The Nehru Centre and surrounding gardens

Originally uploaded by neilmadhvani.

The food here is just wonderful and so affordable too! Mumbai, being the eclectic mix of cultures that it is from all across India, offers a wide range of different types of cuisine. This evening we went to a really amazing place, serving North-West Frontier (Punjabi, Rajasthani, Gujarati) style food – it’s called the Jewel of India and is definitely one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten at. In London, I’d expect to have to pay around £100 a head for this kind of luxury – the service is outstanding. Here we’re looking at under £10 a head! Mmmmm did I mention the food here is just great? And there’s so much choice too – even lots of international food such as Thai, Chinese, Italian etc.

We saw a lot of other stuff today, including the Nehru Planetarium which has an excellent show with a dome screen and reclining seats – far better than than the London Planetarium. We visited Malabar Hill too, which is one of the poshest areas in Mumbai and is mainly dominated by the Parsi community. There are some beautiful hanging gardens, and the Tower of Silence is there too. In case you’re wondering what that is, it’s the place where Parsi people who have passed on are placed to rest. As part of their culture, the body is not cremated or buried – instead, it is put in the tower and left as food for vultures.

Tomorrow morning we fly to Bangalore – and hopefully a new adventure will begin!

I’ve added some more photos to my Flickr gallery at http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilmadhvani.

Dhoby Ghaut

Originally uploaded by neilmadhvani.

It seems that it’s been ages since my last post! We spent 6 hrs on the road yesterday – the journey to Nashik (Which is a fairly prosperous town north-east of Mumbai) takes about 4 hours, followed by a further 2 hours to Shirdi. Shirdi is a very small village that gets around 50,000 visitors a day, due to the temple of Shirdi Sai Baba, a saint who lived there about 100 years ago. The temple itself is beautiful, though we weren’t allowed to take cameras inside Of course, being a place that attracts so many visitors, there’s no escaping the myriad of people offering “VIP” entrance to the temple and plenty of other money-making scams.

I was quite amazed by the hotel we stayed in (Sun n Sand), given that it is in a village with very little around for miles. It has its own power generator and desalination unit, as well as some very comfortable rooms, a games room, fitness centre and nice gardens too. No internet facilities tho – bah! Maybe I am expecting too much here

One of the things that surprised me during our journey was the number of mobile phone masts everywhere. Even in villages with virtually no other infrastructure, there was at least one base station! And the mobile phone companies seem to be using every opportunity to promote their services, including advertising on the side of village huts! Anyway, it’s great that there is now at least a good telephone network here – a lot of these areas haven’t got access to landlines, and probably won’t for a good few years to come. Mobile phones are the way by which they conduct their daily business, and are becoming a real lifeline for the villagers.

Back in Mumbai we stopped by the city’s main dhobi ghaut (laundry facility)! Here thousands of clothes each day are washed and beaten dry – it’s amazing how many clothes are being washed at the same time – I wonder how they avoid getting them all mixed up and returned to the wrong people!

That’s about all for now – I’ve added some photos taken during the road trip, and a few from Mumbai too – including one of McDonalds, which is really taking off here, but with a twist. They have loads of vegetarian items – the Crispy Chinese burger is absolutely fantastic and meals (burger + fries + drink) are all under £1.50!

A thirsty monkey

Originally uploaded by neilmadhvani.

As many of you know, despite being of Indian origin this is my first trip to India – in fact it’s my dad’s first trip too (perhaps more shocking)! My parents were born in East Africa, though their parents were from Gujarat (a state that is north-west of Mumbai). This kind of makes the whole trip to India extremely exciting – I was definitely expecting a culture shock, and I’ve most definitely been well provided for in that regard!

Today we started off by visiting a Hindu temple (Siddhivinayaka) and I think it was at that point that I realised more than ever that I’m most definitely a “foreigner” in India, despite being of Indian origin. Having a great big camera around my neck can’t help, and whilst I can understand most Hindi, I can hardly speak it at all – I get the words mixed up with Gujarati which is my mother tongue. As a result of being a foreigner here, I find myself constantly approached by people trying to sell me garlands, flowers to offer to God and numerous other things – and these people really don’t want to take no for an answer. I really don’t appreciate the constant pestering Also I’m not a fan of rituals, so buying flowers like that to offer to God isn’t my thing – in my opinion it would be more useful if one were to donate the same money to charity instead.

Another annoyance was at Elephanta Island which we got to via a 1 hr boat ride from Mumbai. When you enter the island everyone (locals and foreigners) are charged a tourist tax of Rs 5 (around 6.5p) and then there’s loads of stairs to climb where one is greeted by another ticket office. At this point you find that locals are charged Rs 10 (around 13p) whereas foreigners pay 25 times this rate – Rs 250! I can certainly understand why the rate for foreign citizens should be a little higher, but any more than 5 times the rate is beyond a joke Anyway, on a fairly good note, we actually managed to blag entry on the local rate in the end, though it certainly wasn’t easy.

On my Flickr photo gallery, I’ve got some good pictures of monkeys on the Island – the one drinking from a bottle of water is particularly amusing. He unscrewed the top off the bottle and starting drinking just as we might do! The highlight of the day was a trip to Mahatma Gandhi’s old house which has been converted in to a museum. The exhibits are really well presented – Gandhi’s non-violent struggle to bring an end to colonial rule in India is truly inspiring.

Tomorrow it’s on to tha Maharashtrian towns of Nasik and Shirdi, where we will be staying one night.

Gateway of India

Originally uploaded by neilmadhvani.

Felt a bit tired this morning as I didn’t manage to get that much sleep on the plane here (I blame the amazing video on demand service!)… but the buffet breakfast in the hotel was really superb. There’s so much choice – including the usual american fayre plus freshly made dosa, idli and pancakes, as well as curry! Yep, curry, for breakfast!

Saw so many things today – started off exploring the Juhu area. We passed through the areas in which lots of Bollywood stars live – including Amitabh Bachchan. Juhu Beach was much better than I had expected – the water certainly isn’t that clean, but it’s better than a lot of sand beaches I’ve seen in Europe.

We then went towards the city centre, through Marine Drive, which runs along the waterfront. In the city we popped in to the famous Taj Mahal Palace hotel and then saw the Gateway of India. The trains are so dated here and extremely packed all day – we even saw people riding on top!

The most impressive architecture we’ve seen so far is the Chhatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (Victoria Terminus) – have a look at my Flickr gallery for some photos of this, and some of the other things I came across today

Andheri (W), Mumbai

Originally uploaded by neilmadhvani.

After a really brilliant flight with Jet Airways, we arrived in Mumbai around noon, to be greeted with lots of sunshine and 34C of heat I was shocked at how run down the international airport looks – it’s meant to be a major regional hub, but is really very basic.

We haven’t really had a chance to explore much of Mumbai yet, but what has shocked me is the really enormous gap between rich and poor here – it’s much worse than I had expected. There are so many little children begging on the streets – extremely depressing… especially when you see the lavish hotels and restaurants that so many others enjoy.

It’s off towards Juhu beach tomorrow morning and then down to Marine Drive – hopefully I’ll have a lot more photos to share then!

St Paul’s Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge

Originally uploaded by neilmadhvani.

Just playing with my new Fuji Finepix S9500 – it really is a fantastic camera. I’m really looking forward to taking some good photos in India (off there on the 9th Feb!). Hope to do quite a lot of photo blogging, so watch this space

Thanks to Ed for the tip on linking Flickr with Wordpress – the Web Services (XML RPC) stuff works really well! In fact this blog post was made directly from Flickr! Top stuff…