Goodbye Mumbai!! (Maharashtra)

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I would like to start by saying thanks to all the people who emailed and left kind comments to me after the last couple of posts! I'd like to assure you all, there's nothing wrong, and I'm not feeling bad, depressed, angry or anything (ok, apart from against a couple of people who sent me some nasty emails). Memories really sum up the person you are and your life so far. They are your life experiences, each one a jigsaw piece in the whole puzzle that makes up the final picture of your life the day you die. To deny one's memories of the past, or the emotions attached to them, would be lying to yourself, and to others. To block out a memory, or change or deny the emotion that comes with it, because you or someone else regrets or denies it is counter-productive. We learn from our mistakes in the past, and move forward to the next piece in the jigsaw. There's no harm in regressing and looking back at each piece. It helps us remember the person we were then, and the person we are now, and how one has changed over the years. Certainly, we're all different people to what we were 10, 15, 20 years ago. And I know that in my father after I spent time with him at Christmas. I didn't mean to hurt him, I was just getting to know him again after all the years away, and making observations of his character, which is so different to what it was then. But I can't deny the past to myself or others. I... we, can only move forward.

So I'm here in Mumbai, after a quick spin through the state of Maharastra. From Udaipur, Matt and I travelled by an overnight sleeper bus to Surat, where we hoped to catch a train or another bus to Ellora, the site of thirty four 7th to 8th century caves carved out of a hillside. I slept like a baby on the sleeper bus, which I was glad about after seeing the almost coffin like interior of the tiny cabin above the seated people below. I didn't fancy lying wide awake for 10 hours in a little box lined with a long window and curtains! Felt like a vampire in there.
We arrived in Surat, an unremarkable University town in Gujarat state, just on the border with Maharashtra, at around 7am to find that there were no buses to Ellora! The only buses they had were to Jalgaon or Aurangabad, 160km and 38km from Ellora respectively, so we decided to take the bus to Aurangabad. Unfortunately, taking a private company bus would have meant staying in Surat all day, with nothing to see or do, till the evening, so we jumped a rickshaw to the government bus stand that had regular buses to Aurangabad and caught the 9am bus there.
I tell you, the government buses are deadly. They seem like they're going to fall apart at every bend or bump. I was sitting at the back corner, where I could see outside the bus, not just through the window, but from the floor, ceiling and wall. The buses are filthy, and the seats totally uncomfortable. At least it was only a 6 hour ride, or so we thought. I had asked the conductor how many hours the bus took to get to Aurangabad, and he said 6. So we figured 3pm arrival. No. What he meant was, arriving at 6pm. And it didn't even arrive then. It was late by 2 hours. 11 hours on a government bus is about the worst experience of my life. These guys are the fastest things on the road. No joke. We took over private buses, cars, lorries, and even other government buses. If Narain Karthikeyan drove one of these in Formula 1 instead of a Jordan, he'd win the whole F1 championship within the first half of the season. Seriously. How do you overtake another vehicle? Simple. On a blind corner, going up a hill, on the other side of the road with the opposite traffic going between you and the vehicle you are overtaking. Shocking.
After converting to Islam, Christianity, Hindu, Parsee, Buddhism, and even Greek Orthodox to pray for safety to any and all gods during the bus journey, we checked into a hotel in Aurangabad, in the Deccan mountain range, and washed of the thick layer of dirt accumulated from 20 hours non-stop on the road under a hot shower. It was the dirtiest I had ever been in my life. I was honestly black all over from all the smog, exhaust through the windows and cracks in the bus, and the dirt on every surface of the government bus. It was like pure heaven being clean!
Chilled out and had dinner in town, went to sleep, and got up pretty early the next morning to jump a jeep to the Ellora caves. The cave complex in the Deccan range is simply stunning. All 34 caves were hand carved and hewn from the hillside some 1400 years ago. The oldest are the Buddhist caves, dugout from the 6th to 8th century, followed by the Hindu ones, 7th to 9th century, and finally the Jain caves around the 9th and 10th century. The master piece is the Hindu Kailash temple, which took 100 years, four generations of kings to carve out beginning the late 8th century. All the details, bridges, carvings, icons, walkways, bridges, pillars, staircases and rooms are all carved out from the hillside. There is no single stone added to anything in the whole complex, which make sit all the more astounding. Any mistake could not be altered. The precision must have been amazing. Some one quarter of a million tonnes of rock was excavated to create this structure, all by hand tools, in the 1300 years ago. It's truly astonishing.
We were also going to visit the Ajanta Caves, about 130km from Aurangabad the following day, but I think we were really all templed out. The journey was long, the caves at Ajanta, although much older, are apparantly less spectacular than those at Ellora. The main attraction there is really the setting, in a deep U-shaped valley with a river running through, and the well-preserved paintings on the walls and ceilings of the caves. So instead (after a night drinking with some locals in Auragabad), we headed to Nasik the next morning, on the way to Mumbai (Bombay), which is one of the 4 sites where the Kumbh Mela, the largest pilgrimage in the whole is held. Each one of the sites take turns to hold the Kumbh Mela, every 3 years. Each site in legend is where one of four drops of nectar (amrita) was spilt by Vishnu from his pot (kumbha) during a battle amongst the gods, and each one of the drops landed in Nasik, Prayag, Haridwar and Ujjain. The last Kumbh Mela at Nasik was in 2003, and according to official figures, some 10 million people attended. The record was 17 million to Allahabad in 2001, for the Maha Kumbh Mela, the holiest of all the Kumbh Melas, the largest ever pilgrimage recorded in human history.
After the 10 hour government bus journey, I swore never to take another, but broke my promise by taking another the 4 hours to Nasik. It was just as frightening, but the bumps and jolts started to become quite fun actually. I compare it to the best fairground rides I have ever been on,with just as much adrenaline pumping through my veins. On arrival, and after lunch, we headed directly to the ghats, the steps that lead into the River Godavari. It was purple-pink still from Holi the week before. I'm sure Indira Ghandi, who was laid to rest in the river (after being cremated) wouldn't mind being pink.
There were quite a few kids and sadhus bathing in the river, dammed up to create pools of water that is calm enough to wade and swim in. I was called over by a sadhu who spoke to me in Maharati (the language local to Maharashtra) and god knows what he said. A sadhu is a holy man who gives up everything in his life to dedicate it to his god. I gave him 20 rupees hoping that he wouldn't curse me like Susan MacDonald had been in her book, Holy Cow!.
We also visited a shrine to Shiva by the ghats, where the priest instructed me how to make an offering to the god. We got a lot of attention in Nasik. The 5 hours we were there, before catching our train to Mumbai, we never saw a single tourist.
2 hours delay, and 4 hours on the train to Mumbai, we arrived at CST, formerly Victoria Terminal, in the heart of the city at around 11pm, and we caught a taxi to Colaba, the hip, central area of Mumbai. Unfortunately, due to the final cricket test match between India and England held in the city, almost every hotel we visited was full. It wasn't till midnight we found a place, outrageously priced at 750 rupees a room (without a private toilet too, but it had a shower and air-con). We had a late dinner downstairs in a restaurant before passing out. The following monring, we checked out to find ourselves another hotel, which we did, opposite Leopold's Cafe, well-known as the place Gregory David Roberts (aka Lin), used to hang out when he lived in Bombay during the 80's. He was an Australian convict who escaped from a maximum security prison, ended up in Bombay (as it was called then), lived in a slumfor two years, joined the Bombay mafia, and even fought with the mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the Russians. His Indian life is chronicled in Shantaram, a book I highly recommend, and finished, coincidentally, o the train into Mumbai. I felt like I already knew the city.
The new hotel wasn't much cheaper, at 600 rupees, but there's nothing in town below that amount. It's one of the most expensive places to stay in India. It's also the nicest city I have seen so far. I thought it was going to be worse than Delhi, but it's so much cleaner, organised, and certainly more picturesque than any other city I've been to so far. I've really grown to like this place, and can see why so many have as well. The streets are wide, as are the pavements (most of the other places didn't even have pavements!), there are no auto-rickshaws here, barely any cows on the streets (I think I've only seen 3 here in two days), and it's a real melting pot mix of Indians, Africans, Europeans and Middle-Easterns living here. The shops are upmarket, there are more private cars on the road, and the wealth of colonial buildings herald a bygone age of British imperialism. I could certainly live and work here. The only thing I've noticed is the prolific slums here, at the side of every railtrack, construction site, or any open space not used. I think also due to the 'cleaner', more spacious living here, without the made rush of traffic and objects, you begin to see the beggars, and street sleepers here. Most have leprosy, begging with half a hand, all fingers missing, or legs that end at the knee, or have a face missing. It really hits you hard here in Mumbai, now there are less distractions to avert your gaze.
We've visited Chowpatty beach, where we were approached by a little kid, no more than 8 years old, begging, and bought him some chai and food from a hawker rather than give him cash. We also visited the Gateway to India (a huge arch built to commemorate King George V's visit), the Haji Ali mosque, Crawford market and sat in Leopold's Cafe last night, after England beat India to level the series, talking to a couple of Welshmen and Liverpudlians. I wasn't so happy drinking there. The setting is nice, and it's a great people watching place (as Gregory Roberts attests to in Shantaram), but the waiters are well trained to rip you off. Because of the cricket, and the amount of tourists, they told us certain beers were out of stock, and only the more expensive ones were left. After a couple of bottles of Corona, at 150 rupees each, we saw another table being served Cobra (80 rupees), and got the waiter to confess that therewas plenty of other beers available. Cheeky sod. But fair cop, we fell into the trap. I'm sure they even had Kingfisher Strong, a local Indian beer, twice the amount in size and strength for 60 rupees, but held them back to make more money from the tourists on the other beers. I'm beginning to think the hotels are running the same scam with their rooms. I guess Matt and I have arrived at the wrong time, during the final cricket test.
Tonight, we're off to Goa on an overnight train, where for the first time in India, I will not sight-see for a few days, and just chill by the beach. I'm so looking forward to it. I've also heard there's one day test match between England and India there on the 3rd April, so I might try to get tickets for that.