Jeremy's Cool Travel Blog: Incredible Mumbai! pt. 2

Thursday, January 9

Much of the past three days were spent attempting to reserve a train ticket from Mumbai to Goa. What I quickly learned was that booking trains in India is an ordeal in itself. Not only do trains sell out fast, but booking is further complicated by the fact that the government-run online ticket booking service - the IRCTC - doesn't accept foreign credit cards. One popular payment solution for foreigners is to use a third party travel site called Cleartrip. To book a train with Cleartrip, you have to first create a profile on the IRCTC site and then a second profile with Cleartrip. Both of these procedures require submitting an Indian phone number (which I have), to which you are sent an access code via SMS. These profiles are then linked, allowing you to book via Cleartrip. To pay with a foreign credit card, Cleartrip also requires you to email a scanned copy of your passport. Shortly after, you receive another access code which you must link to your profile. Only then can you proceed with booking and paying for tickets online with a foreign credit card.

As you can imagine, I had some choice words for the IRCTC and Cleartrip as I worked through this process. Thankfully there are some good sites online to guide you through the many steps, and to explain the various classes of tickets (e.g. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class with AC; sleeper class; general class).

I started this process on Tuesday, but it wasn't until Thursday that I was fully registered with Cleartrip and able to confirm - surprise! - that no more tickets were available for any of the trains to Goa for the next few days. Unwilling to take an overnight bus, I opted for a direct flight on Saturday, which would get me to Goa in a fraction of the time and cost around $100. The best part was that it only took me 10 minutes to find and reserve this flight. So for now, mange d'la marde, IRCTC.

When not working my way through the train reservation process, I spent the past couple of days pretty close to home. It was frustrating not to know when I'd be leaving Mumbai and to waste so much time on what should be an easy process. But without any other choice, I tried to make the best of the situation - which, as it turns out, involved a lot of eating.

Dolly had promised to teach me to cook a Punjabi-style chicken curry. In preparation, I purchased the required ingredients at the nearby market and on Wednesday afternoon we got down to it. She'll tell you otherwise, but Dolly did all of the cooking, while I observed and took notes. It was amazing to smell the powerful aroma of the dry herbs and spices (i.e. cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and pepper) as they cooked before we added the other ingredients. The chicken turned out great and I'm excited to make this when I'm back in Toronto.

The gastronomy continued that evening following my second roof-top yoga class with Tanvi. I had been invited to dinner at her apartment, where she lives with her parents and her sister, Purva. Tanvi's family is super nice and I was grateful for the invitation to their home. The dinner itself included chicken, rice, potatoes, pickled chilies and carrots; it was simply fantastic. For dessert there were sweets and paan, a pungent digestive made with betel leaves wrapped around various spices and/or tobacco (see here). For the uninitiated, paan has an intense flavour that gets up into your sinuses and the family watched me intently as I chewed it. I'm not sure if I liked it (the experience reminded me of the first time I tried scotch), but I've never had anything like it and I've commited to trying it again (which will be easy, as there are paan vendors everywhere).

The next morning I had to check out of Dolly's apartment, as she had another Airbnb guest coming at noon. Given that I was not leaving town until Saturday, Dolly was kind enough to put me in contact with her sister who owns a small makeup studio in Bandra, and which she occasionally rents out to travellers for a few days at a time (see here). As luck would have it, the studio was free. I was happy to be staying here because I was already familiar with the area and it was close to everything. But the best part was that the studio was hidden in a maze of small residential sidestreets and walkways that suddenly became very quiet once you were away from the main street. In this little village I met many nice residents, many cats, and a few goats and chickens. The neighbour's rooster woke me up every morning and the street vendors followed shortly behind him. The only thing I didn't like was that the rats came out in the streets after dark. And these are big mofos! That night I came home around midnight and found two guys rolling a joint on my doorstep. I got to chatting with them and asked how there could be so many rats around with all of the cats in the neighbourhood. I was told that the rats are too big for the cats to handle! Thankfully my studio was very clean and vermin-free, but it was slighly unnerving to hear the rats squealing in the alley outside my door. For the rest of my stay, when walking out at night I kept telling myself "Pretend they're squirrels. Squirrels are like cute rats with furry tails, right?"

Random note: One time while walking through the village to my apartment I passed an old lady hanging out by the window of her apartment with Johnny Cash blaring from her stereo. Priceless.

Friday, January 10

Settled into my new apartment and with my flight confirmed for Saturday, my day was completely free to enjoy as I pleased. I met with Dolly briefly in the morning to say goodbye and then met Reema at Bandra station to accompany her downtown on her way to work.

Chowpatty beach

I spent the begining of the afternoon strolling the busy promenade along Marine Drive and up to Chowpatty beach. Similar to other sea-side promenades in the city, this one is popular with young lovers, tourists, and local visitors. Several Indian tourists to Mumbai asked to have their photo taken with me (and the day before a group of teenage girls swarmed me to chat, which was quite funny). I don't mind, but it is a bit weird. I would never do the same with somebody here unless I was first engaged in a conversation with them or something. Anyways, after a delicious and ridiculously cheap lunch at Chowpatty, I headead west to the bustling Bhuleshwar market, where I was in search of a shelter for 300 homeless cows - the Bombay Panjrapole, founded in the 18th century. In the end, I got within 50m of the shelter, but never actually found it. Everyone I asked pointed me to this or that alley, but none of them got me to the shelter (though I did see several cows wandering the streets). By 4:00 I gave up and grabbed a cab home.

I made plans to have dinner with Reema later that evening. She was planning to work late so in the interim I bought a few beers and read on the steps of my Bandra apartment. In doing so I met many of my neighbours (not to mention a few chickens and goats), as well as one lady who feeds the neighbourhood cats a mixture of rice and fish broth. Before I even spotted her, about 20 cats ran by me in anticipation of their daily dinner.

Out for dinner w/ Reema and friends

At 10:00 I met Reema and two of her friends at a trendy Indian restaurant in Pali Market. After dinner, I went for another drink with one of the girls, Zoya, to a nearby bar before heading home. One thing to remember is that if you ask someone to have a drink with you at a bar, avoid spending all of your cash at dinner, finding yourself without your debit or credit card, and then having to rely on that person to pay for your cab and drink. Classy!

Anyway, the night was an excellent conclusion to my six-day sojurn in Mumbai. I had such a good time that I plan to return here for at least a weekend before heading up to northern India in February. If nothing else, I'll be happy to spend some more time with the great people that I met during my stay.

Some observations from the past week:

Mumbai was not as overwhelming as I expected it to be. It makes New York City seem tame, but it wasn't long before I got into the rhythm of things. That said, the city is like one long, constant horn honking ...and honking and honking. But here it doesn't necessarily mean the drivers are mad; drivers use their horns when passing or to draw attention to themselves.
Food and transportation (cabs and trains) are incredibly cheap. A cab ride that would cost $15 in Toronto would be no more than $3 in Mumbai, and you can eat a very good meal for the same price or less. And the street food here is amazing. These guys would make a killing in Toronto.
Like in Greece, there are dogs all over Mumbai, but they're all sleeping. All of them, all the time.
Many toilets here are of the Western style, but you don't always get toilet paper. You do always get a small pail or type of spray hose with which you can wash yourself. I'm proud to say that I've converted to this method and am no longer dependent on the ol' TP. For those interested, there is a lot of information on the internet describing this method.
Cricket: played everywhere, in parks, on the beach, etc.
I forgot this from the time I spent in Nigeria, but the state of low-wage service jobs here means that bartender in, say, a grungy rock n' roll bar will not be a grungy rock n' roll type dude. He'll be a regular joe just trying to make a living any way he can. The only place I visited where the servers match the intended vibe of the establishment was Starbucks. This is not a dig on any of these people; it's just the way it is.
In movie theatres, the national anthem of India is played before the main feature and everyone stands up. Very dramatic anti-smoking ads are also played.
The community in the small shanties I passed through seems to be very tight and communal. People work together to ensure that food is prepared, washing of clothes is done, children are cared for, etc. In my estimation, this far overshadows their lack of wealth or material possessions and is a better way of doing things than our individualistic mode of life back home.
The famous Indian head wobble is confusing at first (i.e. is she saying yes, no, or what?), but I'm starting to get the hang of it and even use it myself!