Two days in Bombay

Well, nearly everybody here still calls it Bombay...

After arrival the evening of 26 August, it was a bit of a social evening and at the same time a farewell to one rider who is ending his trip here.

Chris receives his jersey from tour leader Cristiano

Interesting venue for that - called the Stock Exchange bar; they run the price of drinks on a screen like stock tickers showing high, low and latest price. Buy a drink and instantly the price increases a bit for the next person if they want it badly enough to order right then. Wait a while and the price will come down unless somebody jumps in and buys one before you. Fun, limited 'trading range' - you can't buy a dozen whiskies and then try to flip them for a profit to someone in a private transaction.

The following morning was a start at blogs and laundry and that sort of rest-day stuff, then we went out on our own walk for a few hours. The hotel is literally two blocks from the Gateway of India, and along the water from there is the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Two blocks the other way is the nearest entrance to the major Indian Navy base. Obviously a lot of history right here, and you sensed it in the atmosphere. We also noticed that Bombay is clean, and have learned that there are significant penalties for littering. Result... people use the litter bins... amazing what a little incentive can do. Downtown Bombay also doesn't allow tuktuks, or perhaps it is a ban on two-strike engines because there aren't many motorcycles/motorscooters and their lovely blue smoke exhaust.

Walking past the Art Gallery we see a poster celebrating Gandhi's 150th birthday while also promoting cleanliness...

...and other healthy things in an area that felt a bit like London (UK, not Ontario)...

We walked along 'the oval', past the University, the clock tower, and the Bombay High Court. On the other side of the road, casual cricket is being played in the oval.

Western Railway building in background. The Charkha (spinning wheel) on the left
is a symbol of self-reliance and of Indian Independence popularized by Gandhi

Not far away is Bombay's famous Victoria Station, now called the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, from which the first trains operated in India in 1853.

ticket hall

...and city offices designed by the same architect across the road...

From there we went back towards the hotel and to the waterfront...

Gateway of India

Taj Mahal Palace Hotel (not a low-budget place)

time for dessert and coffee

During our travels so far, we've been amazed that dogs can sleep pretty near wherever they want and drivers don't run them over. This is just outside our hotel, barely room for pedestrians, but the dog is totally oblivious to things going on around - he was still there twenty minutes later...

 ...and that evening down by the water...

The second rest day, we went to the other side of the peninsula where a cleanup campaign has revealed beaches that actually look not bad, at least not full of plastic.

Bombay is home to a large open-air laundry which has become a tourist attraction in its own right......

the laundry workers are inevitably male and they live work and sleep in these quarters

an apprentice?

gotta love the satellite dishes in the middle of all this

Bombay is also famous for its lunch delivery system. Meals are picked up from a person's home and taken to them at the office to be delivered at a precise time, then later the container picked up and returned home, all with amazing precision and absolutely punctual timing every day. The meals come in from homes in all directions to a central spot and get sent out in all the different directions to people's offices and then all in reverse after lunch. This 'segregation' all takes place on a street between the Western Railway Head Office and the Churchgate railway station.

A few bags arrive and are placed according to a scheme only the workers know.

 It doesn't take long for the piles of bags to get bigger...

...arriving by foot...

 ...by bike - there's probably 40 lunch bags tied to just about everything on this bike...

 ...on pallets on somebody's head...

 ...a bit of help needed to bring it down...

 The bags are coded so that the couriers know what goes where and when and when it comes back what to do with it. First one bag...

 ...then two...

 ...etc...

 They get sorted...

  ...and eventually get picked up and moved out in time for someone's lunch...

 

 No automation, just people!

And a chocolate welcome back to the hotel that afternoon...

Bombay has been a pleasant two days of rest. One can only imagine the atmosphere in its colonial heyday.

Tomorrow will be a very early start in order to get onto the ferry and back onto the route down the Indian coast to Goa. We have three successive riding days, then a rest day near the beach, then three more riding days to Goa. Just a week to go. We're told to expect some serious hills as we go down the coast, also some more 'challenging' road conditions. Also, internet is not likely to be available very much during the week, so all ye faithful readers, don't expect much until after we reach Goa in seven days.

Fourth day into Mumbai

26 February - last night we were at the Riverside Resort in Karjat - another place built as a 5-star resort but maintained as if it is 3-star, broken tiles and garbage at the foot of one set of steps near the pool in otherwise beautiful grounds. Pool is fancy, but half the entry points into the pool were fenced off and what was open had 2-inch diameter chromed rungs, slippy, hard on feet, no flat step on any if them, just not up to 5-star. Lots of space for lounge chairs, not even a straight one in sight. Maybe we're out-of-season for India?

 Rae feeling well today though still not back to normal eating. It's a 100 km ride to a ferry to take us into Mumbai. Again, a mix of good and bad and really bad road surfaces. Lunch was at 75 km so a relatively short ride to the ferry, but again the road that was reportedly smooth two years ago the last time the Hippie Trail was run, that road is no longer smooth and had as much rough and pot-holed surface as it did smooth. We seriously wish we had our mountain bikes with the front suspension, and that's the first time you'd hear us saying that since we did Africa. Not even the Dempster Highway in the Yukon/NWT needed a mountain bike.

Some interesting scenery on the way.

Village pond...

 ...wash the cart and the oxen...

 ...and don't mind the garbage...

 A number of now-derelict industrial sites and some active ones - petroleum and steel...

 ...and we eventually reach salt water...

 ...and go around a bay to a passenger ferry terminal to cross the opening of the natural harbour into Mumbai...

...that's our boat coming alongside now

People feed the seagulls, so lots of  poor formation flying and evasive maneuvers alongside the boat...

...approaching the 'Gateway of India' which dominates the waterfront at the ferry terminal...

 ...and in this photo the Taj Mahal Hotel on the right.

So now we're in Mumbai for a two day rest. Beautiful city. And after the rough roads, everybody is enjoying two days of the bikes.

On towards Mumbai

23 February - the first of four riding days to Mumbai - today was a long ride, 137 km, especially considering the heat and rough road surfaces throughout the day. Much of the time, it was better to be in the sand and gravel on the shoulder than on the road itself. The road was a bit better after lunch, but still, my sentiment was that I was still enjoying the overall journey, but NOT the bike ride on those roads. When you have to have your eyes glued to the next 50 metres of road surface and oncoming traffic, you don't really enjoy the countryside so much. And a bit of tummy problems for Rae so he hadn't really eaten much and wasn't feeling as energetic as he'd like (that's a problem now-a-days even without tummy issues) - bless Ursula staying back with him, and a couple of stops for cool drinks in the afternoon. When the water in your bottle is 40 degrees, it maybe does something for hydration, but it tastes terrible, is tough to get down the throat, and it doesn't quench the mental thirst, so on those stops, thank goodness for really COLD water.

Early in the day we went through a village that was about to start its parade, part of the religious celebrations previously mentioned in earlier blogs.

Lots of sugar cane in this area - here they are hauling it out of the field on ox cart, then loading trailers or trucks. They'll load these trailers much higher than that before they're finished.

Over a number of almost dry riverbeds this afternoon - here goats share the waterpools with people washing their clothes and dishes.

...and Rae found one of his beloved Kites hanging onto this wire and using his wings to balance himself against the wind - did we mention how much we like the afternoon winds when they turn into headwinds....

Fancy enough hotel, funny layouts, you had to go up to first floor level then up about ten more steps, then down 10, to get to the first floor rooms that we were on. Pool at back was very nice - seating limited to a few benches (like park benches), no chaise-lounge, no pool towels. WiFi only at reception, not that we had much time to use it today.

24 Feb - to Malshej Ghat - Our medic Beth saw Rae before he started this morning and gave him some antibiotics on the ground that the GI issues were now into a third day. So again, a basic breakfast of corn flakes and a banana and not much for lunch. Mercifully it was just 92 km today, and some nice scenery. Again hot so enjoyed a cool drink stop before lunch and again 10 km out after lunch - COLD water and COLD mango drink.

Tonight was in a beautiful resort near a lake, with a view of lake from our unit. Pool was nice, same comments as yesterday, no lounge chairs, just upright ones at a couple of tables, certainly not set up to go to the pool and sun yourself for the afternoon. WiFi in reception/restaurant only, actually nice just not to be well connected to the world. Comfortable night.

25 Feb - Another day of more moderate mileage, under 100 km. First 20 km was a descent around a cliff-side - quite spectacular, some of the scenery. That said, visibility was terribly in the morning in haze and smoke and it didn't improve much during the day - all that despite us being essentially in the countryside. A few steep climbs, but not ridiculously long, during the day. Main impediment was the heat, also headwind.

monkeys are happy to sit on the wall as we descend along the cliff

this pic looks like reasonably clear air... not so, that's the magic of photoshop making it look nice