Category: Mumbai and Delhi

We flew from Mumbai to Delhi on Saturday, January 6th and arrived at our hotel mid afternoon. What we had seen on the drive from the airport was quite different from Mumbai. The traffic was still terrible but the roads were tree-lined, the chowks (traffic circles) were well manicured but the air pollution was terrible. Our eyes were burning after a very short time and I could feel it in my nose. I felt like I was catching a cold. As we progressed along the tree lined boulevards and neared our hotel we crossed a bridge and all semblance of civilization seemed to be left behind. The roads became more congested, bicycle rickshaws were everywhere where before there were none and the poverty of India stood up and said hello with beggars knocking on our car windows, snot nosed little children doing acrobatics at the traffic lights and young girls with tiny babes in their arms begging forlornly, hand to mouth gestures asking for food money. You really have no choice but to try to ignore it as difficult and emotionally wrenching as it can sometimes be. There are between 20-30 million, yes million people in Delhi and there is no way you can even begin to help them all. It’s tough but you have to ignore it.

We arrived to our hotel, Hotel Broadway, built in 1956 and it stands out amongst the dirt and filth in the area. Obviously things really changed between then and now. I don’t think we could have stayed at a worse location. The hotel is very good, clean, great staff, nice rooms, a fantastic Rajasthani restaurant attached, (really amazing food) but is surrounded by down and out alcoholics, filth, endless traffic and the stench of urine as you take a leisurely stroll along the sidewalk making sure not to get hit by a motorcycle driving on the sidewalk. A lovely place on a crisp winters morn, not, but we will stay here again because the hotel is nice and taxis or tuk tuks are cheap and the price is right and this is India.

Sunday we planned on doing some sight-seeing, maybe try to get some maps and stuff and enjoy the day. After realizing it was Sunday the sightseeing portion was nixed. Weekends, especially Sundays are the busiest times to visit historical monuments, parks and temples so we “took a tuk tuk” to Connaught Place, a large circular shopping district full of chain stores, bars and restaurants and decided to try to find a legitimate travel agency. We’re told it is very difficult to find one as most are fly-by-night operations employing touts to lure you in and then never delivering on their promises or what you paid for. With that in mind we stopped in at ” Fly By Night Travel and Trickery” and sat down with Mr. Ashok (call me “Ash”) Kumar, a devout Muslim (he must be trustworthy no?) and asked for his opinions on our Rajasthan travel ideas. Great! Perfect! Easy to do! Yes of course we’re insured, references?, Facebook, website etc. We left there feeling ready to hand over 150,000 rupees, 70% up front, the remainder on our return. Must be legit. Well we researched him and his travel agency high and low and found one website connected to another to another (his website didn’t work) with the last entries in 2010, two reviews, one rating a “0” the other a “5” (probably from his cousin). We were told by the Manager at our hotel that he could help us so today we worked out a plan. But first, our Delhi sightseeing that we did yesterday.

First stop, Humayan’s Tomb. A large preserved area built for the Emperor Humayan in the mid 16th century by his Persian born wife Haji Begum and is thought to be the inspiration for the Taj Mahal which it predates by 60 years. Along with the tomb of Humayan there are 100 other tombs giving the area the name “Tomb of the Moguls”.  There a several other impressive tombs and associated mosques in the large area encompassing the large heritage site, the first being Isa Khan’s Tomb and Mosque.

Isa Kahn Tomb

The tombs

Isa Khan Mosque

The next site in the area was Afsarwaia Tomb and Mosque.

Thentomb

Inside the Mosque

Insidemthe tomb

The Mosque

The finale, Humayan’s Tomb.

Humayan’s Tomb

His tomb in the distance

His tomb up close

His friends tombs?

We were getting hungry and wanted to take some tomb out, oh never mind. We hopped back in our ride and headed over to Lodi Gardens. Originally named after Lady Willingdon who had two villages cleared in 1931 in order to landscape the area and make a park to remind her of her home (guess where?), it was later renamed after the 15th century Lodi-era tombs the gardens contain.

Tomb of Muhammad Shaw

Bada Gumbad Complex

Bada Gumbad

Bada Gumbad

Bada Gumbad

We’ll be back in Delhi the end of January. There are many more sites to see so we’ll see what we can when we return from Rajasthan. Today was a trip finalization, packing and lunch at McDonald’s day ( no beef here). Tomorrow we set off to Rajasthan.

We flew into Mumbai from Goa on Wednesday, January 3rd to the prospect of not being able to get transport to our hotel, about 45 km’s away in Colaba, part of Old Mumbai in the south. Over several days in Mumbai thousands of Dalits had hit the streets causing the closure of major arterial highways, the Metro, trains and public transportation. The protests were against the violence and discrimination they say they face everyday and against the recent violence that claimed the life of a young man during caste clashes near the city of Pune. Dalit, meaning “oppressed” in Sanskrit is the term mostly used for the castes in India that are described as the “Untouchables”. There are over 200 million and many suffer social deprivation and economic exclusion. Fortunately things had cooled down by the time our flight arrived so we were able to get a taxi and safely make our way to our hotel.

We had two days to explore Mumbai before flying to Delhi and we made almost every minute count. On Thursday we covered a huge area taking in the Gateway of India, built on the waterfront in 1924 to commemorate the landing of King George V and Queen Mary on their visit to India in 1911 and used as the exit point in 1948 for the last British troops to leave India following the countries independence in 1947, signalling the end of British rule. From there we wandered next door along the waterfront taking in the sights of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel where in 2008 the hotel was one of 12 Mumbai terrorist targets of the Pakistan based Laskar-eTaiba Islamic terrorist organization.

Gateway to India

Taj Mahal Palace

View from the Gateway

We quickly walked past and made our way to the hustle and bustle of the Colaba Street Market, a labyrinth of narrow congested semi streets and alleyways where everything imaginable was available and, we were the only foreigners there which is just how we like it.

Next stop was Sassoon Dock with the original plan to visit the Sassoon Dock Art Project but this was not to be. It closed December 31st to make way for a very large fisherman dock rehabilitation and improvement project but we were definitely not let down. The dock is still one of the oldest functioning fisherman docks in Mumbai and one of the largest fish markets in the city.  The initial smell was, well, smelly but after a very short period of time you get used to it. We arrived later in the morning so missed some of the larger fish being processed but we were met with an amazing sight of many groups of primarily women sitting on their haunches on the wet concrete floor hand peeling giant mounds of fresh shrimp of varying size. It was an amazing sight to behold.

Finally, a long walk back along Colaba Causeway, a great place for sidewalk shopping, car and rickshaw and cow dung dodging, school children and finally a late lunch at Pa Pa Ya, a little Asian Fusion restaurant right next door to our hotel. Phew!  Dinner was low-key at the “Happening” Colaba Social Restaurant, also right next door on the other side of our hotel.

Our second and final day before departing Mumbai was spent walking great distances once again. This time we headed north of our hotel and began our day at the   Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, better know as the Indian National Museum. We spent three hours viewing extraordinary history of India represented by historical art pieces, textiles, carvings, paintings and all things histo-artsy. (my word).

The National Museum

A replica of the reclining Buddha in Dumbala, Sri Lanka

Elephant carriage

Ceremonial apron and headdress made from human bone

Following the museum we continued north to the famous Flora Fountain which was unfortunately cordoned off and covered due to the construction of a new Metro station so we veered west and hit the ocean side, a few km’s south of the famous Chowpatty Beach, made famous by the late Peter Sellers movie “I left my patatty on Chowpatty”.

Sore feet and a little pooped we took a tuk tuk back to our hotel and headed over to the legendary Leopold Cafe (Leopold’s was also a terrorist target in the 2008 attacks in Mumbai) where we hoped to enjoy a reasonably priced beer or two and have something to eat. It was not to be. We had two 650 ml bottles of Budweiser of all things. Total in CAD, $20.00 so we blew that place in a hurry, had a beer at a fish and chips place for 1/3 the cost and then had some great appetizers and much more affordable drinks at Havana’s, a very cool bar at the Gordon Hotel and then crashed with sore feet, soot filled nostrils and the knowledge that the air and traffic will only be worse, much worse at our next stop, Delhi.