Our final 4 nights in India were spent in Mumbai &, as in the rest of the country, the word "contrasts" sprang to mind. About a third of Mumbai's 16 million people live on the streets & we were confronted with the poverty even before we landed. We flew in over tens of 1000s of makeshift homes huddled around the runways in a higgledy-piggedly mass of wooden planks, corrugated iron & plastic sheeting. The taxi taking us into town sped us past mile after mile of shacks & tents piled up on the pavements, with people spilling out onto the rooves & the roads - washing, eating, sleeping wherever they could.
These economic migrants pour into Mumbai from all over India to live in unbelievable squalor while aspiring, no doubt, to a share of the amazing wealth produced in the city. 40% of India's Gross national Product is generated here, it's port handles half of the country's foreign trade & Bollywood, which is based there, is the world's biggest film industry. There's a lot of money sloshing around in Mumbai.
Our top priority in the city was to get the 60 day visa we needed for our trip to Thailand - which the Thai consulate in Mumbai was unable to give us! As UK citizens we can visit Thailand for 30 days without a visa, so our plans have not come completely unstuck. We'll probably have to make a trip across the Cambodian border after a month & then re-enter Thailand to qualify for a further 30 days stay - we'll let you know how that works out! In the meantime, our brief, if unsuccessful, visit to the consulate left us with more time than we anticipated to explore Mumbai.
From our base in the leafy side streets of Colaba (just a stone's throw from India's most luxurious hotel, the Taj Mahal Hotel, where we managed to afford 1 very expensive lunch!) we visited the Prince of Wales museum, the Jahangir Art Gallery, the Gandhi Museum, the hanging Gardens on Malibar Hill & the Gateway of India. We walked from Naruman Point along Marine Drive which sweeps around Back Bay to Chowpatty beach & Malibar Point with wonderful views out over the Arabian Sea. We found a favourite haunt in the form of the 19th C Leopold Cafe on the Colaba Highway. We fought our way there day & night through the crowds swarming around the stalls that lined the pillared arcades all along the roadside. The masses finally drifted away only as midnight approached & the stallholders settled down to sleep on their trestle tables & in the doorways, along with the beggars & the street children.
Mumbai was hot, humid & busy but we enjoyed it nonetheless. Maybe we'd grown accustomed to the heat, the dirt & the chaos during our 3 months sojourn in India, maybe it's less of a culture shock to Western travellers than our starting point of New Delhi or maybe we were made tolerant by the knowledge that we only had a few more days to endure. Whatever the reason we found it a tolerable place to bid farewell to a country which had provoked many mixed feelings in us - & it was nice to see the city where Matthew had lived for 9 months.
These economic migrants pour into Mumbai from all over India to live in unbelievable squalor while aspiring, no doubt, to a share of the amazing wealth produced in the city. 40% of India's Gross national Product is generated here, it's port handles half of the country's foreign trade & Bollywood, which is based there, is the world's biggest film industry. There's a lot of money sloshing around in Mumbai.
Our top priority in the city was to get the 60 day visa we needed for our trip to Thailand - which the Thai consulate in Mumbai was unable to give us! As UK citizens we can visit Thailand for 30 days without a visa, so our plans have not come completely unstuck. We'll probably have to make a trip across the Cambodian border after a month & then re-enter Thailand to qualify for a further 30 days stay - we'll let you know how that works out! In the meantime, our brief, if unsuccessful, visit to the consulate left us with more time than we anticipated to explore Mumbai.
From our base in the leafy side streets of Colaba (just a stone's throw from India's most luxurious hotel, the Taj Mahal Hotel, where we managed to afford 1 very expensive lunch!) we visited the Prince of Wales museum, the Jahangir Art Gallery, the Gandhi Museum, the hanging Gardens on Malibar Hill & the Gateway of India. We walked from Naruman Point along Marine Drive which sweeps around Back Bay to Chowpatty beach & Malibar Point with wonderful views out over the Arabian Sea. We found a favourite haunt in the form of the 19th C Leopold Cafe on the Colaba Highway. We fought our way there day & night through the crowds swarming around the stalls that lined the pillared arcades all along the roadside. The masses finally drifted away only as midnight approached & the stallholders settled down to sleep on their trestle tables & in the doorways, along with the beggars & the street children.
Mumbai was hot, humid & busy but we enjoyed it nonetheless. Maybe we'd grown accustomed to the heat, the dirt & the chaos during our 3 months sojourn in India, maybe it's less of a culture shock to Western travellers than our starting point of New Delhi or maybe we were made tolerant by the knowledge that we only had a few more days to endure. Whatever the reason we found it a tolerable place to bid farewell to a country which had provoked many mixed feelings in us - & it was nice to see the city where Matthew had lived for 9 months.
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