Mumbai

Before I left for India I remember looking at my Frommer's guidebook and being amazed at the rainfall charts for Mumbai. The average rainfall from November to April was 0 mm and 10 mm in May, but then shot up to 560 mm and 650 mm in June and July. So deciding to go to Mumbai during the monsoon season was taking a bit of risk, but with only a couple weeks left in my trip it was now or never.

It poured almost non-stop for the first 24 hours of my visit.

Thankfully, the rain let up during the second day and I explored the Colaba & Fort area, where many of Mumbai's main sites are located.  The luxurious Taj Mahal hotel was  one of the sites targeted during the 2008 terrorist attacks.  Nearby is another prominent Mumbai landmark, the Gates of India.

 

 

The Victoria Terminus railway station, now renamed (like nearly everything else in India) the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, is one of the city's many beautiful British era buildings. Mumbai's suburban trains also stop at this station. The trains are some of the world's most crowded and deadliest - with up to 2.5 times the stated capacity on board and 4,000 fatalities a year from people being crushed by trains, electrocuted, or killed while leaning out of the packed cars.   Fortunately, when I rode one it was a Sunday morning and fairly uncrowded.

Iranian restaurants used to be plentiful in south Mumbai but now are few and far between. I visited Britannia,  one of the oldest (and best). Below is a delicious Berry pulao,  a sweet and tart combination of rice, chicken, fried onions, nuts and dried berries.

In many parts of Mumbai rickshaws are banned but old school taxis can be hailed. The second site of a driver napping in his vehicle - whether it be a rickshaw or a taxi - is not at all in uncommon in India.

This barber set up shot on a Mumbai street, avoiding the city's notoriously high rents. Mumbai was recently ranked 4th most expensive in the world in terms of office space.

On Sunday afternoon I met up with a friend from high school, who is doing an internship in Navi Mumbai.  Navi Mumbai is one of the world's largest planned cities and was created to help ease the space constraints of the overcrowded Mumbai. We caught up and swapped stories about life in India at the Leopold Cafe, which features prominently in the novel "Shantaram" and was another one of the sites targeted during the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

I managed to do a little shopping at my favourite housewares store, Good Earth, and along one of the main roads, Colaba Causeway.

The highlight of my short trip  to Mumbai was the Dharavi slum tour  (photography wasn't allowed but you can see photos at www.realitytoursandtravel.com).  More than 50% of Mumbai's 14 million residents live in the slums. When flying into the city, you are struck by the juxtaposition between the slums and sky scrapers. Dharavi is one of the largest slums in Asia and is featured in Slumdog Millionaire.

While the living conditions would make most Westerners cringe - open sewers, garbage heaps, very few toilets, and most homes are a single, small room - a closer look shows there is much more to Dharavi. Many industries thrive here with Dharavi producing everything from packaged Indian pastries to leather goods to recycled plastic. The slum has an annual turnover of over $600 million US, and the goods are sold throughout Mumbai, in India, and sometimes even abroad. The homes have electricity and many have TVs. Residents value the vibrant  community life of Dharavi, and some even resist moving to apartments even if they can afford to.

For a fascinating look at the underbelly of Mumbai (the slums, gangs, cops, etc.) a must read is the book "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found".