First day in Mumbai
After my crazy cab ride, I was pretty hungry. My flight from Singapore involved a stop in Kuala Lumpur. On the first flight, they had a meal for me. The second flight they forgot. I guess you get what you pay for flying Air Asia. They are famous for low prices and that's about it, although the meal on the first flight was decent actually. Some kind of vegetable biryani I recall. Anyway, I arrived and was sent down the street. I just found out I went to a place that was much more of a hole in the wall than the one they tried to send me to. They said "Mahesh Lunch Home" but I ended up at "Modern Lunch." I didn't make the right right. I sat down in the non a/c part initially, but the owner spoke English and came over and told me I might want to move into the a/c section because it was very crowded that night and I might get "pissed off." I thought that was pretty funny. I ordered Dal Fry and roti which seemed safe. Everything came out really hot, tasted good, and I didn't get a stomach ache or anything. In fact (fingers crossed) my stomach is still okay after 5 nights in Mumbai.
I was exhausted and crashed, then woke up at some ungodly hour, maybe 6am let's say. It was a three hour time difference so I had a big of jetlag. Now I'm back to my waking up at 8 or 9 schedule which is typical for traveling, especially without internet or a computer. So I woke up on Saturday morning, my first full day in Mumbai, and went out for a walk. I didn't have a map or anything at that point, so they sent me over to this place I have been many times since called Marine Drive which is a long avenue that runs along a stretch of Mumbai coast. Early in the morning it was fairly quiet. Various people walked themselves or their pets, jogged, or sat on the wall and looked out at the water. Walking through the streets of course I experienced similar shock to the night previous at my surroundings. I have since adjusted somewhat, but the unrelenting noise and movement, the shock of small children and their families living on the pavement, the aging colonial buildings side by side with makeshift stalls and old apartment buildings. It's a lot to take in. Along the marine drive, there are mostly large concrete blocks between the wall and the water, though as one walks north nearing Chowpatty beach, there is some sand. The sand is unfortunately completely covered with trash and debris, though up by the actual beach it's a bit better. I later learned on Sunday nights that everybody in Mumbai goes to the Marine Drive and Chowpatty beach to hang out and eat. Sunday night was *insanely* crowded there. It's a long stretch of road and it was completely packed that night. But that comes later.
Saturday afternoon I met up with Shweta, my Couchsurfer friend of 5+ years who lives in Mumbai. We met when she and her mother came to travel in the US for several months some years ago. We walked around Colaba which is apparently the touristy and foreigner-friendly neighborhood. I'm staying in a place called Fort which is nearby but not quite in Colaba. Colaba also has a bunch of "cool" places that young Indians like to hang out. We walked by Leopolds, a foreigner friendly bar that was famous for being among the locations damaged in the terrorist attacks a few years ago. We also walked past and through the Taj hotel, which is the really famous one that had the gunmen inside during the same attacks. The Taj is right next to the Gateway of India, a giant Arc du Triomph style monument by the water. Eventually we settled into Cafe Mondegar, which is another western-friendly cafe in Colaba. We drank a few bottles of Kingfisher which is the popular local beer here and listened to American music surrounded by young Indians and maybe 40% travelers and/or expats. They played "Maniac" from the movie Flashdance I remember. After that, we went up to meet Shweta's friend who is living in Mumbai for a few months but previously lived in Bangalore and is originally from Gujarat, a different but relatively nearby province. We met him at the (brace yourself) Hard Rock Cafe in Mumbai which is one of a not huge number of "cool" places to hang out in this town. I have only been in a few Hard Rock Cafes before. Of course the reputation in the states is a little different, but here, it was the happening place to be. It is not in Colaba either, it is maybe 6-7 train stops a way. The train rides here are epic, but I'll describe that later. So the Hard Rock Cafe. Surprisingly not that expensive even by local standards. These places always have a quick show of security too, like a barely functional or observed metal detector and some people with metal detecting wands. Certainly it is harder to get in to places if you're not a foreigner I'm sure. The waiter at the Hard Rock was very excited to suggest lots of things we might want to try including various promotions and memberships and things. He kept returning to suggest new things. That is until it was time for the staff's big dance number which consisted of maybe 20 male employees all standing up on a counter in the middle of the bar in a long row, and doing a choreographed dance to "YMCA" I kid you not. I have a video of this. It barely seemed obligatory too, they loved doing it and everybody loved singing along. So my first night in Mumbai quickly took a turn for the surreal.
For a change of pace, after the Hard Rock we took a cab down to Colaba. Despite being the foreigner-friendly neighborhood, that's a very relative term. It's not like you walk around and see malls and brand names that look anything like anything you'd recognize in the west. There are a few upscale landmarks and nice hotels scattered among the area, but other than that it's not all that different and lots of Indians hang out there. Maybe in the tourist season it's more filled with foreigners, or so I have heard, but for the most part I didn't see too many down there and it is actually very popular with Indian tourists as well from other parts of India. Maybe they go to see the tourists from non-Indian countries. I do seem to get stared at more down there than up here or elsewhere, though that's not saying much since I'm still a pretty popular tourist attraction in my neighborhood. It's not like China where they take pictures of you semi-surreptitiously, but they take long, long ganders and repeated second and third looks. Guys tap their friends on the shoulder and point to me. It gets old, but I guess that's just part of being in a place like this. Even in my hotel they stare at me. I ride up the elevator with someone who works here and they just stare at me until I say "Hi!" and then they do the Indian head wobble thing. It's friendly or curious but there is no smiling until you acknowledge it so it still feels aggressive or irritating at times.
Before I talk about the local bar where we ended up which was great, I am reminded of this story a guy told me last night. He lived in Madagascar for two years, then Tanzania for two more. He said he loved it. Specifically I think he said he had "a ball of a time" in both cases. Then he said people are incredibly happy in those countries. He gestured around to the busy street on which we were standing and said, "how many smiles do you see?" and I had already noticed that not many Indian people smiled just walking around. He said in Africa, he said you'd have to look to find one who wasn't. I thought that was really interesting. I'm not sure that you can judge how happy people are just by their facial expressions walking down the street, but who knows, maybe you can, and this guy was Indian so he'd probably know better than I would.
So anyway, we went to this bar called Gokul. This is Saturday night and the street is a packed and crowded side street with a bunch of sort-of street food stalls but that are actually "restaurants." Apparently one is a very famous place to eat. We walk in through the thick crowd and I follow Shweta upstairs. The upstairs room is filled with small tables packed into a low-ceiling'd and smoke-filled room and loaded with people. We sandwich ourselves into a booth and order what are apparently among the cheapest drinks to be had certainly in Colaba. There is no music which I thought was interesting, though by this time it was already around midnight so the noise of the crowd was more than enough for the small space. It was probably the raucous and completely local crowd along with the smoke and slightly sketchy feel to the whole thing that made it so entertaining. Apparently at the end of the night they usher you out of a back entrance specifically to avoid confrontations with cops hunting for payoffs.
This leads me to our short walk along the water at around 2am after our evening of drinking. We sat by the water along with many other groups and gradually security from a nearby hotel would come and push the groups farther and farther down the water, presumably to avoid disturbing hotel guests, but eventually some cops rolled up and started to specifically hassle the three of us. The conversations were all in Marathi which is the local langage, but the crux of it was basically what the hell were Shweta and her friend doing hanging out with an American guy and how could they possibly know an American guy. It was also apparently suggested that she might be up to no good for hanging out with a foreigner and/or for hanging out with a couple of guys late at night. Apparently it is quite common for cops to approach people in this way, harass them for a while looking for payoffs. He ultimately held onto my passport while he interrogated them for a while, although I just stood there unable to participate since it was all in Marathi. Ultimately I guess he figured out we weren't going to give him any money so he just gave me my passport and told us to get out of there. It was kind of a frustrating if fascinating encounter for me. It's amazing to me that this sort of thing is commonplace, but that's of course just because I live in the US where though there are probably corrupt police but not who I encounter in my life at least. I suppose some people would say that's just cause I'm white, and who knows, that's probably true, but the fact that the police would regularly shake down people for money is pretty extreme I think even in the US. Maybe in the states black people might get pulled over more often or even harassed, and I wouldn't belittle that, but it is different than cops every day making people pay $20 for being potentially morally corrupt. Apparently the government has even had policies to close down bars here for corrupting youth.
So that was my first day in Mumbai pretty much.
So, we hung out at the Hard Rock Cafe. At one
I was exhausted and crashed, then woke up at some ungodly hour, maybe 6am let's say. It was a three hour time difference so I had a big of jetlag. Now I'm back to my waking up at 8 or 9 schedule which is typical for traveling, especially without internet or a computer. So I woke up on Saturday morning, my first full day in Mumbai, and went out for a walk. I didn't have a map or anything at that point, so they sent me over to this place I have been many times since called Marine Drive which is a long avenue that runs along a stretch of Mumbai coast. Early in the morning it was fairly quiet. Various people walked themselves or their pets, jogged, or sat on the wall and looked out at the water. Walking through the streets of course I experienced similar shock to the night previous at my surroundings. I have since adjusted somewhat, but the unrelenting noise and movement, the shock of small children and their families living on the pavement, the aging colonial buildings side by side with makeshift stalls and old apartment buildings. It's a lot to take in. Along the marine drive, there are mostly large concrete blocks between the wall and the water, though as one walks north nearing Chowpatty beach, there is some sand. The sand is unfortunately completely covered with trash and debris, though up by the actual beach it's a bit better. I later learned on Sunday nights that everybody in Mumbai goes to the Marine Drive and Chowpatty beach to hang out and eat. Sunday night was *insanely* crowded there. It's a long stretch of road and it was completely packed that night. But that comes later.
Saturday afternoon I met up with Shweta, my Couchsurfer friend of 5+ years who lives in Mumbai. We met when she and her mother came to travel in the US for several months some years ago. We walked around Colaba which is apparently the touristy and foreigner-friendly neighborhood. I'm staying in a place called Fort which is nearby but not quite in Colaba. Colaba also has a bunch of "cool" places that young Indians like to hang out. We walked by Leopolds, a foreigner friendly bar that was famous for being among the locations damaged in the terrorist attacks a few years ago. We also walked past and through the Taj hotel, which is the really famous one that had the gunmen inside during the same attacks. The Taj is right next to the Gateway of India, a giant Arc du Triomph style monument by the water. Eventually we settled into Cafe Mondegar, which is another western-friendly cafe in Colaba. We drank a few bottles of Kingfisher which is the popular local beer here and listened to American music surrounded by young Indians and maybe 40% travelers and/or expats. They played "Maniac" from the movie Flashdance I remember. After that, we went up to meet Shweta's friend who is living in Mumbai for a few months but previously lived in Bangalore and is originally from Gujarat, a different but relatively nearby province. We met him at the (brace yourself) Hard Rock Cafe in Mumbai which is one of a not huge number of "cool" places to hang out in this town. I have only been in a few Hard Rock Cafes before. Of course the reputation in the states is a little different, but here, it was the happening place to be. It is not in Colaba either, it is maybe 6-7 train stops a way. The train rides here are epic, but I'll describe that later. So the Hard Rock Cafe. Surprisingly not that expensive even by local standards. These places always have a quick show of security too, like a barely functional or observed metal detector and some people with metal detecting wands. Certainly it is harder to get in to places if you're not a foreigner I'm sure. The waiter at the Hard Rock was very excited to suggest lots of things we might want to try including various promotions and memberships and things. He kept returning to suggest new things. That is until it was time for the staff's big dance number which consisted of maybe 20 male employees all standing up on a counter in the middle of the bar in a long row, and doing a choreographed dance to "YMCA" I kid you not. I have a video of this. It barely seemed obligatory too, they loved doing it and everybody loved singing along. So my first night in Mumbai quickly took a turn for the surreal.
For a change of pace, after the Hard Rock we took a cab down to Colaba. Despite being the foreigner-friendly neighborhood, that's a very relative term. It's not like you walk around and see malls and brand names that look anything like anything you'd recognize in the west. There are a few upscale landmarks and nice hotels scattered among the area, but other than that it's not all that different and lots of Indians hang out there. Maybe in the tourist season it's more filled with foreigners, or so I have heard, but for the most part I didn't see too many down there and it is actually very popular with Indian tourists as well from other parts of India. Maybe they go to see the tourists from non-Indian countries. I do seem to get stared at more down there than up here or elsewhere, though that's not saying much since I'm still a pretty popular tourist attraction in my neighborhood. It's not like China where they take pictures of you semi-surreptitiously, but they take long, long ganders and repeated second and third looks. Guys tap their friends on the shoulder and point to me. It gets old, but I guess that's just part of being in a place like this. Even in my hotel they stare at me. I ride up the elevator with someone who works here and they just stare at me until I say "Hi!" and then they do the Indian head wobble thing. It's friendly or curious but there is no smiling until you acknowledge it so it still feels aggressive or irritating at times.
Before I talk about the local bar where we ended up which was great, I am reminded of this story a guy told me last night. He lived in Madagascar for two years, then Tanzania for two more. He said he loved it. Specifically I think he said he had "a ball of a time" in both cases. Then he said people are incredibly happy in those countries. He gestured around to the busy street on which we were standing and said, "how many smiles do you see?" and I had already noticed that not many Indian people smiled just walking around. He said in Africa, he said you'd have to look to find one who wasn't. I thought that was really interesting. I'm not sure that you can judge how happy people are just by their facial expressions walking down the street, but who knows, maybe you can, and this guy was Indian so he'd probably know better than I would.
So anyway, we went to this bar called Gokul. This is Saturday night and the street is a packed and crowded side street with a bunch of sort-of street food stalls but that are actually "restaurants." Apparently one is a very famous place to eat. We walk in through the thick crowd and I follow Shweta upstairs. The upstairs room is filled with small tables packed into a low-ceiling'd and smoke-filled room and loaded with people. We sandwich ourselves into a booth and order what are apparently among the cheapest drinks to be had certainly in Colaba. There is no music which I thought was interesting, though by this time it was already around midnight so the noise of the crowd was more than enough for the small space. It was probably the raucous and completely local crowd along with the smoke and slightly sketchy feel to the whole thing that made it so entertaining. Apparently at the end of the night they usher you out of a back entrance specifically to avoid confrontations with cops hunting for payoffs.
This leads me to our short walk along the water at around 2am after our evening of drinking. We sat by the water along with many other groups and gradually security from a nearby hotel would come and push the groups farther and farther down the water, presumably to avoid disturbing hotel guests, but eventually some cops rolled up and started to specifically hassle the three of us. The conversations were all in Marathi which is the local langage, but the crux of it was basically what the hell were Shweta and her friend doing hanging out with an American guy and how could they possibly know an American guy. It was also apparently suggested that she might be up to no good for hanging out with a foreigner and/or for hanging out with a couple of guys late at night. Apparently it is quite common for cops to approach people in this way, harass them for a while looking for payoffs. He ultimately held onto my passport while he interrogated them for a while, although I just stood there unable to participate since it was all in Marathi. Ultimately I guess he figured out we weren't going to give him any money so he just gave me my passport and told us to get out of there. It was kind of a frustrating if fascinating encounter for me. It's amazing to me that this sort of thing is commonplace, but that's of course just because I live in the US where though there are probably corrupt police but not who I encounter in my life at least. I suppose some people would say that's just cause I'm white, and who knows, that's probably true, but the fact that the police would regularly shake down people for money is pretty extreme I think even in the US. Maybe in the states black people might get pulled over more often or even harassed, and I wouldn't belittle that, but it is different than cops every day making people pay $20 for being potentially morally corrupt. Apparently the government has even had policies to close down bars here for corrupting youth.
So that was my first day in Mumbai pretty much.
So, we hung out at the Hard Rock Cafe. At one
posted by Dan at 10:19 PM
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