We had to leave for the airport at 4:30am for our flight to Mumbai. Yuck!

I was fascinated to learn that Bombay (Bombay and Mumbai are used interchangeably) was originally 7 different islands that they connected with stones and dirt. That is why you sometimes hear it referred to as the Island City. Mumbai is cleaner than Delhi and seems somewhat saner and more modern. That was a surprise to us; we thought Delhi would be the more cosmopolitan city.

As soon as we arrived in Mumbai, we loaded into a different bus. The one we traveled in from Delhi to Udaipur was brand new and very nice. This bus in Mumbai was an older bus and not nice at all. The air conditioner over our seat leaked and Buzz and I got soaked on one side as we tried to share the burden! Our guide in Mumbai, Shamel, was nice enough but at the Ghandi museum he basically walked around and read all of the display cases. Boring! Then we visited a Hare Krishna temple which was quite lovely. The Hare Krishna’s here at not the same as the ones in the US. An interesting fact we learned is that you cannot convert to Hinduism. You are born Hindu in India to a Hindu family. Another interesting fact we were unaware of is that Hinduism is not really a religion, it is a way of life. There are no services, formal or informal, there are no priests, monks, etc. The Hare Krishna’s worldwide are an attempt at following the Hindu beliefs.Somewhere along the line, the U.S. version of that idea got warped!

The coolest stop was at the Dhobi Ghat, or the laundry place. Laundry is brought in from all over Mumbai and they wash, dry, and iron thousands of pieces. With the advent of the washing machine, the business of doing personal laundry has dropped so now they launder for hospitals and clothes manufacturers. The men who work there are all migrants from poor villages and come to work at the laundry for 10 months to earn money to bring back home. They also live above the laundry in extremely sparse conditions.

The bus dropped us off at the beautiful Trident Nariman Point and we flew up to our rooms and changed into cooler clothes to head to the Gateway to India to catch the 2:30 ferry to Elephanta Caves. We thought we were in the wrong room. This is what we walked into:

When we had booked the Gate 1 tour, they ask if you are celebrating anything so I put our wedding anniversary. There were 4 swans and rose petals all over the bed and a cake and a dozen red roses in the room. We were convinced that we were in the wrong room until I saw the happy Anniversary card on the cake. We both looked at the over the top swans decorating the bed and stated chuckling and said “who is going to clean up this mess? We have to sleep here!!”

We jumped on the ferry and they took off for the hour ride to the island. When we landed there, a young man came up to us and started telling us all about how late the ferries run and about the mini train you can take up the pier and how to get on it. He told us where to stand and when the train pulled up, he jumped on a car and kicked off any Indians who tried to sit there. On the 5 minutes ride, he told us his fees for a 2 hour tour of the caves which was exorbitant. We refused his services and tried to tip him for helping us get on the train but he refused our money. The walk up to the caves is 120 steps with long flats between them but which also sloped uphill. The walkway was only about 10 feet wide and there were dozens and dozens of vendors set up all along with tarps covering over them and the sidewalk. It was very crowded with Indian families on a day off and it was so hot. There was no air because of the tarps and I really didn’t think I was going to make it because I couldn’t get a breath. We pulled off into a little restaurant so I could try to get a breath and a man looked over and smiled and said, “Almost there, only 5 more minutes” and that gave me the encouragement to finish the hard climb. The Elephanta Caves are very cool, believed to have been carved between the 5^th and 8th centuries. It was very difficult to get pictures of the basalt carvings because of the low light and a flash just seemed to distort them. But it was well worth the climb because they were truly amazing. There are a total of 5 caves and Buzz and I went through #1 and our traveling companions from the tour went on to #2 and #3 and said that #1 was the best one so we did not bother to venture on.

The walk back down was cake because the place had really emptied out. We grabbed a taxi and headed back to the hotel. I was pretty sure he took a couple of wrong turns but couldn’t prove it. Then he pulled over to a juice stand and said that he was going to buy us a juice drink. We said no, that we needed to get back to the hotel and he started to insist and then I said that I guess we will just find another taxi and started to get out. When he realized he would lose the whole fare, he took us to the hotel. Buzz kept telling him that we didn’t have time. When we got to the hotel, the driver refused to unlock my door and I was forced to crawl over to the other door. I muttered “asshole!” as I got out and Buzz was like why did you say that? I told him he was way too trusting and that the taxi driver was trying to scam us somehow (it was his brother’s juice stand which would have inflated prices and he would end up not having any money when it came time to pay or something).

Back to the hotel just in time to take quick showers and head down to our farewell dinner with the tour. We got a number of nice comments from people but two best were 1) from a Canadian couple: “you two are the most like Canadians of everyone on the tour.” I kind of just looked at her and asked if that was a compliment ad she said,”oh yea” but we are still not quite sure what it meant 2) from Sandeep, our tour guide: “you two are travelers, not tourists.” Lot of hugs and pictures later we headed upstairs to dismantle our room decorations.

We got up early to meet with 3 other folks from our tour because we had reservations for a tour of the Dharavi slum, where much of Slumdog Millionaire was filmed. We went with a company called Reality Tours which gives back 80% of their profits to the slum residents in the form of building schools, giving them chickens, etc. This was definitely our second “India moment”. It was amazing, appalling, stinky, fascinating:

Amazing: because they bring in $650 million US from their plastic recycling business, paint can recycling, leather products, pottery products and bakery. In every town in Indian we have been in, there are always dozens of men lazing around at tea shops, etc. In the slum, everyone was industrious. We saw very few people just lounging around.

Appalling: that people have to live in these conditions. The homes here are about 10 square feet and a whole family, or 2!, will live in this space. There are second level homes that have unbelievably steep steps going up to them. The alleyways are so skinny (skinnier than Venice and those were the narrowest streets we had seen until now) and with their being 2 stories, there were overhangs right over your heads. There is gray water running everywhere. This is a “legal” slum so the government supplies them with electricity and water. The water pipes are running right along where the gray water is and leaks were seen often. In one neighborhood, they have 1 toilet for 1500 people. Yes, you read that right….1 toilet for 1500 people. Our guide, Champ, said that during the monsoon the fresh water mixes with the gray water and many people become sick…sharing 1 toilet!!!

Stinky: not because of the gray water (believe it or not) but it was the area making the pottery that smelled. They dry the pots on open”kilns” which they stuff with cotton and burn for 10 hours. The smoke was stinky and we wondered how many people suffer from asthma or lung cancer. The same problem exists in the plastic recycling and tannery area. No protection of any kind for their lungs or hands or feet or anything. OSHA would not approve!

Fascinating: this seemed like a tight knit community. People went about their business just like anywhere else and we did not feel sadness from them….many of them smiled at us, especially the children. I purchased a light blue water buffalo leather purse with their new brand name, Dharavi, for $14 and some small pots for $.15 each. We were not allowed to take pictures so here are some Reality Tours provides us for download.

Delhi Belly reared its ugly head for both of us so a trip to the Chemist to get some Cipro and a little nap for me this afternoon followed by a haircut in the hotel salon and then a deep dish pizza which was quite good!

So here we are sitting in the Golden Chariot Hotel near the airport. It is the last day of the nine day festival for the Mother Goddess and the bands, one at a temple next door and one down the street are still going strong at 10:30pm. (They ended up going till midnight, but I fell asleep anyway) Apparently they don’t care that we have to get up at 3:30am for our flight to southern India!!!