Mumbai/Bombay (any other suggestions place here)
Went to Cochin for the night so we could fly from there to Mumbai in the morning.
Checked in at a nice place, Bastian Guest House, then went out for a meal at Oceana's in the evening. Sat down to eat, looked to our right five minutes later and there was a German sat there who decided to join us. Initial awkwardness turned into a good old chin wag. Fantastish!
The flight to Mumbai was short but fascinating.
As we flew over we could see mountains from the window, nature at it's finest. Those naturally formed structures merged into a different kind. Thousands upon thousands of slums as far as the eye could see, merging into the airport itself.
This was followed by an insane taxi ride to our stay at the Travellers Inn. The road warning 'Speed Thrills But Kills' says it all. Brilliant. Although I challenge anyone to drive faster than 20mph. Impossible with the traffic.
Overloaded vehicles, the constant sound of horns, people on the streets, people in the slums, so many people! Welcome to Mumbai.
The next morning we booked a trip to the Dharavi slum. One of the biggest slums on Earth.
Off we set with our new Canadian friend Eric in tow.
Jumped on a train to the slums (with our guide) where a priest/astrologer/palm reader took an interest in me and spoke to me at length for the whole 25 minute journey, unaware of my non-belief in all of the above. He was very nice though.
Got to the slum, in the hot sun and started our walk through the industrial section. This is where the majority of production and recycling happens in Mumbai. Plastics, metal, cardboard, you name it, they recycle or produce it with a turnover of $650m. They probably don't use the most environmentally friendly way to do this (burning the majority of waste) and health and safety obviously doesn't come into it. But it's a way for people to earn a decent wage and is great to see. I had, in my head, the image of total and utter abject poverty throughout. This isn't the case. Builders, electricians, teachers, taxi drivers, doctors, policemen also live in the slums -55% of the population of Mumbai live in slums. I do get the feeing we saw the better side of things but what the hell is that? Still not great.
We went on a Sunday so production wasn't at its highest but on the other hand a Muslim festival was underway.
Flags lined the streets along with 8 ft high speaker-stacks blaring feel-good music with everyone in high spirits.
As we walked through one part of an increasingly busy street, there was some sort of a commotion up ahead. We had joined part of a wedding congregation. Men, women and children dancing through the streets in utter elation surrounding the Bride. While I was taking in the whole scene, with wide eyes and a Cheshire grin, I looked ahead to see that Alex had been dragged into the main dance circle by the brides family who were encouraging her to dance. It was incredible! I was in hysterics as was Alex who was understandably thrown off by the impromptu dance request (ironocally, the day before she was asked to be a Bollywood extra).
The whole crowd was loving it. The photographer was trying to usher me forward, I didn't think they'd be ready for my Irish-Jigging shoulder-popping dance-fusion and avoided the situation. Our guide was shouting like a madman for us to leave the parade. We were loving it though. Such joy on the faces of everyone involved. A truly unforgettable moment.
The kids in the slum also provoke a wide smile. Every child from the age of 2 meet you with 'hello, what is your name, how old are you, my name is...'. On more than one occasion I had groups of kids staring in amazement at my freckles, asking what they were, the bravest of the bunch touching my arm. It isn't a disease (I'm not ginger), they're kisses from the sun.
Being India, a Sunday and a religious festival we found that the trains had stopped running so had to get a cab back to where we were staying.
We decided to find somewhere to eat and roped Erik along with us.
Erik was travelling alone for the first time and unfortunately had a peanut allergy. We decided to go for somewhere well known and a tad more expensive in the hope that they could cater for him (he'd been living on bananas for a couple of days). He ordered a pizza, explained to the waiter and the manager of his condition and even showed them pre-made cards explaining this in Hindi, English and Marathi.
Started tucking into our food and Erik started looking a bit pale. Think he was freaking himself out as he wasn't confident in the restaurants competence. Asking him questions like 'what usually happens when you have a reaction...does your throat close up...where do we stab you with the Epi-pen?', probably didn't help much. But thankfully he was ok after half hour or so. Phew.
The next day, our last, we decided to do the tourist thing and visit some Cathedrals etc. We spent an hour walking in the midday sun (can you see where this is going) trying to find St. Thomas Cathedral. It's recommended everywhere. Every time we saw a 'grand looking building' we thought we'd found it. This happened way too many times. The thing was, once we'd found the elusive Cathedral in question, it was...meh. The Mumbai University we passed 45 minutes back was much more impressive. Seeing as I was the instigator of the whole charade, I tried to drag the Cathedral out a bit and pretend I was interested in the plaques on the wall. After 5 minutes of this I admitted defeat.
We got something to eat at 'Leopold's' and walked to the Marina to take in the view. Whilst standing in this area we got quite a few stares from the locals, still not sure why. Did I have toothpaste around my mouth again?
What I do know is a group of three, traditionally dressed, Indian girls asked If I could take a photo of them. As they lined up, Alex backed away to give them room, ' no, no, no, we want a picture with you'. A-mazing! Another chance for me to chuckle to myself as I take 4 pictures and try to drag it out. Only for it to backfire as they also wanted a picture of me. Weird. Pretty weird.
After being papped, we headed back.
Being our last day we had to check out of our room at 11, meaning we had no-where to go. So we found a park and fell asleep on a stone table until it was time to go to the airport. Classy.
Singapore here we come..