Mumbai, India

Mumbai, India (moom bye) formerly Bombay
Currently cruising the Arabian Sea in over 10,000 ft of water
Eastern time plus 10 ½ hours

Mumbai is the capital of the Indian State of Maharashtra. The official population is 16 million, but the unofficial is more like 22 million. It is 1/3 the size of London with about 3 times the population.

Our private tour was set up by Liz, her friend Shri (from Mumbai) and Shri's brother, Krishna. We had a guide named Derrick, manager Shiv and driver Duhta. We were well taken care of to say the least. Shri's dad even called while we were on the tour to make sure everything was going smoothly. It was all much appreciated.

At the port we were greeted with roses, musicians and this neat “rug” made from colored sand that was probably 6 feet in diameter. We were picked up by Shiv and Duhta.

Liz and Ellen, don't look now, but we have a scarf alert going on here (family joke).

Our first stop was the Royal Bombay Yacht Club. The office wasn't open yet, but Jeff showed his various Yacht Club and Sailing membership cards and they let us in to check it out. Good thing Carl and Carla weren't there or we would probably have missed our day of touring like at Waikiki Yacht Club! J

Next stop was the Taj ( Tajmahal Palace and Towers, Mumbai,) a luxury hotel with old and new sections. This is where we met our guide.The Taj is near the Gateway of India. I didn't get a good picture because it was covered by scaffolding and net. It is being worked on. I did take a picture of a post card, so maybe this helps. This triumphal archway was built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to India in 1911. It is Mumbai's most prominent landmark.

The Gateway of India is on the water and there were lots of boats moored there.

Our favorite was the main railway station now known as Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly Victoria Terminus. The picture didn't turn out. The building was shaded due to the early hour. Here is another picture of a postcard. The India railway system is the largest employer in the world with 25 million employees.

There are many beautiful old Victorian buildings. The goal for Mumbai is green and clean and there are large trees everywhere. They are beautiful, but make picture taking a little hard!

We drove along the water and saw the city beach. The beach is clean, but the water is polluted so people don't swim there. They prefer to swim at the beaches in the suburbs.

The next area we visited was Malabar Hill. This area is up high and gets the water breeze which makes it very desirable. There were many nice homes here.

We went to a garden area with a lot of sculptures and flowers. These women were walking for exercise as were several others.

Adjacent to the garden is an area called the seven Dokhmas or towers of silence. This is an area where the Parsees take their dead and hang them out for vultures to eat. They do this so that the bodies will not pollute the land or water. Now the area is covered, but used to be open. When bodies are in there, the vultures are let out so they can eat the bodies, but are contained in this area so they cannot spread disease and “body bits”. I am not positive I have all of that right, but I think so.

Malabar Hill is also the home of the Hanging Gardens (Pherozeshah Mehta Gardens). I am not sure if the sculpture garden was part of this or not, but they were very near each other. The gardens were built in 1880 and renovated in 1921. The gardens are built on a hill over a reservoir and there is a great view.

This “Shoe” is in the park for children to play on. There were about 75 kids from this Bo Peep Nursery School. This is a school for rich kids so they were accompanied by teachers and servants. Check out the little girl's Florida hat! The children were really good listeners. When told to “make a train” all hands went on the shoulders in front of them. This woman was sweeping the park. Where ever we went in India we saw women using this type broom to sweep inside and outside, including using them to sweep up fallen leaves.The next stop was Dhobi Ghaat or the common man's laundry. The traditional method of hand washing clothes is still widely accepted in Mumbai today for the middle class man. This area was absolutely immense. They soap the clothes on a table, then beat them in these little pools and then hang them to dry. The water looked dirty, but the clothes were very white when finished. Jeff asked why so many looked the same and was told they are uniforms. This is a job for these people, not their private laundry. They must live in those covered areas underneath the hanging laundry.

This is a commuter train. We saw this train about 10 AM so this was the end of rush hour. About 6 ½ million commute to work by train each day and 2 million by car. Tax on buying a foreign car is 260%.

We told Derrick we had read a National Geographic article about the Dharavi Slum. He said we could go through it on our way to the suburbs. He said that the slums are now being phased out with the help of the World Bank. They are helping to reclaim the slums and build housing there. I can't figure out my notes, but they seem to say that there were about 7000,000 in the slum and now 300,000 are doing well. I know he said the numbers have been reduced. The pictures don't do it justice.

Derrick said one type business they have way back in the alleys of the slum is leather business. This is a sign we saw right after he told us that. The sign was really impressive in the midst of all of the poverty.

We headed to the Banda/Kurla area which is two different suburbs. In the suburbs they have Tuk Tuks , but here they call them Rickshaws.

They have 65,000 regular Taxis in the city, but no Rickshaws are allowed.

One of the places we stopped was Juhu Beach. Notice the trash cans on the beach and this man was doing beach cleanup pulling this saucer type thing. I think we need to keep it in mind for Adopt a Shore.

We stopped at the Marriott to use the bathroom. First step was to get checked under the hood for bombs, something new to us. The place was so beautiful that we decided to stay for lunch. We had a sandwich but they had a big buffet. I liked this idea for serving bite sized desserts!

After lunch we visited Mani Bhavan, Mahatma Ghandi's home in Mumbai from 1917 to 1934. Very interesting, I will have to do some reading about all of this when we return home.
We did more sightseeing on the streets and then went shopping.

We finally bumped into Darlene's friend Al in a store. I never did see him on the ship. Later we saw him driving down the street and he waved and said to say hi to Darlene.

We got back to the ship after 9 hours of touring, time for a nap before sail away. Next stop is Dubai, which should be a much different experience.