Mumbai

We flew IndiGo to Mumbai. There were no meals served on the plane, and I was feeling a little sick to my stomach when we took off. I came to find these stomachaches to be a normal occurrence every morning that I was in India. As our plane landed, we had an incredible view of the slums of Mumbai. These are some of the largest slums in the world, yet we did not see them at all while in the city because they are surrounded by a tall cement wall. Supposedly, 60% of Mumbai's population live in slums (about 7 million people). Contrast this against the fact that Mumbai is named as number 7 in the world on the list of "billionaire cities," and you will understand why the cement wall was built: the billionaires don't want to see the slums or the people who live in them.

When we arrived in Mumbai, Chacha found us some taxis that would drive us into the city. As we approached the city, I was in awe of everything. I tried my best to get a glimpse of early-morning life in the slums, but I could hardly see anything. As we got closer to the city center, I could see thick black smoke billowing out from buildings ahead. Talk about pollution problems!

We finally arrived at the Sea Green Hotel, which sits on Marine Drive, right across from the Arabian Sea. Marine Drive reminded me greatly of Lakeshore Drive in Chicago--curving along the coast and lined with skyscrapers. The western feel was comforting. After dropping off our bags in our hotel rooms, we began our day by following Chacha around town. He took us through a British-inspired part of town, where we walked through a large park, in which a cricket tournament was being held! We then went to see the Gateway to India, a huge arch that was built by the British to honor the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. Directly across from the Gateway is the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. This hotel was built by Tata in the 1890s to demonstrate the beauty and valor of India. How fitting a location he chose--directly across from the English monument, which demonstrates England's once-dominant presence in India. Because the hotel is such a luxurious symbol of India, Islamist terrorists attacked the hotel in November 2008. The terrorists held hostages, including Indians and foreigners, inside as they attempted to burn the building down. India jumped right back and rebuilt the hotel in less than two years, though! And let me tell you...it is BEAUTIFUL.

Marine Drive (see the resemblance to Chicago?)

Our hotel, the Sea Green Hotel

Cricket Tournament

Gateway to India

Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

Inside the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

After seeing the Taj Hotel, we went for lunch as a Muslim restaurant. Here, the food was so spicy to me that I began to cry because I was in so much pain. This was not your typical, oh my eyes and nose are watering because of the spice. No, this was, my head is throbbing and I can't feel my throat because the pain from this spice is so intense. I ate a lot of white rice and bread at that meal. Afterwards, we went to the Mani Bhavan Ghandi Museum, where we walked around, looked at many photos, read many stories, and saw many dioramas that told Ghandi's story. Chacha looks like Ghandi, so we had him pose with a statue. We thenclimbed a hill to a temple. From there, we walked to the hanging gardens. When you hear this, you might picture something similar to the hanging gardens of Babylon. Nope. These gardens do not hang over you from above. Rather, the roots of these plants hang down into a huge water basin, where water is stored for the city. They were neat! This is the place where families dress up and visit on Sunday afternoons. We then went to the children's park, where we got a lovely view of the city skyline and the Arabian Sea coast. Two girls approached us with flowers for ourhair and wanted their photo with us. It is nice to feel like a celebrity sometimes.

Chacha with a Ghandi statue.

View of Mumbai and the Arabian Sea from the hanging gardens.

We then walked to another temple, where we sat and chatted for a bit. We then hopped on a bus to Chowpatty Beach. We ran into a slight problem on this bus ride, though. A few of us girls were sitting in the very back row, and the rest of our group was at the front. This was a very crowded bus, and we could not see out group members very well over the heads of the many people sitting and standing throughout the bus. At one stop, we called ahead, "Do we get off here?" One girl immediately called back, "Yea!" So, us girls at the back jumped off. All of a sudden, the bus started to move again, but we realized no one else from our group had gotten off. We heard a man call out from inside the bus, "Oh no!," and we saw our group members looking out at us, obviously thinking the same thing. The four of us girls ran towards the bus, two of us in sarees, and we jumped up, hanging onto the handles, barely standing on the step, being pulled up by men already inside. Thank goodness we made it! We would have been fine though, seeing as our actually stop was only one stop away.

This brings me to the Sunday night beach festival. Every Sunday evening on Chowpatti Beach, a festival occurs! People, including many families, gather on the beach in their Sunday's best to play cricket, ride carnival rides, swim, and eat the world's best grilled corn. We walked along the beach in our punjabis and sarees past peanut and other snack vendors, colorful pinwheels, balloon stands, and kite-flyers until we came across a man selling grilled corn. The first man we met rubbed chili powder on his corn, so a few girls and I headed down to the next corn man, since we were still getting used to the spice (and I still felt like I needed to recover from lunch). This man was younger, very smiley, and could barely speak English. He understood what we wanted though: the best corn ever. He had a small grill (maybe 12-inches tall) on which he grilled his corn to perfection, directly on the coals. He then coated it with sea salt and lime juice. OH MY GOSH YUM! I bought two corn cobs that evening. I wish I could have eaten more! We then walked down the beach towards the carnival rides, where we saw four men manually operating the ferris wheel: they would climb up, grab on, and fly down to the ground, where they jumped off and climbed back up to the top to repeat the process. I was nervous for their lives!

Man grilling corn on the beach. MMM!

Beach festival.

We then headed back to the part of town where our hotel was located. Since Mumbai is a huge financial center of India, there is a lot of Western influence. Right next to our hotel was a pizza parlor called Pizza by the Bay. This is where we had dinner. This was the one and only time I felt uncomfortable in India clothing while in India. First of all, we were the only non-Indians in the restaurant. On top of that, we were the only people wearing Indian dress. Chacha was also very frustrated because he wasn't getting the exact tables that he wanted, so he made a few of us stand over people at their tables, expecting them to leave for us. I did not like this at all. Once we finally got to sit down, though, we ordered delicious pizzas! Laura I and I shared a margherita pizza. mm mm mmm! We sat at tables right along the windows, which let in a nice sea breeze. Laura and I discussed coming back later that evening to do karaoke. That plan failed when we fell asleep immediately upon our return to our hotel room.

Pizza dinner at Pizza by the Bay.

We woke up the following morning and headed into town with our group. One of the first things we saw after getting off the train were the dhobi ghats, a huge outdoor laundry service in Mumbai. There are clothes everywhere and men in underwear standing in small cement baths smacking the clothing against the walls as a way to get the dirt out. The clothing all gets separated by type: jeans, white undershirts, t-shirts, petticoats, plaid shirts, etc. Nothing is labeled, but somehow it all makes it back to the correct households. Amazing.

Dhobi ghats.

We then headed to the racetrack. Here, we saw another huge contrast in wealth. The racetrack is a place where the wealthiest people from all over the world keep horses to race. The wealthiest people are also the ones who visit to see the races. Who works here and takes care of the horses? The poorest people of Mumbai. We walked in through the back entrance, so we were able to see a small shanti village, where homes were haphazardly built and placed. I saw small apartments that seemed to be almost toppling over, homes built in trees, and one small girl sitting in a half-tent that was balanced between a fallen tree and a broken fence. I was able to peek into some of these homes. Each was a small one-room apartment, the walls lined with pots and pans, a small mattress on the floor for the entire family, a lot of clothing piled in the corners, and sometimes a small TV flickering in the corner. At the racetrack, we got to pet the horses, and the worker men brought us carrots and leafy greens to feed to the horses. That was fun!

Girl in a "tent" home outside the racetrack.

Shanty homes by the racetrack.

Prize-winning horse, Daimler.

After the racetrack, we were going to go to a temple out on the Arabian Sea. Unfortunately, when we got there, the path out to it was nearly flooded over, and the tide was still rising, so it would not have been safe for us to walk out there. So...we headed back to the Churchgate neighborhood. We then had a free afternoon. Some of us walked to find a handmade paper company called Chimanlal. We navigated our way through back streets until we finally found it. Here, we found some of the coolest handmade paper creations, such as journals, lamps, gift tags, and more! We then walked back to Churchgate to eat lunch at a very westernized cafe called Mocha. I ordered a soy burger and a chair, and they were both delicious! We sat there for a while chatting and writing letters and postcards. We then headed back to our hotel to catch our taxis to the airport, where we would leave for Bangalore. Once we arrived at the airport, though, we ran into a HUGE problem. We arrived for our 615pm flight, only to find out that the flight was actually at 615am, twelve hours earlier. The entire airport staff stopped what they were doing, and they somehow managed to fit all 14 of us on a full flight at 7pm that same evening. God works great miracles!

Chimanlal Paper Company, Ltd.

Hanging out at Mocha.

In the taxi, on our way to the airport.