Thursday October 16
From the airport to our hotel was only a 30 minute taxi ride, prepaid at the taxi stand. Rates aren't negotiated with the driver. Mumbai is one of those cities that never sleeps. I can't believe how many people were up at 3:00 a.m.
Coming through airport security took longer than it should. Once at the immigration counter, we were sent back to find and fill out an immigration card. No one was handing them out and we had to scrounge around to find one For each of us at another counter, then fill it out, loan my pen, get back in line, get our picture taken and proceed to the next centre of chaos to get our luggage. You can imagine the din waiting for luggage at the carousel with 300+ people from a 747-400 aircraft! Eventually all three cases arrived and we are off to customs. We turn in our card and that was it...a breeze, no inspections or questions. Then off to the taxi counter. I expected the taxi trip would be over an hour, but it was half that. There is a 20% surcharge for "after dark" taxis. Ours was a fee of 1000 rupees. That's $20 Canadian.
The hotel doesn't have much curb appeal, but the room is clean and has a ceiling fan. The temperature was 31C when we arrived at the airport. I think it only goes up from there. Carsen and I sleep until 8:30, shower and go for breakfast in the rooftop restaurant. A thin cheese omelette and thin pieces of white toast and instant coffee. Not quite ready for Indian fare for breakfast.
After breakfast, we prepared our water bottles with a purification tablet, stuff a few gifts into our day packs and set out to find a SIM card and Chowpatty beach. Indian security stipulates that foreigners cannot simply purchase a SIM card without a local resident vouching for them from the city of purchase. Well, forget the SIM card for now!
Onward to the beach, about 4 city blocks away. The sidewalks are crowded with people and the traffic is congested and noisy. Everyone seems to be talking with blaring horns! On the way, we come across a young mother with a tiny baby girl, tiny and thin. We knelt beside her to see her baby and left her with a crib quilt and 50 rupees. On our return trip, I notice the quilt was folded up on a piece of plastic to form a small mattress for the baby. The temperature by noon is 36 C with high humidity!
Onward to the beach again. Funny that in a city of maybe 20 million we should bump into the same helpful man that had led us to the shop where they sold SIM cards! Again, he gave helpful directions to Chowpatty beach. A beach with hardly a person on it! Wide, expansive, a few garbage collectors, a few people in the shade of large, sprawling trees, but no sun tanners or swimmers. There were people sitting In the shade on the short sea wall so we followed suit. Eventually, a couple gave us directions to the "food court". We hiked towards the location, watched some young men playing some kind of tag game and then continued to the food court area, the famous food court area mentioned on the Internet. Typically,we were accosted by menu brandishing men trying to coax us to their stall for bhel puri. It seemed like that was the special of the day everywhere! After wandering through the food court on the sandy beach, we decided on cheese pizza and pineapple juice. Not quite ready for some of the stuff we saw. We sat near some college students who helped us with some more Hindi vocabulary. The pizza sauce was spicier than ours in Canada. I shared some of mine with a young man who wandered into the dining area. He was high on something and the other stall owners tried to shoo him away. Oh, well.
The walk back through traffic was a bit nerve racking. Our landmarks were still in place and we arrived back at our hotel exhausted and wet from the heat. Showers and a little sleep until 7 p.m. Then off to scrounge an evening meal.
After a very bland dinner, Carsen and I walked a different direction from the hotel through a few street markets until the shop owners and street vendors began wrapping up and closing down their shops. Then to bed at 10:00 p.m., wide awake at 1:00 a.m., and 3:00 a.m. and again at 5:30 a.m. To the sound of the Muslim call to prayer. Gotta get my clock flipped over by 12.5 hours!
From the airport to our hotel was only a 30 minute taxi ride, prepaid at the taxi stand. Rates aren't negotiated with the driver. Mumbai is one of those cities that never sleeps. I can't believe how many people were up at 3:00 a.m.
Coming through airport security took longer than it should. Once at the immigration counter, we were sent back to find and fill out an immigration card. No one was handing them out and we had to scrounge around to find one For each of us at another counter, then fill it out, loan my pen, get back in line, get our picture taken and proceed to the next centre of chaos to get our luggage. You can imagine the din waiting for luggage at the carousel with 300+ people from a 747-400 aircraft! Eventually all three cases arrived and we are off to customs. We turn in our card and that was it...a breeze, no inspections or questions. Then off to the taxi counter. I expected the taxi trip would be over an hour, but it was half that. There is a 20% surcharge for "after dark" taxis. Ours was a fee of 1000 rupees. That's $20 Canadian.
The hotel doesn't have much curb appeal, but the room is clean and has a ceiling fan. The temperature was 31C when we arrived at the airport. I think it only goes up from there. Carsen and I sleep until 8:30, shower and go for breakfast in the rooftop restaurant. A thin cheese omelette and thin pieces of white toast and instant coffee. Not quite ready for Indian fare for breakfast.
After breakfast, we prepared our water bottles with a purification tablet, stuff a few gifts into our day packs and set out to find a SIM card and Chowpatty beach. Indian security stipulates that foreigners cannot simply purchase a SIM card without a local resident vouching for them from the city of purchase. Well, forget the SIM card for now!
Onward to the beach, about 4 city blocks away. The sidewalks are crowded with people and the traffic is congested and noisy. Everyone seems to be talking with blaring horns! On the way, we come across a young mother with a tiny baby girl, tiny and thin. We knelt beside her to see her baby and left her with a crib quilt and 50 rupees. On our return trip, I notice the quilt was folded up on a piece of plastic to form a small mattress for the baby. The temperature by noon is 36 C with high humidity!
Onward to the beach again. Funny that in a city of maybe 20 million we should bump into the same helpful man that had led us to the shop where they sold SIM cards! Again, he gave helpful directions to Chowpatty beach. A beach with hardly a person on it! Wide, expansive, a few garbage collectors, a few people in the shade of large, sprawling trees, but no sun tanners or swimmers. There were people sitting In the shade on the short sea wall so we followed suit. Eventually, a couple gave us directions to the "food court". We hiked towards the location, watched some young men playing some kind of tag game and then continued to the food court area, the famous food court area mentioned on the Internet. Typically,we were accosted by menu brandishing men trying to coax us to their stall for bhel puri. It seemed like that was the special of the day everywhere! After wandering through the food court on the sandy beach, we decided on cheese pizza and pineapple juice. Not quite ready for some of the stuff we saw. We sat near some college students who helped us with some more Hindi vocabulary. The pizza sauce was spicier than ours in Canada. I shared some of mine with a young man who wandered into the dining area. He was high on something and the other stall owners tried to shoo him away. Oh, well.
The walk back through traffic was a bit nerve racking. Our landmarks were still in place and we arrived back at our hotel exhausted and wet from the heat. Showers and a little sleep until 7 p.m. Then off to scrounge an evening meal.
After a very bland dinner, Carsen and I walked a different direction from the hotel through a few street markets until the shop owners and street vendors began wrapping up and closing down their shops. Then to bed at 10:00 p.m., wide awake at 1:00 a.m., and 3:00 a.m. and again at 5:30 a.m. To the sound of the Muslim call to prayer. Gotta get my clock flipped over by 12.5 hours!
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