Bombay to Bollywood

We arrived at 1AM in Mumbai - or Bombay as some may still call it - and were immediately aware we had arrived in one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world. The smog from the day was still heavy in the air, and our driver took advantage of the few hours of quiet on the streets to race through the city to our hotel downtown. Our good friend Insiya was born here, and arranged for us to connect with her parents, Mansur and Sara, who have been gracious hosts to us during our stay, making it easy to navigate around this very intense city by arranging drivers and guides, and giving us advice on where to eat and to explore - so helpful for us on such a short trip. We are staying in the heart of the city, walking distance to monuments, museums and great shops. Mumbai is both the New York and LA of India with a combination of India's major Banks and the famous Bollywood film industry based here.

After a quick walking tour around the area of our hotel (we were right behind the Taj Mahal hotel and Gateway to India - see pic) and lunch with Sara and Mansur, our driver took us around to the must-sees of Mumbai. We first visited a Jain temple where we slipped off our shoes and slipped into a beautiful building filled with marble, silver and the sweet smoky scent of incense. It is not a large building and there were just a few of us in there, some to just look as we were, and some to worship. We didn't completely understand what each motion of the worship meant (and could only speculate as our guide is Hindu and did not come in with us) but it involved some prayer, some arranging of grains of rice, and the ringing of a bell.

We next visited a beautiful place with a dark past. The Tower of Silence is surrounded by well maintained gardens filled with gorgeous flowers and animal shaped topiary's, and is a favorite spot for young lovers, with all the benches holding multitudes of snuggling teenagers. To the side of the garden is a place where, in ancient times, the dead were brought. The body was left and, within a few hours, was reduced to nothing but bones by the resident vultures. The bones were then taken to their final resting place at a temple. The eerie part was that there still seemed to be a lot of large birds circling around overhead, but our guide assured us they no longer practice this ritual.

The next stop was probably our favorite: the apartment in which Gandhi lived when he stayed in Mumbai. They have renovated it into a library and small museum with lots of photo's and facts about his life, and they have preserved the room in which he spent all his time, with his few worldly possession still sitting there. It is tremendously inspirational to learn about his life, including the time before he was famous as well all the amazing things he did during his life that seem so courageous, but to him were a necessary part of his life and his beliefs (including a long stint in South Africa where we just came from).

Our next adventure took us to the Caves on Elephanta Island, so called because of a large statue of an elephant that the Portuguese were greeted with when they first landed there. It is filled with ancient temples carved out of the solid rock on the north side of the island. It was quite amazing to see work that it is speculated took hundreds of years to complete. The story of the god Siva is told in massive and spectacular carvings on the walls throughout the temple. We had a guide take us through and his ability to tell the stories of this place with colorful anecdotes and modern references had us captivated for 2 hours. The only thing that detracted from it all was when he had to explain what we couldn't see due to the destruction of many of the images by the colonial plunderers who showed no respect for local beliefs as they pushed Christianity into the region. The nasty monkeys were a site too - they were going hard at trying to grab food from any unsuspecting person. In one case there was even a statue with a name carved into its chest along with the year 1869 – sad to see on something considered sacred like that.

The finale of our trip found us at a fantastic dinner at the Cricket Club of India with Sara and Mansur and a group of their good friends which had first met at Insiya and Eoin's wedding in Tofino, BC. We were sort of like their stand-ins at a family gathering! The evening began out on the cricket field where they set up tables with large wicker chairs for members and their guests to sit right on the cricket field and enjoy a drink in the last part of the day. It's quite a treat to sit out on the grass field with the grandstands all around you. We then moved into one of the club's many restaurants and enjoyed some phenomenal Indian cuisine. As Cricket is India's number one sport and this is India's premier private cricket club, the best way to relate this experience would be to liken it to being at the Wimbledon Club. It was the perfect way to finish our quick but exciting Mumbai stop on our tour.

It was overwhelming to see a city that is so teaming and stay within the pulse of the action right downtown. The disparity of poor and wealthy is visible in every glance – just right outside our doorstep the garbage truck pulled up daily for a group of street people to spend their day sorting and retrieving recyclables & organics from the true garbage, truly saviors but tough to watch people working in piles of garbage all day with no protection. The infrastructure is taxed beyond belief to support this massive machine…but somehow the life goes on, the craziest traffic in the world functions without accidents, people's immune systems adapt to be able to live in high bacterial areas and all levels of business operates along side. Amazing to take in!

Off to Goa – 1 hour flight south of Mumbai and clean air and water on the beaches!