I had to stop in Mumbai

Saturday, November 7, 2009

I got home yesterday from my five week trip in India. After over 37 hours to get back with three different flights and more waiting in the airports than anyone should ever have to do, it is wonderful to be home. The trees are beautiful as they are changing colors and the crisp cool weather is perfect. The only problem is it makes it hard to show off my great new tan I’ve been working over the last few weeks!!

No trip to India would be complete without stopping in Mumbai, so I spent my last four days there. When I arrived in Mumbai I saw exactly what I was expected, numerous high rise buildings sprouting up along the waterfront for as long as I could see. With a population of over 20 million people (almost double the population of New Delhi) I was surprised at the calmness and order of the traffic and how clean the city and the air seemed.

There is so much to see and do in Mumbai. It is very expensive compared to the rest of the cities I stayed in and there were many brief moments it felt as if I could be in any city in Europe or America. Mumbai has a very modern look and feel. It’s funny because that is what I expected to find in New Delhi when I first arrived in India, but that was not at all what I found. New Delhi and Mumbai are completely different cities. I’m happy I was able to see both of them and especially that I flew into New Delhi and not Mumbai at the beginning of my trip. It was a wonderful way to dive right in, head first and completely shock my system.

In Mumbai there is a wonderful mixture of architecture. Many modern high rise buildings fill the city and many more are being built. There is an extravaganza of well kept up Victorian Gothic buildings mixed in with gracefully deteriorating Art Deco apartment houses.

One of my favorite places was Juhu Beach which is about 20 km from the city center. I did a city sightseeing tour one day and this is where the day ended. It was probably one of the best days to visit the beach because it was a holiday and there were more people there than usual. There were people along beach and in the water for as long as you could see. Their black silhouettes against the sun setting in the sky were beautiful. A small collection of busy food stands welcomed you in and smaller food stands and people selling everything you could image, but would never need where everywhere along the beach. I had meet two Indian girls in my tour group for the day and they explained what all the different types of foods were and we tried many different things. Many different good tasting things!

One day I did a day trip out to the Elepanta Caves that were about an hour boat ride from Mumbai. Since this is such a touristy area there were signs up about the monkeys. These monkeys knew that when people were carrying food and water bottles it would be more fun if they had them than just looking at the people with them. I saw one girl start to peel a banana that she wanted to eat just to have a monkey swoop in and grabbed it from her. Then saw another monkey grab a guy’s water bottle. The monkey then punctured the bottom of the bottle with his teeth to drink the water only to be scared away by another monkey that actually unscrewed the cap on the bottle and then came back and drank it like we do!

I know it sounds too crazy to be real so luckily I got it on video.

The sad thing was the same guy also had a plastic bag with his lunch in it and the monkeys also ended up with that too.

Yes, India has much to offer, but my favorite part - there was definitely never a dull moment.