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January 5-9, 1999

The twenty hour train ride to Mumbai was pretty uneventful. We had 3 seats to ourselves, these became a three-tiered bunk bed at night. If the train ride can be described as uneventful, the arrival in Mumbai can only be described as "the event." We arrived at the farthest, northern tip of the city. We tried to take a local train, but when it pulled in hundreds of people got off and on the car, unpacking and re-packing in seconds. People were spilling out the doors, and clinging to the car for dear life as the train sped away, with us still on the platform staring at the train in disbelief. It was a futile effort, and we resolved to take a taxi to the hotel, which was recommended to us by Amit's friend, our Mumbai contact.

The Eshwar Hotel was, of course, full, but they recommended another possibility, and with no other readily apparent options, we headed off blindly to this new destination. We jumped into another cab and a conversation with the driver ensued. It went something like this…

Cabby: "Why do you want to go there? It’s too expensive!"
Us (totally lost, overwhelmed and tired): "Uhhhh, I don't know..."
Cabby: "I can take you to a beautiful hotel very clean and cheap!"
Us: "Well...?"
Cabby: "If you don't like it, you don't have to pay me anything!"
Us: "How much for the ride?"
Cabby: "Only 400 rupees!"
Us: "No way dude!"
Cabby: "Only if you like the hotel. I'm providing a service."
Us: (sigh...) "Okay just take us!"
Cabby: "No Problem."

Driving through the streets of Mumbai is more like playing a video game than experiencing reality. The cabs go full speed, swerving in and out of traffic, preferring to downshift than break, and the drivers are not sheepish about heading into oncoming traffic. When our driver pulled up to a dump, we told him so. We then asked to be taken to Collaba, the main tourist area. He started to complain about how long this trip was taking. We told him if he didn't like it we could get out, and not pay him anything, like he had promised. In the end, he took us to a nice, clean place that cost the exact same as the place we originally wanted to go. Oh well, that's India!

On the upside, we got a pretty decent dinner that night (our best thali in weeks), and found some other travelers who Mike had met in Katmandu at the Boogie Woogie bar with Shree. We all went and hung out at a local club called Leopolds. We spent the rest of our time either in front of a computer or waiting in lines for our train ticket out of here. We have found Mumbai, to our surprise, to be a welcome change from the travels in rural India. It is the most westernized place we have been, and with 14 million other people, we are just cogs on the wheel. We have been left to walk the streets, talk to each other, and look at our map without being harassed, asked for a pen, or what country we're from. We even got to eat at McDonalds (lamb-burgers and the Maharajah Mac of course). We haven't figured out why, but there are no cows wandering the streets of Mumbai (maybe they aren't lamb-burgers after all?). The streets are cleaner than almost anywhere else we have been, possibly due to the lack of cows, but more likely it's because it is the first place we've been with public trash cans on the streets!