Mumbai

Nameste from Mumbai, what a phenominal day! I feel So exhausted from today’s trip. Where to start…Back on another tour, this one was the ‘city highlights of Mumbai’. The day started with a visit to The Gateway of India and from the minute we stepped off of the coach we were swamped with people offering us postcards, religious chants, bracelets of flowers that they just knot around your hand without asking if you want it. Strangely enough, everything was a dollar.

Behind the Gateway is the Taj Mahal hotel, the best in Mumbai and one of the best in India. Our day ended here and I have to tell you about the ladies toilets to show you how posh this hotel is. You are greeted when you enter the bathroom, someone directs you to the toilet, she goes in first to clean the seat, then as you come out she runs the tap for you. Then you are given a moisturised enriched flannel and bid farewell.

After the Gateway of India we took a long drive along Marine Drive and Peddar Street, the mass overcrowding was apparent from the start. There were people at every corner and even the expensive houses on Malabar Hill were shrouded by people.

We visited Dhobi Ghats which is a large public laundry. The Dhobi is an uneducated man who collects your washing on Sundays. They take it to the Ghats where they pund the clothes against stone to get out the stains. Apparently the washing come backs washed, stain free, bleached, pressed and ready to hang in the wardrobe. Even though the Dhobi can collect lots of different type of washing, it is never mixed up. The site from the bridge is spectacular, a chocolate box of firsty water, colourful lines of washing and dhobi’s pounding the clothes.

Our next stop was to where Mahatma Ghandi once called home. A three story building on a street that you wouldn’t look twice at but as you go around the exhibits you can’t help but to get pins and needles through your body how one man could devote his life to peace, an inspiring story.

I was naughty and forgot to put my shirt back on before going to visit the temple. I hasten to add I was wearing a vest. I was leant a shawl by the tour guide to visit the Jain Temple, an order where they wear masks over their nose and mouth because they do not wish to swallow the small bacteria in the air, the sweep the floor before they walk on it just in case there are creatues there and needless to say, strict veggies.

Our day finished in the Prince of Wales Museum, Hanging Gardens and watching endless games of cricket. We had lunch and a shower back on board the ship and then did the same tour all over again but backwards! I asked three tour guides if the morning tour was different to the afternoon tour and all said yes, but it wasn’t! It was exactly the same. Well, one way of learning is repetition J

I love Mumbai, I have yet to find another tourist on this trip who liked it but the city buzzes with life. Its on the list too J