Mumbai

"Mumbai is the most vibrant and lively city of all!" "This is the place I would choose to live." "You will love it!"

After the beauty and calm of Jaipur, we arrived in Mumbai in the late morning. The drive from the domestic (more to that later) airport to our hotel didn't take long but on that 20-minute-trip, I was everything but impressed. Not repulsed either, don't get me wrong, but my first impression was "meh". Admittedly, the fact that I was still a bit ill might have played a role but anyway. The area we had chosen was Juhu, yes, the one with the beach by the same name. And since said beach was no more than a couple hundred metres away from our temporary home, we decided to pay it a visit (after a nap on my and a quick excursion on M.'s part). I've said it before and I'll say it again: I can never be unhappy by the sea, so that is a definite plus for Mumbai. People had warned me about the beaches, so I was pleasantly surprised by the fine sand and the relative cleanliness of Juhu beach (I noticed the black streaks on my feet only later..). Not having had any problems or weird reactions to food so far, we went right away for one of several snack places. Dahi puri (as good as the best I've ever had, in that restaurant in Mysore last year - Ha., if you're reading this, do you remember?), dosa and the cutest pizza I had seen so far. Not much more to do that evening so we turned in after our little walk.

The next day was intended for some touristy sight seeing: Gateway of India, Taj Hotel, Victoria Station.. And that morning, we found out how Mumbai works: We caught an auto, the driver spoke reasonable English, a fact that should not be taken for granted in this city, so we told him that we wanted to go from Juhu to the Gateway of India (you might want to look that up on a map). No, he shook his head, he could take us to Bandra where we should hail a taxi. Confused, we agreed to this suggestion and noticed further along the way that there were really no autos going beyond Bandra. Oh, one more thing in favour of Mumbai: You don't have to put a gun to a driver's head to make them switch on the meter, no, they would do it of their own accord. "In Mumbai, no one has the time to negotiate fares" is what I have later been told, hence a working meter seems to be mandatory. 
The Gateway was as impressive as expected, as was the number of flying hawkers around the place - luckily I have the gift of selective blindness. We turned around and then an idea struck us: "Let's be daring and have a cup of tea at the Taj hotel!". No sooner said than done, we walked in, were received very friendly and pointed to the requested place. Before settling down, we took a little walk (and a number of photos) through the hotel, admired it from top to bottom and finally found ourselves a nice little table. The tea turned into a meal and decadently happy, we left the place some time later.

"You should go to Colaba. It's the old Bombay, the Southend of the city. Victorian architecture." As M. had other plans for our third day here, I headed for Colaba on my own, the usual way: hailing an auto in Juhu and switching to a cab in Bandra. At the main road where the taxi had spit me out, Colaba didn't seem very special. Shopping stalls lining it on both sides, offering the same things as everywhere and since I don't care much for shopping anyway, I didn't even give them a second glance before I turned left. And then right. And left again. The cityscape had changed a bit here. The Victorian houses were present, displaying a neglected charm which gave reason to the thought that nothing had been done to maintain them since the time the British had left.
After a couple more turns, I found myself on a market. Not one of those fancy clothes-shoes-jewellery markets but a food market: fruits, vegetables and fish in various stages of freshness. 
I kept walking and either I took a wrong turn somewhere or the market simply turned into a residential area with houses that were barely two metres apart. But except for a few children waving and yelling an enthusiastic "Helloooo!" at me - and that's something else I like about Mumbai: people's 'I don't give a damn' attitude - nobody really took notice of my presence, nobody stared, pointed or looked at me disapprovingly. When I came back to the main road, I decided to walk the other side of Colaba as well. Neat three-storey houses, well kept Victorian building, guys playing cricket on the street, large cars standing in freshly swept driveways. 
So here it happened; Colaba did what the rest of the city couldn't manage: It made me fall in love with Mumbai.
In the evening, I caught up with M. and her "son" V. V. is not actually related but a common online friend of ours from several years ago that she decided to e-adopt one day. We got to meet his pretty wife P., his parents (I'm particularly fond of his mum and I think that was mutual, she would be a good incentive for me to improve my Hindi) and eventually his brother.

Their plan for the following  day - our last complete one in Mumbai - was to spend some more time together, the young couple and M., and mine to visit my friend H. at her college. H. is a girl that I've met online when she was an ambitious 15-year-old schoolgirl. Now she is 20 and on her way to becoming a doctor. She is still ambitious, has learned to play with the cards life is dealing her and will get very far one day. H. lives in Navi Mumbai which judging by the time it took to get there (yes, I could have checked a map too) must be on the opposite side of town. Her college was just preparing for a festival but nevertheless I got a glimpse, she introduced me to a few of her teachers and gave me a general tour of her department. (By the way, some of you might remember my yearning for silver anklets since last year. And probably by telepathy, H. had picked exactly that as "an exciting gift" for me: a pair of silver anklets that make a noise, yay!!) After that, we both discovered an unknown to her as well as me part of the city: Dadar. A friend recommended that I'd have a look at the Portuguese church, a sacral building with an in every aspect very unusual architecture and the Five Gardens, five small parks that would be a nice place to hang out and play if you live in the area.
The wondrous finale of our day together was a visit to a - not her, as originally planned, but still - Gurdwara (Sikh temple). H. introduced us (because by then M. had joined us, too) to her religion, giving us an in-depth insight into its customs and conventions.

Oh and if you think that people are not genuine just because you met them on some chat or social networking site and not in "real life" first, I have to tell you that you're wrong. If you hit it off with someone online, chances are good that this will be the case at a "real" meeting as well. The proof in this story: H., V., K. and R., to name just a few.

Our flight to Hyderabad the next day was scheduled for the early afternoon, enough time for one last visit to the beach (sigh) which as it turned out, was even closer than I thought. 
Oh yea, the flight. Mumbai has two airports, a domestic and an international one. Since our next flight was going to Hyderabad, it seemed only logical that we would leave from the domestic airport, so that's what we told the driver. He dropped us and our constantly increasing luggage there. I sat on a bench inside the building, M. went out for a smoke and returned coughing hectically a few minutes later with the information that our flight only had a stop-over in Hyderabad before leaving the country. Hence our destination would be the international airport - argh! After a short but intense debate, we embarked another taxi and reached the correct airport on time, heading for the place of our next adventure, the City of pearls.