Mumbai - Day 4

We went for a bit of a drive around today.  It was a big public holiday today, so the roads were surprisingly empty.  

The car got up to at least 80 kph - any faster and you risk falling into a pothole or running into a beggar. 

Yep, we got accosted by two today - one old lady (picture on right) who apparently wanted money to get her teeth fixed, and another who came up to the car with a baby in one hand and an empty baby bottle in the other, crying that she needed money to feed the baby.  When we ignored her, she started banging on the car window with increasing fervor.  My brother said that they usually have a bandage around the baby's head for good measure with some tomato sauce for effect.  He said that some beggars actually rent babies for the day.  It would have made a good picture but I couldn't get a clear shot.  I understand that these poor women must have disobeyed their husbands or not kept their houses clean enough and were therefore banished to the streets.

The trip took us to south Mumbai in only an hour - on a normal weekday it takes between 2 and 4 hours.  Last night it took my brother over an hour and fifteen minutes to travel home from work that is only 7km away.  

Most of the old British Raj buildings have fallen into disrepair. There doesn't seem to be much drive to preserve these buildings.  

One building that is really nice is the Taj Mahal Hotel (picture below) It's is one of those really expensive hotels where you can only just afford a coffee.  Here I was forced to buy something disgustingly expensive for my wife, just in case I couldn't find anything else.  The problem is that we can only really shop at "westerner-friendly" shopping malls and shops as these are the only places where we can safely eat or drink, and they only sell western-style stuff for the well-to-do Indians.  Surprisingly, there are few Indian souvenirs for sale, and I can't say that I've even seen a souvenir shop.

We had lunch at the Marriot hotel - one of those hotels that terrorists like to blow up.  By now we are used to the mandatory car search, the bag search, the bomb-detecting ion scan and the metal detector treatment before you are allowed to enter places like this.  We had lunch there because its one of the few places where people who aren't used to the local disease-producing bacteria can eat.  Presumably you have to be careful about the water used to wash the lettuce in. In the hotel food shop you can also buy bread sliced thinly!  The usual sliced bread that we've been able to buy is 1 inch thick, and it doesn't make a good sandwich.

I'm just getting the hang of having a driver.

His job is to drive you wherever you want to go and then wait until you want to go somewhere else.  He normally drives my brother to work each morning, and then waits until he wants to go home at about 6pm.  That's it.  If Richard decided that he needed to go somewhere, his job is to be ready.  So if you go shopping, he drops you at the door of the shop that you want (racing around to open the door for you), and then disappears until you come out of the shop and he magically appears to drive you to the shop 100m away.  Etiquette allows you to walk into an adjoining shop without being driven there.  I shudder to think of what this would do to Australian women and their shopping habits (and their backsides from not walking).

I'm having to type this in Notepad at the moment because the internet is down.  I realise that there is a pattern emerging where the internet goes down whenever it rains.  My brother said that in Hyderabad where he lived before Mumbai, every time it rained they lost power as well. That explains why he has his computer connected to an uninterruptable power supply.

I got a classic picture today of a person driving a motorscooter and texting at the same time.  Here everyone is wedded to their mobiles.  Even the people running around the exercise track seem to carry them.  I'm not getting many good photos taking them through the windows, but the driver doesn't want the windows down or the doors unlocked just in case a beggar tries to steal things when we are stopped in traffic. 

Speaking of mobiles, I've been lent my sister-in-law's mobile.  All day long it goes off with pre-recorded messages trying to sell you stuff.  The problem is that the messages are in Hindi, so all the cute jingles they play just go over my head.  Also you get bombarded by txt messages offering you things like mystical-image-of-the-day wall papers.  If any Australian phone company ever says that they are going to allow advertising, I suggest that you change companies immediately.

I've also attached a few more street scenes, like the following one that shows our apartment block in the distance, looking a lot like the ivory towers they are. 


You can see from the shop frontages why you can't walk on the footpaths. 

A common street shop.

Oh, yes, here's also one of a woman weaving baskets on the street. Her son-in-law has picked a space for her in front of a bus shelter (sitting in the bus lane).

Anyway, that's all for now.  the internet is back up (its been down for a day) so I can send this and get started on Day 5.