BOMBAY

Bombay is India’s financial capital, and I found it to be fun, progressive, and vibrant.  It is also home to countless touts and beggars, and some of Asia’s largest slums.  But if I had to be an expat somewhere in India, I would choose Bombay.

It seems that 85% of Indian men wear mustaches, so I did my best to fit in.

The Colaba and Fort areas are the main tourist destinations, and they include the Gateway of India (from which the last British troops departed in 1948), the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oval Maidan, the Prince of Wales museum, and Horniman Circle (all pictured below).  The British influence can’t be missed, and many buildings offer an interesting combination of Victorian and Indian architectural styles.

There is no real “safety net” in India, so I have no problem giving money to handicapped people, or possibly water or food to a child (although you have to watch out for the “please buy me some rice” scam, as the kid makes more than most Indians if he can get even two tourists to buy them a bag of rice ($3 a pop).  But there certainly is an excessive amount of begging here and they, like the touts, aren't good at taking no for an answer.  The worst is when they converge on your taxi at a red light, sticking their hands through the window and babbling incoherently.

Although the beggars irritated me, I was struck by the extreme poverty many people suffer here.  I walked two miles south of Colaba and stumbled upon a slum consisting of dilapidated shacks, makeshift beds on the sidewalk, and utterly impoverished people (who, by the way, looked at me like I was an alien but didn’t ask me for money).  I didn't take any photos there, but photos couldn’t adequately communicate the conditions these people endure--such as the permeating, unbearable stench of raw sewage.  At night, we passed block after block of people sprawled out in dirty rags on the sidewalk pavement.   They looked like emaciated corpses.  I noted earlier that many people in southeast Asia--although living poor and simple lives by our standards--seemed remarkably happy.  Such is not the case with the poorest people here.

This photo (above) was taken at a market about half-way between Colaba and the slum.  I'm amazed at how people here (and all over the Third World) seem able to sleep anywhere.

We spent a day in Malabar, which has sweeping views of the bay and is one of the more upscale areas in Bombay.

Banganga Tank, where pilgrims come to bathe.  It is also where I was attacked by geese, where we saw an advertisement being filmed, and where we were asked to be “extras” in a Bollywood movie (we declined, having heard that it involves spending a whole day waiting around in the hot sun).

We wrapped up Bombay by visiting a giant shoehouse and the Mani Bhavan (the Gandhi museum).  Then it was a 16 hour overnight train to Jaipur.