Life is Good!: Mumbai or "Bombay" - I heard both and it's the same city!

I never go on a trip without my "Grammy Baubles" - Grammy est. 2005, 3 tiny silver medallions with A,R,L (Alex, Rooke, Lucy) on them and a birdsnest with 3 pearls the color of the grandkids birthstones. Thanks to daughter-in-law Amy and daughter Jenny for making sure I have the right "equipment" to keep me safe wherever I may be!

So we made it to Mumbai - very tight security at all the airports after the India-Pakistan event on February 14. At one airport we got checked thoroughly six times before getting on the small plane. I'm fine with that as "Better safe than sorry"!!!
This is our tour of Mumbai and we stopped and got out to see this huge laundry service and people bring in their laundry with a color code and name on it and a couple days later pick it up. The bright blue and aqua and white seen on the lines are hotel linens. Amazing and they say as clean as a whistle!

I guess the overweight problem must be all over the world and all sorts of procedures that I see advertised on the TV ads are offered at this place. I just wonder what the price would be.

Granted, the tour was not cheap but I have never seen such amazing hotels anywhere in the world. Our guide says "You don't want to see the other places". Also since an Indian airline had bedbud problems on flights not too long ago the planes are all now fumigated and I'm guessing the hotels he spoke of are NOT fumigated. I'll pay extra to avoid bedbugs!

Strange bathrooms - this big window was right in front of the bathtub which could easily be seen from the bed but we did not it had an automated curtain to pull down. High tech for sure.

Mahatma Gandhi was quite a man and now I need to read more about his goals in life and for the world and how he lived his own life. As I mentioned before, he was assassinated and we saw the spot where it happened.

I do love signs and this was a public restroom and I'm not sure what the ladies had to pay. Most of the bathrooms had the figures but also had "He" and "She" on them making it very easy to understand but of course knowing me I did walk into the wrong one once. It only took me a few seconds to leave after I saw the long line of urinals!

Gateway of India - we visited - and it was built in 1911 for King George V and Queen Mary's landing in Mumbai for their coronation. It was inaugarated in 1923The British controlled India for a long time and independence was gained in July 1947 and it is a big deal and we heard about it many times.

Lots of newspapers in all kinds of languages at the newsstand on the street. I did manage to read the local paper almost daily - in English- as I am a big newspaper nerd and it was really interesting.

Watson Hotel is India's longest lasting cast iron building. from the 1860s. It ceased to be a hotel and sat vacant for a long time and it sounds like there is some political thing holding up the planned restoration - sound familiar?

New definition of pooper scooper. People like these - lots of women - were seen all over cleaning up after the holy cows aka Sacred Cows and they cannot be killed or eaten in India and are free to roam and do whatever they want.

Love signs - this is the entrance to Mumbai University.

Another university building and certainly the British style is evident as it looks a lot like Big Ben!

And a few double decker buses are roaming the streets.

Ambulances seemed to be all over the place but I didn't see occupants and we didn't see too many with lights and sirens going.

The main Mumbai train station formerly called Victoria Station and of course the separation of gender is very evident as women have their own "coaches" or train cars.

I really like the "shell be prosecuted"!

Not sure what this meant with "I DON'T NEED HEALTH INSURANCE". I tried to figure it out and of course will keep searching.

Finally Ross gets to visit a Cathedral after visiting a few mosques and synagogues. This was St. Thomas Cathedral and looked very British of course.

Another cow dung collector at work:

There is a movie called "The Lunch Box" telling the story of the guys in Mumbai with the white hats on bikes who deliver lunches to workers. Lots of the wives are at home, make the lunches, the guys pick them up and deliver to the worker. If it's a single guy they can sign a contract with a restaurant to do the same. The boxes have 4 compartments for legumes, bread, rice and vegetables. This was started 110 years ago when a guy forgot his lunch. Colored thread is used to identify the person to receive the lunch - no names, no numbers on the bags!

These bikes are loaded with lunches! The guys are called dabba wallahs (lunch box deliverers). They apparently have a sigma six rating whatever that means.

The word "Bombay" in Portugese means "Good Harbor". India was controlled by British, Portugese, Ottomans and I'm sure others. When I hear this so often about many countries I feel so very fortunate to live where I do.

Ok - next stop - the Dharavi Slum and we had local guides who are students and took us all over and no photos were allowed inside the slum. One billion US dollars is generated by the hard workers here who have their own small businesses - making leather products, suitcases and lots of other stuff. The leather is from goats, sheep and buffao and of course NO holy cows! Housing for a 100 square foot (yes that is for about 5 people total) with kitchen is about $100,000-200,000 to purchase. The 600 square foot ones for "high class" people are $200,000-300,000. 600,000 people live in one square kilometer. Google it!
The photos below are all on streets surrounding the car-free actual slum. This dates back to the British colonial times and is believed to be the world's second largest slum. It has more than 15,000 workshops and units which employ several thousand families and it is the major recycling and manufacturing hub.

I would have loved to check out the rooms in this Bombay Hotel but probably not an option and don't think I would like to stay there.

This was one of the leaders of the tour company that hires the students to take us all over. I can't even call it a slum as they are such hard workers, not starving and choose to live there with their friends and families.

Mumbai on the water and these are beach homes and VERY expensive. And no they are not painted cardboard boxes. I need to do a little searching on the cost of these. Some are two story and others are one level.

I do vividly recall the Mumbai terrorist attack and this is one of the sites and many people died. Our taxi driver on our last day on the way to the airport had just picked up some guests for transport 5 minutes before the bombing and he felt like he had been saved. He also said another time he was sitting in his taxi picking someone up and the car next to him had a car bomb and went off 5 minutes after he had left. He lived in Mumbai many months of the year and his wife and children and grandchild lived in another city. He had to be in a place where he could make money and could go back home in the "off season" as when the monsoons are there in the summer and the heat is on at another time where temps can reach the 120s. He was quite a guy with good English that he taught himself by listening to TV and tourists!!!

This was our little boat that we took to the Elephanta Island caves.

And yes indeed it had a kitchen but I didn't look inside. They did have bags of chips hanging outside. I spent at least half an hour talking with our local Mumbai tour guide who said he lives about 60 km (35-40 miles) from Mumbai and takes the train to work as a tour guide and pays a monthly rate of $20 to use the first class coaches. Maybe all women too? She had her master's degree in Tourism and when I asked if she had children she said they chose not to because India was so crowded and it was so expensive to live and for education.

Low tide on the Arabian Sea on the way to Elephanta Island:

I'm not sure how you get in touch with the police here but there is a contact phone number on the blue sign. This is a reason why we take a tour to many places instead of going on our own and the older we get the more we choose tours!

This was the ladies and fortunately I did not plan to wash my face. I did manage to make it through the whole trip never forgetting to not get a drop of water in my mouth - toothbrushing or accident sip in the middle of the night. I did not want and did not get "Delhi Belly"!

The Elephanta Caves are a UNESCO site located about 6 miles from the harbor and was named by the Portugese for the amazing cave temples. 125 big steps to get up! Another option was to have a couple guys give a carriage ride up and down - basically a wooden box with handles in front and back that they carried very fast! It was 2200 rupees round trip or around $30. We walked!

The basalt rock caves date back to 5th and 6th centuries AD with figures of Hindu dieties and miracles. The dominant theme is the different attributes of the popular Hindu god Shiva.

Heading out of the caves we were warned to not get too friendly with the rhesus monkeys as they may attack you. I used my zoom and didn't take a chance for sure. Not keen on monkey bites!

Before heading back on the boat I saw this sign in a little quick stop place. Click to enlarge and you will notice it is attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Really????