Sheesh Kebab!
Trip Start
Oct 18, 2009
1
62
132
Trip End
Ongoing
Mumbai, India
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sheesh Kebab!
As part of our 'Welcome to Mumbai' package that we had booked to make life nice and easy after SE Asia and starting India we had a half day tour arranged this morning. This meant that after getting to bed at around 2am, which was actually our 4:30 am Singapore time, we had to get up at 7 for breakfast which consisted of Indian breads, curries and pickles. I am determined to try and genuinely eat and enjoy Indian food for as much of the next two months as possible. I can only hope that I do not sicken myself of it as I did with SE Asian food.
Our guide and driver picked us up around nine and we set off into the empty streets of Bombay. As it is Holi today we had expected this change from the norm. There were a fair number of people about but nothing like what is usual and not much traffic at all. It was good to see around Bombay but I’m not sure that I have much to say. It is a huge city, unofficially around 20 million people, and certainly quite a few of them seem to be homeless. Our guide explained that this does not mean that they have no job as the main problem in Mumbai is lack of accommodation rather than lack of jobs. We visited the usual sort of sights, buildings, temples, the main promenade, and a place called the hanging gardens. I didn’t really see anything hanging but its claim to fame is that it sits on top of Mumbai’s water supply which is a huge water tank built in the mid nineteenth century and about the of a couple of football parks. There were a lot of birds in the park as well but this was due to a funeral place next door used by people from the Parsi religion. Bodies are left out for the birds to eat and then the bones dissolved in a lime solution, which possibly explains why Bombay’s water is so bad! None of this was on display thankfully.
We stopped at a Jain temple. Now as some of you may have picked up on in the past I’m not a huge fan of religion, but as religions go this one seems pretty good to me, well it seems okay. Basically in Jainism there is no worshipping of supernatural powers, they are not materialistic, and do not kill any living thing. This includes (though more for symbolic reasons) wearing a mask over your mouth so as not to breath in and kill insects. Also they do not eat root vegetables as this may kill things in the ground. Now that I think about it, it is just as ridiculous! Sorry.
Seeing some of the shanty towns and endless mid-rise blocks of dirty, cramped flats in the North of Bombay certainly was the most interesting part of the trip. Also everyone celebrating Holi by throwing coloured paint and powder over each other was brilliant to see, the whole city seems to be in party spirit.
In the afternoon we stumbled upon the Leopold Cafe, which as well as apparently being quite a Bombay institution, was also one of the places bombed in the 2008 terrorist attacks. We went for some food and a beer. I made the mistake of ordering Paneer kebabs which were nice but you can have too much cheese. Rach had a vegetable club sandwich and a Greek salad. Unbelievable, one day in and Rach is already ordering ‘western’. In her defence the sandwiches were definitely done with an Indian twist.
On that subject Rach should be set. Due to religious reasons, vegematarian food is available absolutely everywhere and everyone understands ‘veg’ or ‘non-veg’. For reasons of safety I will probably adopt vegematarianism to a certain extent over the next couple of months.
I am surprised at how normal Bombay seems after hearing everybody bang on about how manic and shocking it is. Certainly if you had just arrived from a ‘Western’ city and been unused to seeing life lived on the street it would be an eye opener. Maybe I’ve just seen enough in the past that’s it’s no longer shocking. When I think about it maybe I should be at least taken aback to have small bedraggled children begging all the time, or having to step over someone sleeping on the pavement using his wooden leg as a pillow (lucky for some, my little Scotland pillow is now ‘waffer thin’) or seeing a family live on the street with nowhere to shelter but the sad fact is you do get used to it and it no longer shocks like it probably should.
We headed back to the hotel for a snooze. I managed to drag myself out in the evening and headed back to ‘The Gateway to India’ monument to take some pics and check out more Holi celebrations. Everyone seemed friendly and I talked to a fair number of people, not all of whom were trying to sell me something. Surprisingly though not unexpectedly the staring and being photographed continued. Surely, white people can’t be that much of a novelty. It is quite funny though, you will be walking past someone holding a mobile phone out and as you pass they will track your movement taking photos. Unfortunately I had to decline possible stardom in a role in a Bolywood movie the next day, which is a shame as we know people who have done this and it would have been a laugh.
As we had the next few days to arrange and were completely knackered we didn’t make it back out after that and couldn’t even be bothered to get dinner. It was good however to enjoy a genuinely nice and clean hotel room.
Comments
And I thought those maks they were was to stop them getting swine flu!
I meant masks not maks!
Liked the Monty Python reference. Nice.
I'd kill for a box of After Eight's just now!