by Debbie Ross
Womens Travel Network founder.
Day 13 India tour – Fly to Mumbai, afternoon tour of the city.
Yesterday there was political unrest in Kerala when the minister of finance tried to present his budget. The opposing party tried to block him and it ended up in mayhem at the government office. Today they have proposed action and everything will be shut down from 6am to 6pm., including the roads. We have a two hour drive to the aiirport for our flight to Mumbai which we must not miss. This is going to be a long day which started with a 3am wakeup and 4am departure for Cochin. The hotel has been so accomodating, we checked out the night before and they made us a boxed breakfast. Upon arrival at Cochin we had a bus picnic with our packaged breakfast. I must say this is a first for me. They are controling the aiirport check in and will only let us in at 730am. Thedepature lounge is full so we had to go tothe arrival area to find seats for our long wait. At 1055am they let us check in and our flight finally took off at 105pm. Thankfully our guide Shiv was on the ball and diverted a potential disaster. Everyone is looking forward to seeing Mumbai.
Upon arrival we are met by Perviz, our local tour guide. Our tour begins on our way to the Trident hotel. Mumbai (Bombay). Noisy yet spiritual, flashy yet humble, Mumbai manages to cram so many extremes into one city it’s no wonder that it leaves most visitors exhilarated and entranced. The traffic is unbelievabel and it goes at a steady pace 24 / 7. There are 17 million people in Mumbai and unofficially 22 million. It is said that 1,000 people arrive in Mumbai every day with hopes of finding work and a home. There are so many slum areas which are two to three stories high. The upper rooms are reached by a make shift ladder and the roofs are blue tarps. Families share one small room and the community shares 1 toilet. Some rooms have up to 10 people sleeping in one small room.
The skyline of Mumbai is magnificent with miles of coast and towering commercial and aprtment buildings. Mumbai is an island and the 7 kilometre long bridge gives us a birds eye view of the city. here are two main areas of the city, the commercial and the residental. It’s Saturday afternoon and many people have come to stroll along the seaside boardwal, It’s quite a site to behold with all the colourful Saris.
This afternoon we enjoyed a tour of, Mani Bhavan, the memorial built for Gandhi. The memorial is housed in the house where Ghandi lived from 1917 to 1934. The memorial is a very interesting chronicle of Ghandi’s life and moving.
As we leave the museum we are followed to our bus by the hawkers and as in every other city we visited, we had fun bus shopping. The young woman hat sold us colourful purses was very pleasant and spoke excellent english.
This evening we celebrated our India adventure with a farewell dinner, some of the ladies will be going home tomorrow after we enjoy one last day of sightseeing. We also celebrate Julie’s birthday and say our goodbye speaches to our incredible tour guide Shiv. He has been exceptional to work with and took such care of our needs. Although as he says, this has been an exceptioanl group which makes our job very easy. Colleen and Sue made up a funny song about our journey and through their laughter they managed to sing it to us. This was a very special evening.
Our hotel, the Trident Nariman Point, Mumbai offers panoramic views of the ocean, Marine drive or the Queens Necklace as the promenade is lovingly called.