Mumbai ... oh my!

Approaching Mumbai's busy harbour

The "new" cruise terminal

The senses are inundated by a cacophony of colours, smells, crowds, noises, vehicles and nature in the other worldly atmosphere of Mumbai.

Mumbai, or Bombay as it is called by locals, is the fifth largest city in the world at over 20 million people.  For those who care, Mexico City is the largest by population. Bombay is the richest city in India, the financial centre, and houses India’s film and television industry (Bollywood anyone?). 

 What a huge contrast in life styles!  On our first day of tours, we saw the most expensive home in the world, a 27 story home for the parents, three children and 169 automobiles and over a hundred staff.  The cost of the home ... only two billion dollars.  

A 2 billion dollar home

 Just down the road is a posh golf course with an annual membership fee of 250,000 Rupees (i.e., $50,000 U.S.). Yet, attached to the outside fence of the golf course is a long row of tin shacks where the poor live out their lives. We cannot remember ever seeing, in our travels, so much extravagance side by side with absolute squalor. 

Meanwhile, outside the golf course ...

A single home along the street

Everywhere, there are people trying to eke out a living by whatever means they can.  Picture an area with eight thousand men doing household laundry, in small stone tubs, cleaning the clothes by smashing them against rocks and then, once dry, delivering them back to the more affluent citizens. 

Laundry workers

Drying the laundry

There are subsidized apartment dwellings where rent has been frozen at 1947 rates (a few dollars a month) where the buildings are virtually falling down due to disrepair.  Right near these, are apartment/condo buildings with units that sell for 3 to 4 million dollars U.S. 

Modern condos behind subsidized apartment

 Despite the huge population, traffic moves fairly well. To dive in Bombay, apparently all anyone needs is a very loud car horn and a complete disdain for signal lights. This simple rule seems to work for everyone.  There is an interesting quaintness about the population. Men dress in white shirts and slacks (no shorts) and the women in beautiful saris or Punjab dresses, and cows wander the sidewalks.

Taking a pet for a walk

There is a beautiful beach, with polluted waters mind you, but there is no one at the beach during the day.  At night, the beaches are crowded.  The problem with beaches and hot sun is that people get tans.  Indians, especially women, work hard to make sure their skin is pale so they can get a better match for a husband.  Thus, beaches are for night time activities and festivals only.

Beach in the early afternoon

To boost the population even more, over 6 million people commute into the city to work each day by train.  According to our guide, each train has 8 cars for men and 4 for women. The trains arrive at the station every 2 minutes and passengers have a total of 17 seconds to get on and off the train.  On the way home, people can buy vegetables and all kinds of other commodities and often start preparing their dinner while still on the train ride home. Talk about multi-tasking!

The Victorian era train station

On our second day, we both went on a tour highlighting stops at two large temples.  The first was a Jain temple.  This was a very colourful and ornate building with many worshipers.  There are no priests in this religion, but there are monks who give lectures while penitents wrap themselves in a very long piece of cloth, cover their nose and mouth with a smaller cloth so as not to accidentally inhale an insect or living microbe, thus killing a living thing. They all pray and do their best to sanctify life. We had to remove our shoes and women had to cover their arms and legs to be able to enter the temple. There are other rules for women too.

Outside the Jain temple

Praying inside the temple

Rules for entering the temple

The second temple we visited was a large Hindu temple on a hill overlooking the bay.  To get there, we had to take our shoes off several hundred metres from the building and walk in our socks, or barefoot if you were wearing sandals and had no socks (i.e., Gail in this case).  We had to walk uphill on a rather tattered grass mat and then climb more than 50 stairs to reach the temple itself.  There we offered a sacrifice, in this case our guide had purchased a box of sweets, and the sweets were blessed by the Hindu priests and we were presented with lotus flowers.  After a short prayer session, we were then expected to offer the lotus flowers back to the gods before we left.  This was an amazing cultural experience, though Gail’s bare feet were not impressed when she had to walk down very hot marble steps.  The words she used would not normally be appreciated inside a religious building. The truly unfortunate part of this experience is that we were absolutely forbidden to use cameras anywhere near or in the temple. 

The India Arch ... on the way back to the ship

Meanwhile, at the docks ... pea soup anyone?

 After a short shopping stop, we arrived back at our ship and were amazed to see the ship being partially wrapped in razor wire for the next portion of our trip to Dubai.  The reason for the razor wire is that we will be passing the Somali coast, and the wire is meant to deter pirates.  We were told that last year on this world cruise, our ship had also employed four Ghurka snipers, who stayed in rooms with the crew, for the trip to Dubai. We have not been told if that will be the case this year. Lots of fun to  come as we head for the Gulf of Oman, arriving at Dubai on Sunday.

Wrapped and ready.