Mumbai, India

Fascinating. That’s the only way I can sum up our day in Mumbai - I can’t say I really liked it or I’d want to return, but it was certainly fascinating. It reminds me of New York City burned out on drugs. It is a solid mass of people; slums intermixed with very nice buildings.

Our tour was called Temples and Shrines. It was an all day tour and included lunch at a local hotel and the obligatory shopping stop. There were only 20 of us on the tour and the bus was a 36 passenger one so we had plenty of room again. Our first stop was across from the Taj Mahal hotel (one of the hotels bombed by the terrorists last November), although we didn’t have time to go into the hotel I was able to get some pictures from the outside.

After that quick photo stop we headed for the temples; we actually got to see a great deal of Mumbai and a couple suburbs as the temples were fairly far apart. You weren’t allowed to take photos in most of the temples so the best parts are only in my memory, but I did get some shots of the outsides. At the Hare Krishna temple we were allowed to take photos on the interior so it was a lot more fun for me. Our guide was excellent - she explained much about the different religions in India, including Hindu, Jain, and Muslim, Buddhist, Christian and several others. I found it very interesting watching the rituals performed by the people praying in the different temples.

Perhaps the actual ride through the city was more interesting than the temples… It would have to be seen to be understood. Every inch of useable land is being used either as a shop/stall or a dwelling. People (and some cows) are everywhere; sidewalks and streets are packed, there are no crosswalks so people just weave between the moving cars to cross the streets and roadways. The roads were completely filled with cars, taxis, motorcycles, trucks and buses - They don’t allow TukTuks in Mumbai proper, but when they were added to the mix in the suburbs it was unbelievable. When our guide said that it was slightly better than usual because it was a bank holiday and many people were off work we just all kind of sat there with dumb grins on our faces. Our driver did a great job… two traffic cop fines and only one car hit us.

The women in their brightly colored saris or Punjabis all look beautiful; even in the worst of the slums the women were all wearing the beautiful colors. I purchased a beautiful Sari and a Punjabi. Before our return to the ship, the tour bus took us to the ‘recommended’ store for shopping… not what I was looking for - I wanted to go to the real shops and stalls across the street so after a few minutes of watching people dodge their way through the cars we decided to give it a try. I’m writing this so you can tell we made it. This was the kind of market I enjoy, it was a mixture of clothing, hard goods, soft goods and even some produce. They didn’t seem willing to bargain but I was able to get them to knock off the odd couple dollars on both purchases. Now we have four days at sea prior to Dubai.
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Right after I wrote the report above the movie Slum Dog Millionaire came on the TV. (They had shown this academy award winning movie in the lounge just prior to Mumbai, but I don’t like sitting in those chairs so we didn’t go.) We decided to watch it. I’m glad we saw it after our trip into Mumbai as I don’t think I would have really understood how accurate it is. The only scene that isn’t accurate (our guide told us this) is the one where the Indian movie star is mobbed by fans. She says they do not do this in India. Everything else is exactly as we saw Mumbai.