A walk through old Mumbai

Waking up to the lively buzz of Bombay's streets, which notably are not as annoying as in Delhi. It seem that drivers here do not honk at everything that moves (or doesn't) all the time ... only sometimes. Walking down the street, ornamented with 100s of small shops and the micro enterprises of ppl selling bananas or boiled eggs on the sidewalks. It's amazing that regardless how small the shop is, it's allways called „Enterprises” or „Corporation”, so you see a shop selling door knobs by the name of „Shree [something] Enterprises”.

Another notable detail of the city – there are no rikshaws, but the black&yellow taxis are everywhere. They appear on neraly every picture I have taken, populate every traffic jam. But they're awesome, and cheaper than rikshaws in some places (read: my beloved New Jersey). Most of the cabs have seen the times of India's independence (1947) and sometimes you might think the weels would fall off, but they really are an experiance in themselves.

Staying close to the old Victoria station we had the whole historical district in walking distance, so we decided to take the Lonely Planet walking tour of Mumbai.. The city is increadibly green, with trees creating a corridor over the street sometimes. Many parks filled with colonial style fountains, gazeebos and guarded by iron gates offer an escape from the heat.

The starting point of the Walking tour is the Gateaway of India – an Arc' de Triomphe-like construction built to commemorate King George's visit in 1911. Now, apart from reminding Indians about colonial times and giving a nice view over the polluted bay, it's a tourist hell with tout's offering to take and print your picture, priests (fake or real – who knows) tryng to bless you in exchange for donation and people selling all sorts of plastic crap (pardon my language). Also, regardless of the numbers of caucasian tourists, we are still superstars, whose pictures will be taken with or without our knowledge. Some Indians will ask your permission, some will just click a picture with their phone of someone with you in the background.

Anyways, the walk offers a nice overview of colonial architecture – a mixture of British emperial and oriantal influences. A must see is the University of Mumbai, but only from the outside, and of course the famous Victoria Station, where the 2008 terrorrist attack happened, and which seems to be the symbol of Mumbai.

As it was a Saturday, we were lucky enough to stumble upon a park (?), or rather a huge cricket field. Indians usually don't do sports. At all. The only exception – cricket, which is more of a religion than a sport, is played by everyone and everywhere. In that park, one could see the devotion in which this religion is worshipped. 100s matches played simultaniously, and every team had an appropraite matching outfit. Even proud men of 50+, with conspicuous beer bellys would swing their bats, as if they were 20 again.

More notable details: they did not loose all the British legacy, apart from cricket, taxis, legal system - red double decker buses, however dated they might be. 

As the sun was going down we reached the Marina Drive. This ocean-side walk is filled with people jogging, riding bicycles, or just chilling. The extremaly expensive Dome lounge on top of InterContinenal Hotel is also a must-visit. We were lucky enough to watch sunset from this posh rooftop. Oh, and on the way back to the hotel, we got lost- of course. But thanks to that, we saw anoter cricket game, among kids this time. Also bought my favourite Indian sweets – Jalebees !! Yummy end of the day :)