Day 19 Mumbai

Outside Hindu Temple

Inside Jain Temple

sacred mystery water (look it up!)

More ....pole is where arrow landed

At our amazing lunch

Lunch delivery!

Us next to bike full of deliveries

Ghandi's room where he lived

Me photographing inside Ghandi Museum

Laundry

Laundry again

More laundry

Interior of Jain Temple

traffic at wholesale markets

Outside Taj Hotel



In park overlooking Mumbai



more park

In a word fabulous.........Katie and I had a private tour arranged with
a company called Mumbai Magic, and it was magic. Our guide was a woman
called Sudha and she was wonderful, she obviously loves her city and it
certainly rubbed off on Katie and I. As it was only Katie and I, we were
in an air conditioned car so were able to pull up and jump out at each
site without any trouble, not sure how the buses and mini vans went.
While I think of it, today was the easiest day for getting off the
ship, we were all given groups and a time to be in the Vista Lounge to
be processed by Indian Immigration , we just left out cabin when called
and had no queues and it all ran seamlessly. (for us anyway, think the
ship had trouble when leaving as we left 2 hours late)
But back to the tour, again we had no rain (well there may have been a
quick shower when we were inside at lunch but not sure), our first stop
was the main railway station where we went inside and Sudha told us how
the trains run on time 98% of the time, its not 100% because the monsoon
season can cause the trains to sometimes run a few minutes late! This
for a city of 18 million...........Melbourne and Sydney take note.
Ok I started to write down all the amazing things we saw and did in
Mumbai and realised it would go for pages and pages and pages, so I'll
try and summarise it.....it isn't in order of what we saw it's in the
order that my brain spits it out. The traffic was amazing and if you
have seen it on TV then yes that is exactly how it is, organised
chaos....lots of horn tooting and people walking into the traffic to
cross the roads which were filled with , mototrbikes and scooters and
bicycles and hand carts and it was amazing, by the end of the day Katie
and I could just about happily walk into the traffic to cross roads. (
but we usually crossed with Sudha!)
If anyone has seen The Amazing Race TV series where the contestants came
to Mumbai and had to do the laundry and lunch challenge well we got to
witness both activivties first hand. To save me rambling on about them
do yourself a huge favour and look up Mumbai and both the activities ,
totally fascinating.
Take 3 :- I started both paragraphs above last night with the intention
of deleting them and starting over, but we saw so much and experienced
so much I really can't do justice to it. So have decided to just post
some photos and suffice to say if you ever get the chance to visit
Mumbai, do it and use the company we did Mumbai Magic. I know a couple
of the other bloggers also used the company and hopefully they are
better able to condense their time for you to read. Or at least name
where they went!