Day 38 (14 July): Overwhelmed at the other end of the Spice Road
Arriving in Mumbai (Bombay), which is at the northern end of India's West Coast on the Arabian Sea, has to be one of the most shocking experiences especially after the opulence of Dubai (or at least its airport). Even getting off of the plane, I was surprised how dingy the airport looked for a major city and a county's economic center. (I read in a guidebook that a full 40% of India's GDP can be attributed to the city of 15 Million out of the countries 1+ Billion.) The reality of Mumbai progressively got more intense leaving the airport as you begin to smell the air which is a combination of raw sewage, gas fumes, and rotting food. On the taxi ride out of the airport you drive through the world's largest slum with over 2 million people living in it. People reach through the windows of your cab asking for money...
After checking into a guesthouse on the fourth floor of a building in the Colaba district in the a much nicer, but still not poverty free replete with people sleeping on the streets, I took a little time to recuperate before venturing out to see the Gateway to India (an grand arch right near my hotel built to commemorate the arrival of British Royalty in the early 1900s.)
From there, I got in a tourist cab and saw a lot of the city with the help of the driver. I saw laundries, the Ghandi Museum, Malabar Hill (the rich neighborhood), the Hanging Gardens, the Towers of Silence, Chowpatty Beach, Marine Drive, and a number of Victorian buildings left by the British. After the cab ride, I explored a little on my own on foot, seeing the Bombay Stock Exchange, Reserve Bank of India, and Dalal Street (Bombay's Wall Street.) In the evening I wandered through a big park (oval maiden) and watched some people playing cricket; the eventual asked me if I wanted to swing a bat at a couple balls, which I did but it went pretty poorly.
Observations:
1) Poverty. This is really impossible to describe how bad it is. Its not just poverty, but real despair and anguish too. Out of the cities total population nearly one-third lives on the streets: that's nearly 5 million people or a population greater than that of the City of Los Angeles.
2) Sanitation. This is poor all over the city with human feces on the street and a lack of bathrooms. Even the rich area is not free of poor sanitation. The Towers of Silence are a place where the Parsi people (who are actually quite rich and live in Malabar Hill) put the bodies of their dead in stone towers to be picked at by crows as it is part of their religious tradition. Needless to say, I have been freaked out whenever I have seen crows in Mumbai since. Another place with poor sanitation is the laundry which is Asia's and the world's largest. Its an outdoor place with big pools of water an hundreds of people working there. They dunk clothes in water that only gets changed once a day so is really dirty, apply a little soap, and beat them dry against stones. I think I'd rather not get my clothes washed there although my hotel sheets probably were.
3) Drugs. This was the first thing I was offered by a guy on the street upon getting out of the cab to go to my hotel. Later in the day, I saw some people smoking something out of a tin foil sheet which I can only imagine was some kind of drug.
4) Cool cabs. At the airport, I was offered the option of a 'cool cab' or a not-cool-cab. I opted for the not cool cab. The difference is whether or not their is air conditioning. The cool cabs cost nearly twice as much, but it is a way of segmenting the rich and the not quite as rich who can still afford to take cabs.
5) Phones everywhere in the streets. No one seems to have long distance phones at home, so people go to 'Cyber Cafes' on the street which are little more than long distance phone booths or stalls.
6) Monsoon. Apparently since it is monsoon season, Mumbai and India, see little tourism this time of year. I have, however, yet to see any rain.
7) The Reserve Bank of India is India's Central Bank, however, there seems to be a private bank with the name Central Bank of India. I think that's quite amusing.
After checking into a guesthouse on the fourth floor of a building in the Colaba district in the a much nicer, but still not poverty free replete with people sleeping on the streets, I took a little time to recuperate before venturing out to see the Gateway to India (an grand arch right near my hotel built to commemorate the arrival of British Royalty in the early 1900s.)
From there, I got in a tourist cab and saw a lot of the city with the help of the driver. I saw laundries, the Ghandi Museum, Malabar Hill (the rich neighborhood), the Hanging Gardens, the Towers of Silence, Chowpatty Beach, Marine Drive, and a number of Victorian buildings left by the British. After the cab ride, I explored a little on my own on foot, seeing the Bombay Stock Exchange, Reserve Bank of India, and Dalal Street (Bombay's Wall Street.) In the evening I wandered through a big park (oval maiden) and watched some people playing cricket; the eventual asked me if I wanted to swing a bat at a couple balls, which I did but it went pretty poorly.
Observations:
1) Poverty. This is really impossible to describe how bad it is. Its not just poverty, but real despair and anguish too. Out of the cities total population nearly one-third lives on the streets: that's nearly 5 million people or a population greater than that of the City of Los Angeles.
2) Sanitation. This is poor all over the city with human feces on the street and a lack of bathrooms. Even the rich area is not free of poor sanitation. The Towers of Silence are a place where the Parsi people (who are actually quite rich and live in Malabar Hill) put the bodies of their dead in stone towers to be picked at by crows as it is part of their religious tradition. Needless to say, I have been freaked out whenever I have seen crows in Mumbai since. Another place with poor sanitation is the laundry which is Asia's and the world's largest. Its an outdoor place with big pools of water an hundreds of people working there. They dunk clothes in water that only gets changed once a day so is really dirty, apply a little soap, and beat them dry against stones. I think I'd rather not get my clothes washed there although my hotel sheets probably were.
3) Drugs. This was the first thing I was offered by a guy on the street upon getting out of the cab to go to my hotel. Later in the day, I saw some people smoking something out of a tin foil sheet which I can only imagine was some kind of drug.
4) Cool cabs. At the airport, I was offered the option of a 'cool cab' or a not-cool-cab. I opted for the not cool cab. The difference is whether or not their is air conditioning. The cool cabs cost nearly twice as much, but it is a way of segmenting the rich and the not quite as rich who can still afford to take cabs.
5) Phones everywhere in the streets. No one seems to have long distance phones at home, so people go to 'Cyber Cafes' on the street which are little more than long distance phone booths or stalls.
6) Monsoon. Apparently since it is monsoon season, Mumbai and India, see little tourism this time of year. I have, however, yet to see any rain.
7) The Reserve Bank of India is India's Central Bank, however, there seems to be a private bank with the name Central Bank of India. I think that's quite amusing.
posted by Traveling Brian at 9:18 AM
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