Namaste

I arrived in Mumbai 5 days ago. It is difficult to explain the transformation I have gone through in this time. I have gone from being completely overwhelmed, shocked and fraught to feeling peaceful, calm and a little sunburnt.

Mumbai
My plane hit Mumbai airport at 11.30am on the 26th. I had had a pleasant flight - that Silver BA card came in lucky and I was upgraded to biz. class. Thank god, as I was feeling so sick after the food poisoning and needed a bed and some tlc.

Arriving in Mumbai is an experience I don't think you can ever prepare for or understand until you are there in the flesh. I am still having flashbacks at the drive from the airport to the city. The journey has been inprinted on my mind.
After paying for the "pre-pay" taxi inside the airport building (260 INR) I was given a handwritten reciept and told to "just go outside". As I approached the exit I had to stop and gather my self together to actually step outside. There are a a million people standing outside shouting, and waving and I was not sure where to go. So I asked security who put me in the hands of a kind man who took my receipt, carried my heavy luggage and lead me to cab 2880.
Cab 2880 - like all the other city cabs - is an old 50's style, black rickety car that is reminiscent of colonial days. The guy shoved my bag in the front seat, asked me for English money and then shoved me in the back.
I sat around for about 15 minutes before an old - i mean OLD- guy hoped in and asked where I was going.
Gave him the address and he turned on the ignitiion of 2880.
Hand on hooter we started driving.

The next hour and a half was really incredible - in a good way looking back, in a bad way then.
As you leave the airport and hit the road there are thousands of cars all in a moshpit moving in one steady stream. Each vehicle looking to fill the next gap. No lanes. Every now and then a little bicycle or scooter will race and swerve past you. The consensus is to drive, fill gaps and hoot. I cannot explain the hooting. That's the only sound that will stick with me when i think back on Mumbai. Hoot and drive. hoot and drive.
And then the road begins to narrow into smaller roads and the shanties appear. These are people's homes - on the highway banged together with ANY materials they can find - wood, sheet metal, plastic, you name it. And the poverty hits you in your face and heart. It can be compared to some of the townships in South Africa, but for some reason this was more overwhelming. It is heartbreaking.
We carried on driving and the suburbs appear. Most buildings are falling apart - paint peeling off, crumbling, old. There are some exquisit art deco buildings we passed = but these too have had no maintenance.
The streets are lined with a mixture of shanty and wrecked buildings. All the sign posts are beautifully handpainted bar the major brands that have signs printed on card and hung around the city.
The smells that you experience through the city are intoxicating. A mixture of delicious spices mixed with the foulest faeces, rotting smell. This is all layered with a thick, moist polluted air.
Our car suddenly came to a halt.
I thought we had hit a traffic jam, but my jaw dropped open when we drove past the biggest most skinniest looking cow I have ever seen. It was crossing the road. right in the centre.
This is apparently common.

We get to Marine Drive which lines the Arabian sea, and is famous for Chowpatty beach. It is beautiful. Across the bay you can see high-rises that remind me of NYC. It is quite spectacular.
The driver takes me to the hotel - the Sea Green Hotel. A complete dump of a place (but only later do I realise this is actually pretty top notch).
I check in feeling really fraught and anxious. The drive there was really quite hair-raising. I thought I was going to die about 10 times!
It was about 1pm. I put my bags down, and passed out for 3 hours. I only dreamt of the swirling madness I had just experienced.

(tbc - when I have more time!)