We spent Tuesday (Sept 3rd) sorting a few things out in Mysore in the morning before a 5 hour car journey to Bangalore. Pretty uneventful other than the monsoon down pour for the last hour of the journey. Flash flooding all over the India equivalent of a motorway. (There are no lanes on any of the roads here, at least none that are used, it is just a free for all.)

Didn't see any of Bangalore other than the hotel as we got there in the evening and were leaving first thing. The hotel was absolute luxury compared to a lot of places though, so we weren't bothered. But the hotel annoyingly gave us the wrong wakeup call - 2.45 am as opposed to 5.15 am, not impressed!

Flew in to Mumbai for 9am on Sept 4th and it was hottt. Much more humid than anywhere else so far. After a bit of a wait - again we were not impressed after no sleep and the heat, oh dear! - our tour guide with RealityTours picked us up as arranged. As we were only in Mumbai for the day we had sorted a full day tour with airport pickup and drop off to make sure we got the most of the day. This included a slum tour in the morning, then site seeing in the afternoon.

Asia's largest slum - Dharavi - is right next to the airport and is all you can see for miles and miles when you land. I was a bit hesitant to do a slum tour to begin with as I don't agree with the basic principle of the majority of slums tours (basically paying a lot of money to see poverty), however reality tours have a sister NGO which receives 80% of their profits, and work with all of the factories in the slum that they show in their tour. Our guide was also extremely informative. On the way to Dharavi he explained how Dharavi's industires have an annual turnover of around $665 million, and the resourceful uses of rubbish that generates the majority of this turnover. Also that over 1 million people live in this slum.

Inside we saw a plastic factory, which collects used, hard plastic - from old chairs, containers, motorbikes, etc - colour sort it, clean it and shred it to make plastic pellets which are then sold to big manufactures to produce new plastic items. We also saw other factories which melt down aluminum or iron to be sold on as raw material. Other factories included an embroidery factory making children's clothes, a pottery factory and many ladies making papadums which are then sold at markets or to wholesalers. The working conditions - especially in factories using fire and burning materials down - were horrendous, filled with smoke and toxins. But the methods were extremely practical, and everywhere you looked everyone was busy -in both the industrial area and in the resident, unlike anywhere else we have seen in India where people - mainly men - seem to line the streets with not much to do. The most shocking and negative aspect of the tour was the sanitary conditions. For every 15000 people there are around 6 public toilets, and water is only supplied to the slums for 3 hours a day in the morning. The only other option is the rubbish mound on the slum outskirts which many children were playing in. Walking around different parts of the slum we got a feel for the proximity of the houses - many an arm's reach away through dark alleyways and passages. The homes were pristine and the pathways drenched in water and muddy due to the water that had been used to clean inside each home. We also got to see the school that the NGO had set up, promoting practical education for 16-25 year olds to gain professional jobs.

The afternoon was spent seeing the traditional sites of Mumbai - Hindu temples, Jain temples, Muslim mosques, the gateway and the hanging gardens. We also saw the owner of Reliance's house - a 27 story block in the middle of Mumbai. It includes three floors for the owner's cars and one for a snow room - a horrifying comparison to the homes we had seen in the morning! We also saw Dhobi Ghat at Mahalaxmi. Here laundry is washed from all over Mumbai in rows and rows of wash basins as far as the eye can see.

After a crammed day we returned to Mumbai airport (thank fully it was a lot calmer than our first visit!) to board our onward flight to Jaipur.