed and jumped and hollered and none of those behaviors made the water stop. Finally the water did stop, but the bathroom was flooded and my socks were soaked.

After we had all been drinking for a significant amount of time we went into Mr. L2’s music room and he played the piano while we all sang along. It was an incredibly fun filled day. Mr. and Mrs. L have taken us in and treated us like family, its nice to be able to feel this way, when my actual family is so far away.


Shooting of CIA

Hilltop View

Bombay Views

More Bombay Views

Fake Funeral

Another Fancy Hotel

Well-fed Indian Fly

Fake Temple

View of the Sea



A Better Place

So how is the weather?

At the Gateway of India


We awoke this morning to the patter of rain. The monsoons have finally come! The only downside to this amazing place that we are staying at is that it is so far from everything else. We bought some snacks from the gas station, otherwise known as the petrol pump, and were going to have that for breakfast but Praj decided he wanted a heartier breakfast and asked the servants to make us breakfast. Then we hopped into a cab and headed towards The Gateway of India. The cab ride across town in the traffic took nearly 2 hours.

There isn’t much at the Gateway of India, it’s just a large structure, but it is a good reference point and probably the furthest tourist place from our hotel. Immediately we were accosted by people wanting to give us overpriced tours or to sell us trinkets. We decided that the cab ride had worn us out, we needed some lunch and we found out that a restaurant from Shantaram, the book I’m still reading, was close by, so we walked there to grab some lunch. Since my stomach is still not settled we ordered sodas instead of beers. At restaurants here sodas come in glass bottles and they give you straws to drink the soda out of. The problem with the straws is the hole is so tiny that if you suck too hard the straw collapses and you don’t get any soda at all. There must be a trick to drinking from them because the only way I can manage to get them to work is by sucking very softly and slowly and Prajwal always finishes his in a third of the time it takes me.

I ordered a gull order of Chicken Masala for Praj and me to share and it was a very large full serving. When the bill came the chicken was Rs 310, this is the proper way to say 310 INR and I will use this notation from now on. We were outraged, the menu said 120 for a half order, so a full order shouldn’t be this much. Then we calmed down and thought about it, Rs 310 is just over $6, not bad anywhere in the world for a nice sit down lunch.

Next we hopped onto a boat to Elephanta Island located 9km and 1 hour away. It is known for its carvings and caves. While on the boat it rained, when we got to the island it rained and when we returned it continued to rain. The rain didn’t stop our fun at all and I think it actually enhanced it for Praj. When we got to the island there is a small train that costs Rs 5 or you can take the 1km walk. We opted for the walk which was no way near 1km. The train basically takes you down the dock, and from where they sell tickets you cannot see the end, but it is just around the bend, a few hundred yards at the most. The island had lots of wild monkeys and dogs along with the cave carvings that were beautiful. Then we got back on the boat while it rained some more. When we returned to the mainland we went to the Taj Hotel for a cup of hot chocolate and to dry off. The cost to stay at the Taj Hotel is more than the average Indian makes in a year! Then we went to the hanging gardens, a beautiful garden path on top of a hill in a very nice neighborhood where rich people walk with their servants a few steps behind carrying their umbrella, towel and water for them.

I had to go the bathroom very badly and there aren’t many public bathrooms in India, besides peeing on the street as many people do. After walking around for some time I was finally able to locate a pay toilet. I handed the guy at the desk a 5 Rupee note and waited for change. He didn’t give me any and so I asked him for some and then he shouted at me in an unknown language and motioned that I would get my change when I came back out. Since they usually have different rates for squatting and a urinal, I decided that it wasn’t too crazy and to get my change on the way out. When I walked into the bathroom there were only four squatter looking doors and they were all closed. I pushed on the first one and it was locked. I repeated this on the second and third doors as well until finally the fourth door opened and inside there was a naked man taking a shower. This wasn’t a bathroom at all but a public shower. I apologized to the startled man and got my 5 Rupee note back.


Cave Carving

Hanging Gardens Park

Taj Hotel and Gateway of India

Island Monkeys

Leopold Cafe&Bar

So happy together

Inside a cave

Kindness pays off

On a city train


When Prajwal was in 10th grade a woman came to his class to visit and asked the students to give a speech about their classmates. Prajwal volunteered first, because he loves every possibility show off, and gave what must have been the speech of the decade because he won this woman’s heart over. As it turns out this woman’s husband is a very high ranking government official who is stationed in Mumbai, where we are currently staying. The high ranking government official was able to get us in a first class government guest house. When we first heard this we were excited but then tried to reel in the excitement so that we would not be disappointed. We arrived and told them our name, “Sorry sir, we have no reservation in that name” came the reply. Then Praj wrote down his name and the name of the man who made the reservation for us and then they left with the paper while we waited. Suddenly they came running back, “Sorry Sir, so sorry. Someone else is in your room but we will get them out of there immediately”. Then the people who were occupying the room came running back and were equally apologetic. We have our own private room with a bathroom a balcony and an a/c. We also have a shared kitchen, living room and dining room. In addition there are four guys who live here and their job is to take care of us and cook us food if we so desire. We asked them for lunch and they made us the largest, quite delicious, lunch we have had while in India.

Prajwal is constantly asking me what is my favorite thing I have eaten and the answer is “all of it”. My stomach is still bothering me now several days after it first started hurting but I think maybe it is because I love the food at every meal and I eat until all of the food is gone or I cannot move my arm to my mouth any longer. Coincidentally I have lost the button that seals my shorts closed. Speaking of clothes, I know this paragraph is highly random, most men here wear jeans and button down shirts, I’m wearing shorts and breathable athletic shirts and I am sweating up a storm. Maybe monsoon season is caused when all the people so fully clothed in this extreme heat sweat at once causing it to rain. Speaking of the monsoons, they were supposed to start on June 10th and still have not started and the newspaper is filled with articles about water shortages and the potential food shortages that will result.

We planned to have dinner with the family that made this wonderful guest house available to us and they sent their chauffeur over to pick us up. Once we got to their apartment we were greeted at the door by their live-in servant who prepared us tea and dinner. All these people helping out is not something that I am used to and honestly it makes me feel uncomfortable. I know they are being compensated for their work so it’s no different than a waiter at a restaurant but for some reason it feels wrong to me in a way I can not explain.

Thursday we went to visit Prajwal’s cousin’s husband at a hospital in Mumbai. We took a taxi to the hospital that was too small for me to sit up in without my head hitting the roof. The higher you go in the hospital building the less crowded, cleaner and newer it becomes. The poor people, and by poor I mean they still have some money because they are in a hospital and not on the street, are on the bottom floor filled with many patients to a room. We went to the 4th floor where people have large private rooms and personal servants to assist them. Prajwal’s cousin’s husband is being treated for blood cancer and is doing quite well and expected to be able to leave the hospital in three months.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the streets looking at people and shops. We went to a Parsi temple and talked with a priest there. They are very interesting people and I have attached a link to the Wikipedia page on them HERE. They are basically a people who left Iran to come to India to escape religious persecution. They do not allow people to join and only marry other Parsi. When a Parsi dies they lay their bodies outside to be eaten by vultures. We also rode the train in town which was disappointingly not crowded. Tomorrow we are waking up early to hit the tourist attractions around town.


Kid feeding a wild goat

City Street

Can I have a bite?

Fire Buckets

Bamboo paint setup

Fancy Room

Laundry

Ask and you shall receive

The first of many busses


I asked for another exciting bus ride and I got my wish. The bus depot was a mad house with no order or organization. Busses would pull up, wait a few minutes and then pull away. If you miss your bus it is your problem, figure it out. The number of buses that used the station was tremendous and it was impossible to stand in one place and see all of the busses because they just parked wherever they wanted and were misaligned. The only reasonable way to truly assure that you didn’t miss your bus was to stand in the road in front where the busses come from and look at the number of each bus as it arrives. Unfortunately I didn’t think of this at the time so instead I took a less reasonable approach of running around and looking at all the bus numbers. We asked several gentlemen who were selling bus tickets where our bus would be and they pointed to a spot for us to stand. Our loading time was 7:15 and when that came and went and our bus still wasn’t there I got anxious and did another lap of the bus yard. Then at 7:30 I looked around again, still no bus and we were supposed to be gone by this time. Finally around 8pm our bus did show up and it was where the guys had told us it would be.

There are many different classes of busses to choose from, seats, slumber and sleeper. These three options are subdivided again into a/c and non a/c. Seats are just that, a bus full of seats. A Slumber bus has seats that recline to a 45 degree angle. A sleeper bus has births for each passenger where they can lie down and sleep, with privacy curtains.
Convincing Prajwal to take anything besides a personally chauffeured a/c car or an airplane was difficult enough, so we compromised and took an a/c sleeper bus.

When the bus came we rushed to it and quickly hopped on board, we didn’t want to miss it. We were the second and third passengers on the bus and then waited at the station for half an hour for other people to board. Every passenger is provided with one very tiny quilt to use to keep warm and being the first people on an empty bus, Praj also procured the quilt of his absent neighbor. Later as the bus filled Praj’s neighbor complained that his blanket was missing and a quick search revealed that Praj had one not belonging to him. All of the quilts are numbered according to their corresponding seat number.

I finally had an upset stomach for the first time in India on a 12 hour bus ride with no toilets. I don’t know why they don’t simply have a place in the back of the bus with a curtain and a hole to the street cut in the floor for people to use. It would basically be a mobile squatting toilet and it’s not like there aren’t lots of other foul smelling things all over the place anyway. I was dealing with that as best as I could by drinking water and only eating bread type foods, to keep my stomach in check. Praj and I talked about diapers but I decided against it. I hoped I would not regret this decision.

The births on the bus are cut about 5’8”, four inches too short for me to lay with my feet flat and plenty too short for me to lay with my feet extended. The bus kept constantly stopping and no one seemed to know how long it was stopping, or when it would stop again. Sometimes it would stop for 10 seconds other times it would stop for nearly an hour. After the long stops the bus would do something I named the “Indian Bus Shuffle”. This is where when the driver is ready to go, first he starts the engine and then honks and waits, then he moves the bus a few feet and waits and repeats this until all passengers are on board. I think it’s a “we are going to leave you” fake out but I wasn’t brave enough to find out how much of a fake out it was and was always on the bus before he honked. When we were driving people’s phones were ringing, phones were used as boom boxes and people shouted while wandering the aisle hitting me behind my privacy curtain with their elbows as they walked. Then there was the driving; floor it, HONK HONK HONK, slam on the breaks, swerve, floor it and so on, over and over again as the driver sped down the two lane highway. There were two vertical bars on the bed to prevent passengers from falling out and they saved me on many occasions. I laid there in the fetal position trying to sleep and to not fall off my top bunk or soil my pants.

I was awoken at 8am, thirty minutes after we were supposed to be in Mombai, and looked out the window and did not see a city, like I had expected, but instead a field and another bus. Our fancy sleeper a/c bus had broken down, I’m sure it had nothing to do with the way the driver treated the bus. We were moving to a very old non a/c seat bus and we still had 4 hours to go. “Quick, Quick” the driver and other workers shouted, so everyone on our bus woke up grabbed their stuff and ran to the other bus. Then the driver and other workers stood around outside the bus and talked with each other and then went to a nearby shop and bought some snacks, while the rest of us sat in the bus waiting for them.

We are now successfully in Mumbai, formally Bombay, with no accidents, of any kind, and are looking forward to the further adventures we will encounter here.


helpful step

Sleeper Bus

Bus Depot

I paid 1 INR to use this

Lamest Post Ever?

Dinner by the ocean


Often large trucks while backing up make beeping sounds to alert people around them that they are backing up. Here in India many personal cars employ this same technology. Rather than a beep they play music with the beeps. There is a car near our hotel that leaves very early in the morning and plays “It’s A Small World” at least three times through the entire song. I’m not sure where they are backing up from but there are no roads that long around here, I think they just like hearing it.

After a long night of Jungle partying Praj predicted a late start to our next day. We did however wake up bright and early to have another routine Goan day of eating, drinking, going to the beach and getting stung all over my body. We called our Dutch friends that night to see if they were interested in round number two but they had just woken up and were eating breakfast at 6pm. They were headed to Bombay the next day and needed to regain their strength.

On our way back from the beach to take showers and prepare for dinner a restaurateur approached us in an attempt to get us to come to his restaurant. We told him if he could provide us with fresh Alphonso Mangos, a Goan tradition, we would return and patronize his restaurant. “Are you sure you will come back? Many people say they will and they never do” We assured him that we would if he got us the Mangos. “My name is Singh, you can remember it because ‘Singh is King’”. We did return as promised and enjoyed a delightful dinner served with fresh mango for dessert while watching the sun set over the ocean.

This is supposed to be the worst time of the year in Goa and I have loved it. This is a wonderful place and I don’t want to leave, but there is still so much to see and experience that despite the desire to stay we are moving on. We leave Goa Tuesday night and head for Bombay on an overnight bus. I’m hoping for some more unique bus experiences but with a little less drama than the last time I rode on a bus.



Sunset View

With Singh the King

Mango Ecstasy

Sari Roof