mumbai (maharashtra), wednesday 16 january
we're at mumbai airport waiting to take our flight to cochin. i thought this airport would be better but it's actually pretty lame---in my terminal, there's not even one duty free shop, the restaurant is awful, and i paid $6 (rs 240) for an insipid chicken pizza, a sprite and some chips!! plus, there's a lot of things i don't understand about the way airports work here. for example, they ask you to x-ray your bag before checking it in, and then they put some sticker on it... but you can totally stuff it with hazardous materials before checking it in at the counter if you want!
anyway, mumbai was much less than i expected. it's just another ridiculously huge city with crazy pollution and insane traffic. we were told that the sight of the sunset at queen's necklace (a causeway along the bay, all lit up at night) was beautiful... and it is quite pretty, yes, but you could barely see the sun!! and you could not see the other side of the bay at all!
to be fair, it is hard to compare mumbai to other big cities in india because its archnemesis is delhi. in terms of sightseeing and historical sites, delhi understandably wins hands down. but mumbai is the business/financial heart of the country and the hotels, the restaurants, the nightlife... that's way better than delhi. and those things were very nice, we loved the food at basilico (their filet mignon was absolutely divine! and the fact that i hadn't had beef in almost a month helped a lot) and having drinks at starboard (bar at the taj hotel) and at czar (bar at the intercontinental hotel)... but all these things i can do in monterrey or new york or any other big city... even in new haven... and that's definitely not the reason why i went to india... hence the disappointment.
we also went to the prince of wales museum. i liked the first part of the exhibit a lot, which showed all these 1400-year old sculptures and the audioguide explained the whole story behind them and the relationship amongst the different gods, etc. very well... but i expected this museum to be at least as good as the shanghai museum... but it fell short of expectations.
anyway, now we are off to the south where i'm sure i will have a more authentic indian experience!
anyway, mumbai was much less than i expected. it's just another ridiculously huge city with crazy pollution and insane traffic. we were told that the sight of the sunset at queen's necklace (a causeway along the bay, all lit up at night) was beautiful... and it is quite pretty, yes, but you could barely see the sun!! and you could not see the other side of the bay at all!
to be fair, it is hard to compare mumbai to other big cities in india because its archnemesis is delhi. in terms of sightseeing and historical sites, delhi understandably wins hands down. but mumbai is the business/financial heart of the country and the hotels, the restaurants, the nightlife... that's way better than delhi. and those things were very nice, we loved the food at basilico (their filet mignon was absolutely divine! and the fact that i hadn't had beef in almost a month helped a lot) and having drinks at starboard (bar at the taj hotel) and at czar (bar at the intercontinental hotel)... but all these things i can do in monterrey or new york or any other big city... even in new haven... and that's definitely not the reason why i went to india... hence the disappointment.
we also went to the prince of wales museum. i liked the first part of the exhibit a lot, which showed all these 1400-year old sculptures and the audioguide explained the whole story behind them and the relationship amongst the different gods, etc. very well... but i expected this museum to be at least as good as the shanghai museum... but it fell short of expectations.
anyway, now we are off to the south where i'm sure i will have a more authentic indian experience!
p.s. i meant to write also about dharavi and all the slums in mumbai. i read somewhere that there are 20 million people living in this city, and 2/3 of them live in slums, which you can see everywhere you go... even right next to the runways at mumbai airport! it's crazy. but instead of writing about these, i refer you to these two articles in the economist which i read recently:
they are very good, especially the second one.
also, something that caught my attention was the stories in the newspaper. i love this one:
The cat killer
In the early 1980s Dharavi used to shudder in fear from a strange man named Nadar Mankadwala. Nadar had many pet cats and used to look after them well. Nobody knows why he suddenly started killing them one by one and drinking their blood.
When all his cats had been killed, Nadar started catching stray cats, slitting their throats, and drinking their blood. A stage came when there were no cats left in the area. Nadar then began picking up stray pups. Worried locals reported the matter to the police. They feared that his next target would be children. The baffled officers did not know on what charge to book Nadar. So, they hit upon their now patented solution: eliminate him. One morning, it was announced that Nadar had been killed in an encounter.
another interesting thing in the paper is the following:
Cold statistic: Rs57 lakh was the value of fake currency seized in the city last year.
and if you are like me and have no idea what a lakh is, let me tell you that in india people don't talk about millions and billions... instead they talk about lakhs (1 lakh = 100,000) and crores (1 crore = 100 lakhs). so, 57 lakhs = 5.7 million rupees, which is about 1.5 million dollars of fake currency! only in mumbai!!
posted by adrián at 01:04
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