Mumbai

Also known under the name of Bombay
Population of 16,4M of which 60% are living in the slums

Day 1- Out of our element but so amazing at the same time

After 14 hours flying and 16 hours spent in airport, I found myself under the sunny sky of Mumbai. It is noon and it is 25 degrees. My friend Rob is there which is really reassuring. It turns out to be easy to get a taxi and find the hotel. No need to negociate since it was a prepaid taxi. We will learn later on that it is best to negociate! Rob had booked a 3 * hotel so we started the trip in luxury and confort, air conditionning, hot water, doorman... We dropped our bags, took a ahower, ooofff needed with a change of underwear even more important... and we went on our first exploration tour of the area close to the hotel. 1- It's dirty with garbage everywhere, 2- It smells like urine and goats but some good smells of food altenate with the bad smells. Add to that the smell of incent and you're set for a bit of an olfactory surcharge. 3- We need to be very careful to where we put our feet. Holes, kids that grab our arms, people sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk. 4- Lots of men saying ''hello'', ''Which country'', ''Your name''. They want their picture taken.

Seems we are not in a highly touristic area, we take the risk to eat in a local restaurant. Huummmm!! Indian food! Chana Masala for me please...no cramps afterwards! We then walk to the Chowpatty beach where families and couples eat and enjoy some fresh air. No swimming since the water there is supposed to be toxic! They have some rides that are running with arms power but the kids scream even if it is not fast at all. We have food on the beach and after Masala dosa, no cramps!

Day 2- Exhausting day in Colaba

Old buildings are photographed even if we don't always know which ones are which. We end up at the Sassoon Dock and the experience is interesting. It doesn;t look like they are visited that often because people are watching closely where we go and what we look at. It smells like fish a lot! It is amazing how they do to cramp so many boats in a tiny port and especially be able to take them to sea without too much damage. There's also the question of when do these guys sleeps? They come back from the sea early morning and they are still repairing nets and cables in the afternoon. We had to get the India's Gate where the atmosphere is extraordinaire. We eat a papaya looking at other tourists, mostly Indians. Peolple again take our picture, we feel like Stars. The way back to the hotel is long, street food again, no cramps!

Day 3- Rich area of Mumbai

Getting up is hard! My legs are hurting from all the walk of the last days, i have blisters... We get to Malamba Hill where the tallest appartment buildings do not fit at all with the simpliest houses. Real smiles though all the way there and back with nice temples hidden away. We were impressed by the biggest washing area of Mumbai, Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat and la mosquee Haji Ali which is reachable only during low tide. After that day, my legs are done. I wore my running shoes to make it easier on the blisters. I am getting old... or i  should do more exercise. Watchout when I come back though!! I will need to keep it up.

Day 4- Elephanta Island

The experience started with the train experience. It is not rush hour so the experience isn’t one after all. Nothing to do with the number of people that we were expecting. It is difficult to imagine that in a city that looks so poor from the outside, that the train routes are monitored with an hitech GPS system and that the railways are taken care of by robots. We left Mumbai Central station and stopped at Churchgate station where i was hoping to see Dabba-Wallahs. They deliver about 200 000 lunch boxes a day everywhere around Mumbai. They first pick them up at the door and are able to reach work places without that making that many mistakes, 1 in 6M deliveries!


9 km from the coast, Elephanta island is reached after 1 hour boat trip during which we can finally get some rest from all the walking around Mumbai. The island should be called the Monkey island really. They are everywhere and they keep fighting and keep trying to get at my bottle of orange pop! After too many stairs to be climbed when it’s this humid, we arrive at the first cave. There are 5 but only the first one is of some interest. It has many temples carved into the rock dedicated to various Gods. Work of art!

That night, first bad Indian food experience. Maybe we chose a restaurant in an area a bit too touristy. I never thought that bad indian food existed and certainely not in India.

I haven’t shop and will leave Mumbai with only Ballons which were more a test of bargaining that a real need. My friend Sophie could not do the same and that’s a fact.

9 km de la côte, on doit embarquer pour une heure de traversée qui enfin nous donne un peu de repos. L'île devrait s'appeler l'île des singes puisqu'il y en a partout. Ils se chamaillent et veulent ma bouteille de Fanta à l'orange. Après une série de marches interminable avec cette humidité, nous arrivons à la grotte 1. Il y en a 5 mais seulement la première est d'intéret réel. Il y a plusieurs temples faconnés dans la roche de la montagne qui sont dédiés à plusieurs Dieux. Impressionnant!

Ce soir là, première mauvaise expérience de resto. Un quartier un peu trop touristique peut-être...on peut manger de la mauvaise bouffe indienne même en Inde!

Sophie, je quitterai Mumbai pour la province de Goa sans avoir fait d'achat. Pourtant plus de variété qu'au Maroc et je crois bien que nous pourrions sortir nos talents de négociatrices! Tu vois que c'est toi qui me fait dépenser!!!

Day 5- We are going South

Our first idea was to take the train to get to Madgeon in the province of Goa. The waiting list was of over 300 names so we decided to catch a flight. More expensive but so much time saved without talking about the energy level. Time is money!

The most complicated thing was to find our guesthouse tucked behind other stores and this even knowing the address. We had some scary moments in the taxi getting there since we circulated on a two ways road that i would have compared to a bicycle patch at home.

We decided to start with Anjuna as a starting point. It is supposed to be a party place but we decide to just relax and get prepared for the rest of the trip.