Incredible India - Mumbai

Incredible India: thats what the sign on the Cruise Terminal in Mumbai said on our arrival.

As you can see its a run down building, lacking any maintenance and typical of 99 % of the buildings in Mumbai.

Up until 1947   Mumbai was controlled from Britain and the beautifully designed and constructed buildings are mostly fallen down and neglected that would be condemned in any other country in the world.

What a beautiful building screaming for some renovation!

But this massive City of 21 million almost the whole total of inhabitants in Oz has a mystical side to it.

The mass of people, the huge traffic jams, the filth and poverty all go to make it such a fascinating place to visit.

Little kids some as young as 3 years old begging or selling cheap touristy items all dirty with filthy clothes just makes you wonder what is happening.

We did a Highlights of Bombay tour which gave us a very small outlook to Mumbai, initially to a Hindu temple which was totally different to all the Mosques we’d been used to.

There were people praying in all types of modes, lying on the floor and there was even a wedding happening.

Drove on along the huge beach front that stretches for miles, but no-one swims there because the water is too polluted, it is used mainly for leisure or a lot of meetings, for instance they are having a festival there in Feb. where there will be over 500,000 people in attendance. Wow.

Beyond the beach is the area where all the rich live and even there the buildings were all dilapidated and run down. Supposedly, the interiors are fantastic. We saw a 27 story building worth 2 billion dollars and owned by a family who controls all the supermarkets in India.

believe it or not a 27 floor private residence.

Then onto a museum which was housed in a beautifully designed building, quite good although we didn’t have enough time there.

The highlight was definitely the Gateway to India tower and the Taj Palace Hotel a remarkable building that is well known. we ended up back at the ship about 2 hours late due mainly to the security at the pier and the traffic we were held up in.

 Gateway to India

Taj Palace Hotel where over 100 people killed in terrorist attack some tears ago.

Had a brief rest before we took off on a tour called the Bombay at Night.

To see the number of people at night in the market we walked through was unbelievable, still hundreds of little kids, begging or hanging off some tourist selling cheap jewelry.

Indians have the most outrageous weddings we actually witnessed quite a few and tried to take some photos but their lights were just too bright to get a good shot. There weddings can last for several days and sometimes have 5000 people there.

 Cheeky buggers!

A poor picture of a wedding in process.

The disaster of the night was a special viewing of a Bollywood Movie which would have been okay except it was in Indian with no English sub titles, so no-one knew what was happening.

After that we were taken to the Inter continental Hotels top deck where we sat around the pool and had a few drinks before arriving back at the ship just before midnight. Big day in the Incredible City of Mumbai.