Lookback 3 – Leaving Mumbai

Monday morning and determined to beat the funk we were in we decided that we should get out of Mumbai and head elsewhere for a fresh start. If we knew the events that would soon transpire we really wouldn’t have picked Jaipur. Anyway, having got our tickets we made our way across town to the station and settled down to await our train. Again we had a taxi ride through Mumbai to do this, only this time it wasn’t just along the highway we were moving. It was through some of the narrower streets further from the centre, seeing what I guess is some of the more inner city parts of Mumbai’s immense slums. Again I am confronted by the rich poor contrast, the littered streets of shacks and rubbish broken now and then by the occasional expensive development.

Somehow when we got to the station we managed to be herded into the 1st class waiting room by a little blokey, although why I’m really not sure why. Maybe it looks good for them to have white people in there, or maybe he’s been told to give tourists preferential treatment by some higher authority. Maybe it’s just a mistake, I can never tell. Either way it was while there sat on the floor of the waiting room that I started to realise that I was starting to settle into the whole India thing, realising gradually that perhaps it was possible for me to deal with all these radically different surroundings.

Interestingly for a country that doesn’t eat beef, McDonalds appear to do quite well. It’s strange that even with the majority of their menu unavailable, being reduced to the fish burgers and the chicken burgers, they still have the ability to operate and do good business. Reluctantly I will admit that we ventured in and did eat there (as we would in many other McDonalds, KFCs etc.), the food being a known quantity like the stuff at home. It wasn’t great but it was reliable sustenance for my still unadapted body, still badly undernourished from those first few days of not eating properly.

We had a good spot on the train when we eventually boarded. As we hadn’t been getting much sleep we splurged a little and bought second class sleeper places, meaning that the beds are stacked only two high rather than three high and have privacy curtains between them and the corridor beyond. Coupled with this we had been allocated the end set of bunks, meaning that there was the two of us by ourselves. It was all a good thing really, as after having watched the city expanding slums and satellite towns roll past for hours we had the best nights sleep so far in India.

Lookback 2 – Exploration of Mumbai

Crossing the city centre we came to the opposite shore of the Mumbai peninsula, onto Chowpatty road. The coastal emergence gave a slightly refreshing breeze but with the sun still beating down it was still hot. Somehow though we managed to slog onwards, right round the hollow of the bay to Chowpatty beach, supposedly one of the sites to see of Mumbai. In fact its not really that nice a beach, and with the complete lack of any form of shelter near the water we stuck to the back doing what we should have one all along, sheltering under some trees. We soon had our first offer of drugs in Mumbai, with whispers of “Hashish? Poppy?” from the men who ambled past occasionally.

Sometime that evening we made it back out again, both having ended up with mild heat stroke from our earlier trip. Lack of food was also troubling us. All day I’d pretty much been without food, so considering the scant few mouthfuls I’d eaten the night before I should have been starving. Infact I was starving, I just didn’t know it because of the way I was reacting to the heat.

This time it was off down the peninsula a little to the Coloba area, famous for its sites of the India gate and the Taj Hotel. To be honest though my most overriding thought of that time is of the insane numbers of people crowding the paved shoreline next to the gate. Hundreds of people all living their lives right their in the open, buying, selling, eating, bartering. Fortunes made. Fortunes Lost. Fortunes told. In that one little space there was everything that makes it India and I couldn’t cope. It was overwhelming and the massive crowds made me uneasy.

We sourced food as we wove back towards the hotel, a little tourist place called the Leopold café teaming with tourists and serving western food.  That was pasta I direly needed, along with the cooked cheese and veg.  This is a where I really started to settle into the nature of being away.