We arrived in Mumbai early and were greeted by a man who led us
out of the airport where we met our guide for the day. Don’t remember her name,
but she not only gave us all the facts and stories about places we were seeing,
but told us many jokes along the way.
When she explained what we would be seeing that day, it did not
include the Elephanta Caves. She said it was closed on Mondays. Not sure why
the man I had been dealing with when I set up the tour never mentioned that,
not that we could have changed the day of the week we did the tour, but I may
have made some other plans to visit something else. She expanded our city tour
to include a few places that we originally would not have seen.
We made a stop at a beach where we watched families enjoying the
warm day. It also was a very nice view of the city. Our next stop was at Dhobi
Ghat which is the world’s largest outdoor laundry. Only the men do the laundry
as the women are in charge of cooking and ironing. Thousands of men do all
stages of the laundry. They mainly do laundry for hotels and hospitals. All is
done by hand and they beat it until it’s clean, then it is rinsed and hung out
to dry. I couldn’t believe how white their whites were!
Our next stop was at Jain Temple which was built in 1904 and is a
marble shrine dedicated Adinath one of the Jain apostles. The Jain religion is
vegetarian to the extent they don’t even eat root vegetables, only things grown
above ground. We tipped a man to watch our shoes while we toured. Our guide let
us into the inner sanctum which was a treat. One of the worshipers also agreed
to show us how they worship by putting the colored paste on the points of the
idol.
Members of the Jain
community are known to be exceptionally adept in the world of business, and
although they believe in self-restraint and aestheticism (orthodox Jains will
not tread on an ant, and at their most extreme wear masks to avoid breathing in
even tiny insects), they pour large sums into the construction and maintenance
of their places of worship. Officially called Babu Amichand Panalal Adishwarji Jain Temple, this
beautifully decorated and adorned temple has an entrance flanked by two stone
elephants. The downstairs area houses an array of deities and saints, including
an image of Ganesh that recalls historical links between Jainism and Hinduism. Three black
idols are protected behind a metal screen. The dome ceiling is painted with the
signs of the zodiac.
From there we went to Kamela Park and the Hanging
Gardens. There is really nothing “hanging” in the gardens. The gardens are
built over some of the cities biggest water reservoirs. It is said that the
soil is very thin and therefore they cannot grow big trees in the garden.
Next to the Gardens is Parsi Tower of Silence, an area
not visible nor visitable for non-Parsi’s. The Parsi’s are a small
ethnic-religious group in Munbai that have the habit of laying their dead in
the circular open structure of the Tower of Silence for the vultures to eat.
This tradition became problematic over the years due to diclofenac poisioning,
the vultures decreased in numbers dramatically. Without enough vultures the
corpses were laying around longer than normal causing smell and other problems
for residents living in the neighborhood.
The Parsi’s then tried to find solutions like starting
a breeding program for vultures and placing solar panels so that the sun would
decompose the bodies sooner. Still it remains problematic.
Some people say that the Hanging Gardens have been
created to protect and clean the water reservoirs under it from possible
pollution from the Parsi corpses nearby.
After
that we toured Gandhi Museum, formerly Mahatma Gandhi’s Bombay house. It
chronicled his life and the second floor housed a museum of figurines depicting
scenes from his life. Also his “room” was preserved and other than being arranged
a bit differently showed where he slept and lived. His library was there of all
the books he had read. There was a room of letters received from Hitler and
presidents etc. It really was an interesting stop and gave me much more insight
into what he stood for and was trying to accomplish in his life. They guide
seemed irritated we didn’t buy the neat book about his life. Since we just
scaled down our lifestyle, we weren’t looking to collect more stuff.
After
lunch we had some “forced shopping” stops. I wasn’t able to shop for
inexpensive trinkets in Agra or Delhi and figured I could get those items in
Mumbai. However, the same as the guy in Agra, we were only taken to high end
places. I said no several times to being taken to a jewelry store, but she
insisted. It was very small and narrow and had about 6 small stools right up to
the jewelry case. It was some of the ugliest jewelry I have ever seen. I said I
just want inexpensive trinkets and she said later she would take me to a craft
market. She said on the way out “you don’t like jewelry?”
The
next stop was very interesting. Crawford Market is where the locals go to buy
fruits, vegetables, spices and just about anything they may need. Great for
photo ops. She seemed perturbed we didn’t buy spices. I would have loved to
have bought them, but by the time we get settled in somewhere in Panama where
we can cook again, I figured they would be stale.
dabbawalas deliver food to offices
Then we
went to the “craft market” which turned out to be another high end store.
(obviously she gets commission of anything we buy at these places). They did
have some token trinkets, so despite the high prices I bought a magnet of the
Gateway to India and a key chain that I can convert to a x-mas ornament and a
cow figurine. Of course they had lots of clothes, scarves and silk rugs. I had
seen a very nice small replica of the Taj at the airport in Mangalore and
didn’t buy it because I was sure I could pick one up near the Taj Mahal. So, I
was looking for the same thing here (since the guide in Agra wouldn’t let me
shop at the street vendors), but she definitely was NOT going to take me
anywhere affordable. I also had wanted to buy a token saree for the Bollywood
deck party the next night since we were told aboard the ship that there are
places to buy them for like $15 to $20. Everything I saw was waaay more
expensive and for something you would never wear again that would be all I
would want to throw away. ARGH!!!!
Our
next stop was to see the Gateway of India for some photo ops. You can see the
Taj Mahal Hotel from there as well. We walked to it and went inside to meet our
evening guide. He was to take us to dinner and whatever else we wanted to do. We
spent some time at the hotel (you may remember it made world news when it was
bombed a few years back). It really is beautiful! Since we ate lunch so late we
really weren’t hungry for dinner unless we ate something light. The guide
didn’t really have any suggestions. He asked if there was anything else we
wanted to shop for and I explained I didn’t want to go to any more high end
stores that I just wanted some inexpensive trinkets. He then drives us to
another high end shop that didn’t have anything small.
Gate of India
Taj Mahal Hotel
inside the Taj Mahal Hotel
I finally just gave up on getting what I
wanted as it seemed he really wasn’t going to take us anywhere else and he said
it’s too early for dinner and then he tried to tell us we had to be back on
board by 8:00 (it was 11:30 all aboard). So, we just gave up and told him to
take us back to the ship. We were on board by about 6:00 and we showered and
went up and ate at the buffet. We could have taken a cab back to town, but
since we had a tour group here I hadn’t researched where to shop etc. (or grab
a meal), we just went to the evening show on board the ship.
The
show was very enjoyable. It was a gentleman from Paraguay that played the harp.
Then, since we had had so little sleep over the past couple of days, we went to
bed!
At the
show and at dinner we talked to Jeff & Julie’s group that did an
independent city tour that day and they had the same frustrations with no
flexibility with the tour and where they went.
Thank
goodness for 3 sea days before 3 more port days.
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