Mumbai

So Mumbai was my first stop in India, and it was the only time in this trip that I was completely on my own. No one to meet up with, no one staying with me, not crashing with anyone. In a way, first the first time I felt like I was truly backpacking.

The week had its good and bad moments. Most of the bad moments happened during my first 36 hours in the city. My plane was an hour late, and my hotel was not there to pick me up. The information desk at the airport called a hotel for me, and they said they would come soon. Awesome. I waited as the sun was coming up. I got to a hotel and started to check in… they had no record of me, and the price I was quoted by email was not one of their rates. Theirs were all higher. Awesome. So I pulled out some information and realized that I was actually supposed to be checking into a different hotel. Apparently the information desk doesn’t know the difference between Hotel Airlines International and International Airlines Hotel. Go figure. I was sort of panicked because I didn’t want to pay, and I wasn’t sure how to reach the other hotel. But I think the concierge recognized my fright and called my original hotel. Twenty minutes later, I was on my way to the hotel I was supposed to stay in. I slept for the first time in two days at eight in the morning.

I didn’t sleep long because I wanted to get out and see the city. And because I was roused from sleep every ten minutes or so by the phone on my floor that is the front desk’s way of communicating with bellmen on other floors. It was about ten feet from my door and the walls were great conduits of sound. I got up at 11 or so and headed downtown. Two hours later, I got there.

I went first to the Gateway of India and Taj Palace and Towers. One was an arch to welcome arriving British officials, the other a hotel opened when Tata – a huge name all over India – was turned away from British hotels because he was India. Imperialism permeates tourism here. I was badgered from the moment I got out of my taxi. Postcards, Madame? Giant balloons with splatter paint, Madame? Map of Mumbai, Madame? Ice cream, Madame? Small metallic toys that make a junkload of noise when you throw them in the air constantly like this, Madame? NO! Then, my First Friend in India came to talk to me. She spotted me right away and started chatting. Aw, what a nice girl, I thought. She was from Mumbai and she spoke five languages (all the better to cheat international tourists). She asked me where I was from, first time in India?, by myself?, am I married?, do I like Mumbai?. She took a picture for me and tied flowers around my wrist. All at lightening speed. She was an eight-year-old who knew how to work it. I got out money to pay her, she said no charge. I insisted. Something small. She said, welllll, if you want to give me something you can buy me food. Fair enough. So after walking around for a while she took me to a small grocery stand. And she piled on rice, milk, oil… all to cook for her younger siblings. The grocery told me… almost $40 of food. What?! No way, man. I told her to take something off, and something else, and get a smaller bag. She was disappointed, but I was adamant. Finally we agreed on something and she took me where I needed to go next. Later I find out that little kids get you to buy stuff for them so they can resell it to the grocer and use the money for God knows what. Goodbye, new friend.

I was already tired, and I hadn’t been downtown for more than an hour. I started walking in the direction of a Modern Art Gallery and was stopped every ten feet by hawkers. The roads weren’t well marked, so I stopped every 20 feet to ask someone how to get to the road. It was a long walk. When I was looking for the gallery I met my Second Friend in India. I was wearing a salwar kameez that day, and a guy stopped me to tell me that I looked nice. He then started asking me about my travels, etc. He wanted to know where I was headed, and I wasn’t yet completely suspicious of everyone. I told him I was looking for somewhere to eat, and he led me somewhere. Cool, someone to guide me. Then he came inside, and I guessed we were having lunch together. We had a nice lunch – tandoori chicken for me and pasta for him – and exchanged info about families and such. He has met a lot of travelers from the west, and he said he liked meeting new people. Cool. So after lunch, we went to a nearby department store so I could get another outfit. I have limited clothes, and I knew I would go through my three outfits before I could do laundry. In the store, he insisted I try things on and show him, and that’s when I got a little uneasy. I got an outfit and then, just to make my escape, told him I needed to head back to the hotel. He was helpful and showed me where the train station was and how to take the train, but we ended up making plans for the next day that I just couldn’t follow through with. Nice as he was, he left me with an uneasy feeling that I shouldn’t be alone with him. And as a girl in India, I decided to trust that feeling.

I finally made it back to the hotel after my train ride through Mumbai burbs, and relaxed in my room. I was terrified of the water, terrified of the food, terrified of the streets after 4 p.m., terrified of anyone I met who seemed nice. It was not a fun night. Then, to top it off, I took my malaria medicine that night, and after about an hour threw it back up… along with everything I had eaten that day. Awesome.

That was the worst of the worst. I didn’t get up the next day until late, and it took all the energy I had to go back downtown. It just seemed so hard. But I did get up and did make it out of the hotel. And things got easier.

I think I got to see quite a bit of Mumbai. In addition to the Gateway and Palace, I made it to a museum on India, Elephanta Island, Nariman Point, Chowpatty Beach, Hanging Gardens, Nehru Museum, a Jain temple, Ghandi’s Mumbai residence and shopping in Bandra and Santa Cruz. I know I got chumped by taxi drivers who were either (a) lost and didn’t want to tell me, or (b) straight up lying to me about the meter conversion. So I stuck to the train, and most of the time made it up and back okay.

I met some really awesome people because I would just start talking to foreigners. After the first dreadful day, I met up with an American from Emerson and an Israeli who had just finished his military service. The American was headed back to her house in burbs, so the Israeli and I walked around for the rest of the day. He was very pro-American diplomacy, so I stayed quiet. He was funny though. As we walked around, he would say funny things to hawkers. If someone was trying to sell us drums, he would sternly say “No. We hate music.” If someone was trying to sell us jewelry, he would sternly say “No. We hate jewelry.” If someone was trying to sell us ice cream, he would sneer “No. Ice cream is disgusting.” I took him back to the Taj Palace and Towers because the first day I didn’t go inside, and we pretended we were trying to find meeting space for an important event (me wearing a salwar kameez without a dupatta… him in khakis and a beat-up shirt). We went to the top floor and looked at the restaurant, and then we went into the meeting space to see a view of the whole city. The staff of about 20 stood up as we walked in, and we started discussing how well the meeting space might work for our meeting. I was entertained. He was only in Mumbai for transit, so the next morning he was off to Nepal and I was off to find new friends.

The second day I happened upon two new friends, this time because of a taxi driver that worked in my favor. I walked out of the Gandhi house and tried to find a taxi. One was outside, and I told him where I wanted to go. He told me to come on. As I was getting in, two young guys who were in the museum when I was started yelling, “hey!”. Obviously I was stealing their cab. In the end, I ended up riding with them. They hired their driver for the day, and I just gave him some money to supplement. The two guys were in the French Navy, and only one spoke English (and only because he grew up in Senegal). We were driven all over the place, and at the end of the day we had dinner together at a nice restaurant where we were the first customers for the night. In typical European style, dinner lasted two hours and included beer and coffee. It was my second delicious meal, and the gentlemen treated me to it. Now that I can truly say awesome about.

The next day I met a Canadian girl on my ferry back from Elephanta Island. She had lived in the states and was traveling around south Asia for something like eight months. We talked standard travel talk, and then I went with her to meet up with her friend and go to dinner. We went to a fusion restaurant (read: they serve Italian, Chinese, French and Indian… and cakes). Another good meal, more good Kingfisher. We were quite a site: two white girls and one tall (a foot and a half taller than I am) Indian who didn’t speak any Indian languages and was considerably taller than anyone on the street. It was great. After dinner we headed to Chowpatty beach for the night. There were probably 200 people on the beach. Couples lounging, families strolling and picnicking. Men selling food, giant balloons and massages. Precocious girls who came up to us to practice their English and smile proudly when they finished a short conversation. It was neat to see the city so social after dark. We then sampled some fine Indian gelato and I headed back north to the burbs.

The last day I did shopping in the hood and went to dinner with the parents of a cousin of Neil. People I had never seen or talked to invited me out for a nice meal. It was great. We went to a restaurant that was playing to India v. Sri Lanka game (cricket’s March Madness is going on right now) and talked culture and travel for a solid three hours. I sampled everything vegetarian on the buffet and had mango ice cream with kiwi sauce. Yum. The mom was so sad we hadn’t gotten together sooner, and I was sad not to be able to spend time with some Mumbaikers who weren’t out for something. But at midnight I headed back to my hotel to fly out the next day.

Mumbai was great. It was hot and sticky – considerably more of both than Delhi. It was crowded and hectic, and I had my first taste of hard travel. I met cool people and struck out on my own.