Mumbai 10-13th November 2008

My trip starts like this...

I heard from friends and people warning me of what to come but nothing compares to the real India.
In the past I experience a trip to Cairo/Egypt, but this was somehow...
I took the flight from Athens at 10th of November, first stop to Doha/Qatar and final destination Mumbai's airport.
First picture if you ask? at the exit of the airport was Indian men lined up against metal fencing with placards staring for ex-passengers like me to pick them to the hotels.
Suddenly, a mixed smell of parfume, urine and car fuel came to my nose.
I looked around me looking for my driver and the placard with my name on and when I found him I was taken into the dark, heavy and moist midnight air of Mumbai by an old fashion yellow/black taxi.
From the taxi's window I could see people sleeping everywhere, lying on the streets like they just have a car accident and they were dead, on the sidewalk lying only with a sheet on and at the roofs of small local shops having the dark sky for a sheet cover.
Finally I arrived at the hotel.
Ups, this wasn't the 4 star hotel I booked... on line two days ago.
I think my trip must begun from here!
The "room" it was a wooden filthy box and look like a Guadanamo prison but I didn't have any choice as the time was 4 after midnight. I put my sleeping bag over the bed and I flopped down exhausted.
Then I told to my self that tomorrow I will see what I can do.

This was the picture of my room online....

and this was the reality when I get there!

And finally the new day arrived with a lot of strange noises and smells and find me staring the ceiling with the old fashion ventilator on.

The common bathroom at my floor, ...actually it was the half at the balcony! and there was only one shower for all of us, so I had to make a bath with a pot and a backet!

Then I met Tzofit from Israel, she was a "neighbor" and we share the nastiness and the same filthy hotel services.. and we decide to see the town together! She told me "you are in India ,you have to be flexilble.." so I listen to her advise and I kept it in my mind for the rest of my trip.

The famous Chowpatty beach at Mumbai or Bombay. At 2007 ten cities in India change their names, nothing to reminds the old english colony.

The famous laundries of Mumbai! Hotels, hospitals and people bring here
their laundries in order to get cleaned.

THE MISERABLES..

As I start to like India more and more, it still comes as a surprise to me that the place I will most likely visit in future, is the most crowed place in India (16 million people on 460km2 = 40 people per m2). The problem with the abandoned and homeless children hurt me most at this trip.

I couldn't answer to their questions, so I start run and crying from guilts because I wasn't able to help them... I was wondering if it was better not to post those pictures but I am not a tourist, I didn't visit India only for the beauties and the monuments, so I decide to be honest.

Me and Tzofit took a boat riding to the Elephanta Island. The Gateway of India at Mumbai's port built in the indo-saracenic style and is meant to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Mumbai.

Monkey in big thoughts... It is not our privilege to think, animals do so!

A short break to see our notes and plan our next destination.

A stone phallic symbol.

Elephanta Island is one hour by boat from Mumbai's port and also called Gharapuri Island or place of caves. Many temples there have been carved out of rock.

Those fishermen took my attention immediately, as they looked like pirates from old times ready to attack, ready to escape from the frame, wild corsairs ready for loots and battles!
This is one of my favorite pictures.

THE TAJ MAHAL HOTEL

This is the other "face" of India. The "rich and the famous" Taj Mahal Hotel, I visit this place two weeks before the terror attack and now I'm wondering how lucky I was...

At Mahatma Gandhi's house. A leader with a self-sufficient way of living, a great soul and thinker! Gandhi was a practitioner of non violence and truth.

Is the "father" not only for India but the father for all the nations, the poors and the miserables .