Yet again I need to adjust my views on India, after arriving to Mumbai. In this city there are no cows in the streets, there are traffic lights and people actually respect them, there are even sidewalks... This is a rich city, and appears to have a large middle class which we hadn't seen before in other cities in the north of India. There are plenty of BMW's and Mercedes. There are 16 million living in Mumbai. And of course, the large majority is poor, but haven't seen much of them as they live in the suburbian slums. Half a million of commuters arrive in the main train station every day. We'll be taking our train to Goa there later, but first something about Mumbai.
First impressions on arrival here were... like arriving in a rundown european city because of the architecture. It reminded me a bit of Rio with its bay, similar traffic flows etc. Afterwards we read about the Portuguese influence (Mumbai's previous name Bombay comes from 'Bom Bahia' or good bay) and this might have something to do with it, although British influence is also very present still.
Today the 137th bithday of Ghandi was celebrated all over India. It started yesterday with a lot of music and dancing and flowers and lights in the streets. We were worried not be able to sleep because of the worst and loudest organ playing competition they organised next to our hotel. We hoped the monsoon rains would put an end to the continous blaring, but nothing... People just got wet, very wet. Soaked to the bone. And this they call a 'dry day'! It means no alcohol is served, but with the incredible amount of water coming down it sounds a bit absurd, doesn't it? Anyway, we preffered to stay dry on the dry day, and bought a pinguin umbrella instead. We also found shelter in the most luxurous and most expensive hotel in Mumbai (maybe the whole of India?). Airconditioned and with large sofas... perfect. Even better: visiting the royal restrooms after one month of dodgy holes in the floor. It was the first time I actually sat on a toilet bowl. There was a personal assistant who opened the water tap, put some soap on my hands and offered a napkin like towel afterwards. A bit disappointed he didn't actually wash my hands...
Although Mumbai is more like a European city, one thing doesn't change: the poluted air. We have these moist cleaning tissues with us (thanks Jen and Paul for reminding us of the existence of those small delights that when you use them in the toilet make you say 'ooo'!) and cleaning our hands and faces with them makes us even more aware of that: we leave them always black... Walking around in flip-flops = black feet. And talking about black: in this city we've seen Africans, not so in Delhi. We have seen two Africans in Kathmandu, and that was maybe even weirder, although I'm not sure why.
And foodwise: before we sometimes got served spicy food, in Mumbai we ate our first hot hot food (hot: sweating and with runny nose). Maybe because we're travelling south and there they cook hotter? The food was european though, pasta puttanesca...