Phileas Blog

India !

I can't quite believe we're here. After countless months planning we've started our year abroad - it is my fond hope that we will end up wearing bindis, playing the sitar and growing dreadlocks.

We left England on Sunday evening, after a slightly tearful farewell at Heathrow. The trip started well enough with me slicing the top of my finger - hence the first aid kit came out before even leaving the house. Dressing up 'smart' seemed to do the trick at Heathrow, as we got a small upgrade on our seats - this still prompted Dan to adopt a wide array of strange positions whilst trying to sleep - the only person I know who sleeps in the shape of a question mark with his head on the tray.

The drive from the airport to our hotel was a good introduction to Mumbai proper - straight into the boiling but languid chaos that is the city. The first thing that hits you is how hot it is - going from ice winds in England to a 35 degree heat. The second thing is the poverty - there are so many people here, it's almost pointless trying to describe it (population is officially 16 million - the same as the whole of Chile, our tour guide yesterday thinks it's closer to 30).

Our hotel is in a part of Mumbai called the Prabhat Colony, by western standards it's probably a bit basic, but by local standards it looks like luxury. The first night we were there we went for a walk during the day, and found a huge market place (which looks like a cross between Tottenham Court Road, Reading Festival and an Indiana Jones film). The area is pretty much residential, so this seems to be where everyone comes to buy their food etc. - beautiful looking fruits and veg sold right on the street. There are a few things that I would really like to see and hear whilst in India, and right away I saw one of them lumbering along the street - a huge elephant amongst the throngs of bicycles and auto-rikshaws (fearsome hornets of the road). It seemed totally indifferent to the seething madness around it.

Tuesday we got up early after a sleepless night (for some reason 2 o clock in the morning is the perfect time to re-arrange the furniture for an hour) and got the train from Santa Cruz station to downtown Mumbai. This was something else I was (naively) eager to experience - the train pulled up at the station, and immediately a huge crowd of people started pushing and shoving to get on even as the train left the platform. We looked a each other and dived in. The train was undoubtedly crowded, but not nearly as uncomfortable as it could have been. However, this was just before rush hour and given another hour I'm sure it would have been a different story.

If the traffic was hectic in Prabhat Colony, it was peanuts compared to the downtown area. Bicycles, people, cars and tuk-tuks all seem to go for the same spot at once, the lilting sounds of the Mumbai Car Horn Orchestra providing the soundtrack and egged on by the ubiquitous "Horn OK Please" written on the back of each vehicle. We were approached by a few different people offering tours of the city - we'd already decided this was something we wanted to do, so went with a bloke called Ramesh. It turned out to be the right choice as he was extremely knowledgeable and friendly, with a keen mind for remembering pertinant historical dates. He originally comes from the Colaba part of Mumbai, but owing to the cost of living and educating 3 children lives outside and commutes in at half five every morning - he's been at it about 10 years.
Starting off at Marine Drive, we went over to the Chalpatty Beach and on to some hanging gardens. Highlights of the tour were visiting the house where Gandhi lived (detailed the history of his life and showed the letters he wrote to various people including Hitler and Roosevelt) and the Jainist temple. Jainism is a religion and philosophy that espouses vegetarianism and non-violence, and has had a huge effect on Indian culture (though they comprise about 0.4% of the population). We also saw the site where the dhobi-wallahs beat clean the clothes of Mumbai's citizens, incredible the number of people working there.