Mr & Mrs Wanderlust : Amazing mumbai

Transport

So we flew from Goa to Mumbai, it was cheap as there was a sale on (cost around 4000rs for both of us). We got to the airport super early in the hope of using their wifi to write blog posts and drink coffee...no such luck. Goa airport is tiny with very limited facilities. On arrival the one cafe place was closed and the check in desk was not open. We had to sit on benches and wait for the airport to 'wakeup' although it was already 9.30am! To add insult to injury, the wifi didn't work so we had to just sit and wait!!

Lucky hotel issues

when we arrived in Mumbai we used Uber to book a taxi as it allows you to confirm the taxi price before the taxi driver sees you...definately worth it being a foreigner! He dropped us 'opposite' our hotel according to the address. The room we had booked was through a company called Zo rooms..a chain company that basically buys a selection of hotel rooms in hotels across India and then sells them as Zo rooms. The problem is that the name they give the hotel is not the same as the actual hotels name.making them hard to find..especially if they don't have a Zo rooms sign outside the front. This type of hotel chain seems to be very popular in India with other companies such as Oyo rooms and vista rooms too.

Anyway after lots of walking up and down the street and calling the hotel we found them. We found out that they had already filled all of the rooms allocated for Zo rooms so our booking was not valid...after lots of long complicated phone calls Zo rooms moved us to another hotel..we were lucky as it was far nicer with much better facilities. We didn't have to pay any more although the hotel was advertised as the same price for 1 night as we had paid for 4 in the other place!!!

Dinner in 2 places...

After showering and settling in our luxury room we decided to try a few places rated highly locally and recommended by lonely planet. One was hotel och where we tried a pav bhaji, hot buttered bread rolls with crushed vegetables in a tomato sauce...it tasted almost similar to bolognaise!!

We then moved onto badayami a kebab street food stall rated highly by tripadvisor..we ordered a selection of dishes and were actually extremely disappointed with this place, it seemed very hyped up for bbq meat that was rather charcoaled and tasteless.

Day2

We decided to take it easy so woke up late, enjoyed our free buffet breakfast before heading out on a Walking tour set out in lonely planet that takes you past a lot of the major architecture. We took a leisurely pace and stopped in some cafe's (we found Starbucks!) and shops (shopping is great and cheap in Mumbai!) along the way including an emergency toilet stop at an Irish pub.

In the afternoon we relaxed in a local park watching people play cricket! There were games going on everywhere, and the cricket pitches were right next to the Bombay High Court. After 45 mins of watching the cricket and not really doing much we took a stroll back to the hotel where we went up to our rooftop and had a beer overlooking the skyline. After a beer we went down to get tickets for the city skyline at night tour. It cost 360 for the 2 of us and involved the typical queuing system In India which involves people trying to push in front of you if you give them a chance. The bus leaves at 8pm, and they do not start selling the tickets till 7.50pm, but we were waiting since 7.40 pm. The tour takes around an hour and food was on our mind when a domino's pizza man walked past selling hot pizza and cold Coke. A steal at 90 inr for both. We scoffed our faces on a 9 inch pizza whilst seeing the bright architecture of Mumbai.

Day 3

We had emailed a company called Reality Tours & Travel and for 3000 inr we were hosted on a tour of Dhavari slum and then a tour of a huge celebration in Mumbai, the Ganesha festival. The Dhavari tour was exceptional, a real highlight, it changed our opinion of the slum, everyone was happy and working hard and busy. We were expecting lots of beggars and to feel unsafe but there was nothing like that at all. Our guide was brilliant, met us at the station and answered every question we had. Which was many. The Dhavari slum has many industries and generates around $665million a year, so is crucial to the economy of Mumbai. Reality tours is a charity based in the slum and the tour guides all grew up in the slum. It donates a lot of its profits to helping develop the slum, with schools and healthcare facilities as well as youth centres which we witnessed. Our tour guide was great and after our tour of the slum which took around 4 hours we went to the office to pick up the Ganesha festival tour, it was so much fun, the whole of Mumbai is out to party, there is dancing and music round every corner, Ganesha statues are all over from small little ones owned by families, to large 18ft statues which are professionally painted. All have the same goal, the statues will be taken to the sea and submerged in the sea! This involves lots of people heaving and pulling the statue onto a boat where it is taken to sea and submerged whilst everybody on the beach cheers and celebrates! reality tours also arranged for everybody on the tour to try some traditional Mumbai street food. we were loving the festival and stayed till around 10pm then walked back, we could have stayed a lot later, the Ganesha keep coming till 4am we were told.....But it had been a long day so we trundled back to the hotel.

Day 4

We had seen a Mosque in the sea with a nice walkway as we were driving from the airport, and it looked beautiful on the way past. So we went on a quest to visit the Mosque as it wasn't too close to the Colaba area we were staying in, we got a train from Churchgate, and it was about a 1km walk from the train station, but it was stiflingly hot, when we got toward the walkway we were surprised at the amount of stalls selling rubbish gimmicks etc, it was busy, and there were beggars begging everywhere, each trying to make you feel more guilty than the last. The main memory is the smell of being surrounded on all sides by the sea in Mumbai, Mumbai has a lot of sewer pollution in its sea, and you could smell it, and see it on the shore. It wasn't nice and we were glad to get out of there.

On the way back we stopped in at the Kulfi Centre for some Kulfi, which is like ice cream but harder, it was tasty. We had pistachio and chocolate almond. Then another long walk back to the hotel to burn off the calories.

We had heard that there were many Goan restaurants in Mumbai, and we were desperate to find one, after all the food Minni had spoken about, we wanted to try more Goan cuisine. We found one not far from our hotel and tried Goan Sausage, Bombay duck (Not Duck its actually fish!) and pork vindaloo, another famous Goan dish. then it was off on a date night at The Taj Palace. This hotel is very famous, and we were allowed in for a few drinks, we had delicious cocktails, and the most expensive beers we'd had in India. The prices here ran in line with exclusive London hotels, but we treated ourselves, thinking of them as gifts from our Wedding day and all of our generous guests!

The Beautiful Architecture of Mumbai