Day Two:
February 8, 2005: Bombay
The Rough Guide described the Hotel Godwin as a "top-class three-star" in the old tourist district of Colaba in southern Bombay. Unfortunately, "top-class three-star" turns out here to mean "seedy metropolitan residence hotel."
I got in around one a.m. on Monday, February 7th. Ethan had arrived half an hour before me, from his week doing business in Bangalore. Apparently they had booked us into a single room with a twin bed; he groused, so they moved us into what was apparently the only double they had -- number six, the Peacock room.
We think it used to be a bar, because it was large and oddly-shaped, with a bar at one end of the room and a stained glass window behind it. That's pretty much the only good thing I can say for our room at the Godwin. In the middle of the floor was a double bed; adjacent, a bathroom with "western amenities" (translation: a European-style toilet, thank heavens, but a shower that consisted of a showerhead on the wall in the corner, and cement floor throughout). The room was damp and musty; we think there may have been fleas.
Waking up there wasn't exactly the best way to begin our India experience, but after scrounging breakfast there, we hit the streets.
Bombay (technically known as Mumbai now, though all of our Indian friends call it by its old name, and now that I know more about the Maharashtra-for-the-Maharashtrians movement that resulted in the name change, I do too) is enormous. We focused on walking a few quarters of south Bombay, e.g. old parts of town. First we walked to Gateway of India, the enormous Arc-de-Triomphe-style arch near the southern tip of the city.
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It was built to commemorate the visit of King George and Queen Mary, though our guidebook tells us it wasn't completed in time so the visiting monarchs saw a pasteboard mockup! It's also the archway through which the English officially exited the country when they left after Partition. Nearby, little children tried to press flower garlands on us so we would make offerings at their temple.
That day I saw my first cow, which was nosing some trash on the sidewalk. It made me giggle.
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Other highlights: seeing a snake-charmer by the seaside. Drinking a green coconut, overlooking a clutch of little boats, near the Gateway. Everywhere sellers of roasted nuts and paan (betel nut and herbs, meant for chewing, wrapped in leaves). Cobblers sitting on blankets on the sidewalk. Buying a Buddhist comic book at a religious-books store.
After lunch we visited Keneseth Eliyahu synagogue
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(I blogged about that experience; you can read that post here) and then wandered the grounds of Mumbai University, all stone and spires and quads, like Oxbridge magically transported to India (though the palm trees and tropical birds break the illusion).
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We found out as we left that photography is prohibited there -- I'm glad they didn't catch us shooting! We paused for a while to watch a pickup cricket game on a dusty quad, traffic whizzing by on all sides.
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Then we took a cab to Victoria Terminal to marvel at the chaos and commotion, people camped out and sleeping and waiting for trains, and its absurd architecture, all crenellated towers and gargoyles, like St. Pancras' station in London gone into serious overdrive.
From there, we walked for about two hours through the markets north of the station. There's an overpass now over Mohammed Ali street (the main throughway of the Muslim quarter), and under the overpass a bazaar runs constantly; that's what we walked. Fabric, dresses, shirts, sandals, custom-blended perfume, pirated cds. On the streets, cars and motorcycles and bicycles jockeyed for position alongside pedestrians, beggars, bulls pulling wooden carts.
That night we dined at Copper Kettle, a swank joint in the northern neighborhood of Worli, with blogger-friends Rajesh Jain and Dina Mehta (plus her husband Hemat, not a blogger but an excellent guy nonetheless -- not shown, because he was the one taking the photo). The place was top-notch: silk on the tables, old brass implements on the walls, two chefs cooking and tossing roti dough behind a wall of glass at the back of the room. The food was also fantastic. (A favorite was something called "butter chicken," similar to chicken tikka masala but richer and more tangy.)
Our friends pointed out that we were seeing a very particular slice of Bombay: that new Bombay has a very different feel from the old neighborhoods we were seeing. They offered travel advice. We had a fantastic evening, talking about everything under the sun.
What a great way to start our trip.
Or, back to the index.
