Mumbai

The earliest start of the tour so far today. We had to leave the hotel at 5.00am so met at 4.45 so it was a 4.15 rise. The streets were eerily quiet on the drive to the airport (about 45 minutes) although there were still some people up and about. Because of the quiet roads I guess the cows also saw it as an opportunity to rest on the wide open road - and there was one who, despite the bus slowing and passing within millimetres of it, didn't give an inch! Cows are sacred in India - in fact, all life-forms are respected - so if a cow happens to walk across the road in front of you, you have an obligation to avoid it. Apparenlty out in the village areas, if a village cow is killed by a road user the villagers are likely to turn on the driver and could do some serious harm to him. This animal respect aslo helps to explain why there are so many dogs around the place. Respecting their life is one thing but there doesn't seem to be the same respect for their health and many, many of the dogs are mangy. Oddly enough, another animal made it's presence felt this morning too, though it wasn't afforded too much respect from us. We'd just got on the bus after a short taxi ride to meet it when Emily gave a bit of a squeal from the back of the bus.

"It's a rat" she squealed "It just ran across the back seat"

This of course caused a few more yelps then Rick headed down the bus to help out. The rat was ushered down the bus towards the steps (with people's feet well out of the way!) and when it found it couldn't jump into the front cabin, it instead leaped down the steps and out. Shrieks of relieved laughter followed!

The flight from Udaipur to Mumbai was pretty straighforward. The security systems at the airport were interesting - in some respects they seemed more lenient than international flights (we could, for instance, take our water bottles with us and the 15kg bag limit was flexible to over 20kgs!) but in other respects, they seemed a lot more stringent (full body scan behind closed curtains for everyone).

As the plane descends in to Mumbai you get a glimpse of some of the slum areas, although what we saw was apparenlty only small. Hundreds of tin rooves seeming to roll into one enormous roof, some parts covered in blue tarpaulins; narrow alleys between the rows of rooves with an occasional glimpse of someone moving along it. I can only imagine the close-up scene but I cannot imagine what life must be like for the people who live there.

The drive from the airport to our hotel was smooth (another animal story: a rat was spotted running across the road as we waited in line at a toll gate. Close behing the rat was a crow trying to catch the rat. Each time Ratty ran under a car Mr Crow had to skirt round the car and try to catch him before he escaped under the next car. We went through the toll gate before the final scenes of this wee drama played out so I have no idea whether Ratty lived to tell the tale or not.)

Hotel seems nice, though 12 floors up is a little unnerving. The views however, are good.

In the afternoon we had a local tour guide to show us the sights of Mumbai but not before we'd had some lunch at Lombards. The tour took in external views only of Victoria Station, Police HQ, library and various other landmarks. It came as a real surprise to me, but on many occasions I had to stop and remind myself where I was. The lush greenery, the old buildings, the wide roads and the continuous traffic could easily have been London. The 32 degrees centrigrade and 72% humidity told us otherwise.

One interesting place we did stop was the open-air laundry. It's a large area where some 3000 people work outdoors doing the laundry (washing, drying, folding . . . . I'm not sure about the pressing) of some of the smaller, less wealthy institutions and businesses in Mumbai. The area has dozens of large wash 'tubs' and hundreds of metres of washing lines. Apparently, about 1000 of these workers live in this enclosed area.

As the afternoon ebbed away we headed over to Chowpatty beach to watch the sun go down. Again - a very interesting experience which in no way compares to any beachy-sunset I've ever experienced in New Zealand. Litter - yes. Families - yes. Beggars - yes. Happy couples - yes. Chai-waller - yes. Nice sunset - yes.

Mumbai has surpised me. Maybe 'Slumdog Millionaire' is at least partly responsible for the rather low opinion I had of the city, but it's been an absolute eye-opener and a pleasure to have seen a completely different - a much cleaner, greener, more refined and less aggressive side to Mumbai than I expected.