Mumbai, India
Mumbai – Incredible, noisy, busy, friendly, car honking, colourful. What a place!
We used Mumbai Magic, a tour company that is run by women and seems to be quite organized. Sancia, our tour guide met us just off the ship.
We started with a visit to the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Lovely hotel that has hosted many famous people including movie stars, pop singers, politicians, etc. and was the site of a famous hostage incident in 2008.
Highlights included Victoria Terminus, the main rail station where our guide bought us platform tickets so we could go inside to see the hubbub. Even on a holiday for many, it was a busy place. I believe she said that it carries about 3 million a day on long distance and suburban lines. There are a couple of trains a day just for women!
We went to Churchgate train station to see the dabbawallas – the lunch box deliverers. They pick up your hot lunch from your wife and take it to the local train station. From there it is transported into Mumbai, transferred and sorted and then delivered to your husband’s desk. A little later, the empty box is picked up and returned home to the wife. I think we were told it costs about $10USD a month for the service and is used by lower middle class and middle middle class. It was neat to see them with their distinctive white hats and carrying a huge number of large lunches.
We visited Matunga Market, a colourful area which sells everything. We visited a small bakery that has been in the same family for several generations and we saw the wood fired oven. The baker explained the process as he checked the last rising of the bread. The rolls Sancia bought and shared with us were tasty.
In another alleyway, there was a tailor shop which had the store on the bottom and there was a man at work at a sewing machine on a platform over the shop. Talk about using all available space!
We had a quick lunch upstairs in a restaurant in a market area. We shared a variety of Indian vegetarian snacks – dosas, something similar made with tapioca, lemon rice (actually a breakfast dish) and a couple of other things. Tasty and spicy. Cheap too. Just 200 rupees a couple (about $4).
We also saw lots of flower garland makers, street life, people who wanted a photo with Richard or others of us or who wanted us to take a photo of them. A dad asked me to take a photo of his five year old son.
We also visited a suburb called Bandra. It remained Portuguese when Bombay was given to King Charles II when he married the Portuguese princess back in 1662. Still Portuguese names used by some residents and buildings, some vestiges of the architecture and lots of Catholic churches and institutions.
On our second day in Mumbai our guide picked us up to see sights closer to the ship.
Some highlights –
– the Jain animal rescue centre (especially cows) (Panjrapole) – the Jains are a strict sect of Hindu that won’t harm anything, even insects. They provide wonderful care for stray cows, injured birds, etc. Founded in 1834. The animals were glistening clean. We also saw cows roaming in the street or eating grasses in front of shops.
the wholesale flower market (a mass of bright colours – especially gold and orange marigolds. They sell just the flower heads for making garlands.)
dobbywallas – the outdoor laundry. You view this from above so you get a great view. Originally these guys did family laundry in great tubs. However since people who could afford the service got washing machines, they changed their clientele. Now they launder for clothing manufacturers – think pre-shrunk jeans!
– the Gandhi museum – interesting dioramas of his life. Gandhi was loaned this house by a gold merchant and he lived there for a number of years. I hadn’t realized that he wanted to re-establish traditional crafts – weaving, especially. He thought this was the road out of dire poverty.
– unusual personal services – the ear cleaners, the bone setter’s shop. MRI’s cost 4000 rupees at the X-ray clinic!
– friendly people. Lots of people smiling, saying hello, asking for their picture to be taken, etc.
Hare Krishna temple and service
– lunch at Britannia Restaurant – in business since 1923 or so. An old man who is an owner or fixture! who is 94 has letters from the lady in waiting to the Queen, etc. The food – Parsee / Iranian. A pilau with red berries and chicken and chicken dansak. And a deep fried Bombay Duck (a fish!). Shared. Costs about $5 each.
– tea at an Iranian tea shop / bakery – sweetened and with milk. Friendly people.
(Goa) Mormugao near Panaji, India
We visited Old Goa which is a collection of churches, and we visited two: Se Cathedral (the seat of The Archbishop of Goa), and the Basilica of Bom Jesus which contains the body of Saint Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary who was canonised in 1622. Both are very old and date from this time.
We also saw several other smaller churches which wouldn’t be out of place in a Portuguese village. Portugal controlled Goa until 1961 and they were not particularly good “masters”. Education and infrastructure were ignored. We also visited the lovely heritage district of Fontainhas. This is a residential area where the traditional colourful houses of the Catholic and Hindu community are still preserved. We also saw the original fountain after which the area was named.
We visited a Hindu temple above the town – about 70% of Goans are Hindu. (Lots of Christians too – the Christians had converted the Muslims who had lived there.) En route, we saw many fancy homes and low rise apartment buildings, including the Archbishop’s home and government officials. Housing is provided for a variety of government employees.
We had lunch at an old hotel with a doorman and featured a pianist in the dining room. The food was ho-hum though.
This area is a total contrast to Mumbai. Less crowded, smaller roads, many low rise homes and shops, rice fields, etc. New Panaji had high rises and modern business complexes, but we only saw that in passing. We did swing by one beach, but it wasn’t a good one, not the ones that Goa is famous for. They dress differently too – many women were wearing the pants with long top. In the market, we saw country women wearing “9 yard saris”. The typical sari is 6 yards. The extra fabric just seems bunched up around the waist.
Mangalore, India
Another day in India. This city has a population of about half a million and is not really a tourist destination. It has a cashew processing plant that now has to import the cashews since the city expanded. It has fisheries and agriculture. But we had a very good day with a great guide, a business student.
We had a short informative visit to Achal company for a tour of the cashew plant and then on to two temples. Some of the processing is done by hand – skilled hands take off skins.
Kadri Manjunatha Temple was quite grand and was developed in order to provide a more open community, so that all castes could go to the same temple. Interestingly, the upper class, the Brahmins still are the ones managing it. Our guide gave a very good tour and told us the stories of the elephant headed god Ganesh and other gods. Each temple has a variety of subsidiary buildings devoted to other gods, including local gods, just like we have chapels around the edge of cathedrals. There was a pool with colourful statues of the blue god all around it.
We also visited Kudroli Gokarnanatha Temple which is much older. This one had water tanks on the side – one was being used as a kids’ swimming pool. The others were sacred and covered. Different deities were honoured here, but Ganesh was also featured. Over the entrance to one building, there was a statue of the monkey god with his chest pulled open and small statues inside. The story is someone asked the god if he looked after them, and he said something like you are always in my heart. A funny side note – the monkey god is very muscular – has a “six pack” – and gyms often have a statue of him.
As a counterpoint, we visited Aloysius Chapel, a Catholic church affiliated with a school / college. It is known for its painted ceilings a la Sistine Chapel. (Not the same style or expertise, but well done!) It was built in the 1880 and the paintings were completed in 1899.
We went to the city’s best mall near the chapel for a toilet break and to use ATMs. It was different from the other ones we had seen and had more local stores. We also visited the Car Street flower market where we could see up close the careful work of the young girls sewing petals together for garlands.
Our guide, when requested for a local restaurant, not a hotel, brought us to the excellent Machali Coastal Karnataka. We did take out since the place was crowded, buzzing with families. The food was fabulous – spicy kingfish, minced crab, and squid – spicy and with a dark sauce. The kingfish did go down easier with most of the sauce scrapped off!
Kochi (Cohin), India
Our last day in India and another tour through Magic Tours of India. Vijesh, our tour guide is a local and we saw yet another aspect of India. We have had a reasonable opportunity to get the flavour of the west coast (Arabian Sea) of this vast country, but we’ll have to come back to see New Delhi, Agra and the west coast.
First, we drove to Ernakulam Broadway Bazaar and wandered through the wholesale market, dodging the guys carrying huge loads on their heads. We saw some fruits and vegetables we hadn’t seen before, such as the banana stems which they eat.
Then we took the local public pedestrian ferry from Ernakulam to Kochi. It wasn’t rush hour so it wasn’t busy. If you want to avoid queues in India, always go with a lady. She can go to a shorter queue and buy tickets for everyone! That’s what we did today. It only costs a few rupees for the trip – about 10 or 15 minutes.
We walked through the old quarter of Fort Kochi and visited an old church, currently Anglican. St Francis Church was the burial place of Vasco de Gama but some years after his burial, his body was moved to Portugal.
We visited Cochin’s famous Chinese Fishing Nets. These are huge nets on wooden booms that are weighted so that they are cantilevered. We had a try at pulling the ropes and made a small donation. Evidently these fishermen don’t get good catches from the shore any more using these nets because of water hyacinth in the water. The real money from fishing is by boats.
Near there we went to a seafood restaurant for a meal, the Seafood Hut at Hotel Cochin Fort. It was an open air place, but roofed. We opted to share the dishes so we could taste more items. We had peppery popadoms to nibble on with our beer while we waited for the food. Richard and Fanny Wong had been dispatched to select our fish for grilling and Fanny seems to be quite an expert. BTW, that was the lion’s share of our bill – about 1100 rupees. We had mango and coconut shrimp curry, Kerala style shrimp curry (hot!), butter chicken, and squid, plus our fish with a small serving of rice and plain nan. It was delicious.
We had asked Vijesh about anything he recommended and he suggested the laundry. It is much smaller scale than Mumbai but interesting. These still do local laundry (not laundry for clothing manufacturers like Mumbai) and they have homes adjacent to the laundry. They had just received an industrial laundry machine and a spinner to partially dry the laundry, funded by Oxfam, I think the sign said. Then we went into drying garden with long laundry lines. They don’t use pegs, just insert a bit of the cloth into the weave of the rope. Last we visited the ironing room. They do have electricity but they have to pay for their usage so they prefer to use their old irons. They open up and you put coconut husks (made into charcoal?) inside. The irons weigh a ton! I know because I couldn’t pick it up. It was also interesting that both men and women were working in the laundry. Each is a private contractor but they share any donations.
We went to a heritage district called Jewtown, but the historical Paradesi synagogue, the first in India was closed due to Jewish religious holiday. However we did see a Jewish cemetery and a few other buildings.
Matanchery Palace (also called Dutch Palace) had some ostentatious palanquins, those chairs that are carried by bearers. There were good wall paintings of Hindu mythology that Vijesh explained. You could tell who each god was by what they were carrying. The ceilings were very fine, dark wood. One room had brass “upside down” domes that would reflect light from the ceiling. By this time, we were extremely hot and wet and ready to go back to the ship. We stopped one last time on our way back to the ship for milky hot tea with cardamon.
Colombo, Sri Lanka
We had our first rain last night and today. The tail end of the monsoon, I believe.
Colombo has a few million inhabitants and it spreads along the sea for about 50 km. It was noticeably clean and seemed organized. Some of the buildings were gifts from other countries – like a convention centre from the Chinese. Lots of grand old buildings and a few that date to the Dutch.
We visited Gangaramaya Temple, a Buddhist temple. Again, the shoes came off and we padded around in our bare feet. However the temple was clean. We were lucky enough to come across a bride and groom coming for a photo shoot. She was lovely in a white gold sari. He was wearing western clothes. The temple was loud with the slightly discordant music from two drummers and a flute player. We also visited the meditation centre which is perched in the middle of an artificial lake. Very lovely.
We visited Independence Square where we met with a lot of school children visiting the memorial hall and also visited a government craft store, Laksala, with fixed prices. We also went to Odel, a rather nice department store – higher end, but with their own name brands as well.
We thought that Colombo was a liveable city that merited more time. We all came back with wet feet though!