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Alarm at 0445! Downstairs at 5am for coffee and left for the Bombay bicycle tour 0515am.Got to pick my bike and wore a helmet -to complete the sexy look- The bikes were simple, one gear, okish break's. Started with a simple cycle to marine drive, saw the left overs of Ganesh festival from the night before. Found some stray dogs who followed us. It is still pretty dark at this time! Cycle off to the next stop -Victoria Station, got re-named to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus after independence, however everyone still knows it as Victoria Station, it looks like Kings Cross on the inside, the statue of Queen Victoria has been moved since. Then off to the market, the Crawford fruit market (which was closed when we got there). But it is very famous. Then to the meat market, this was like a scene out of a horror movie, blood guts and crows were on the floor and flying about, whilst men with meat cleavers chopped up meat like animals and the smell was sooo bad, gut wrenching even! My shoes had blood on the bottom when we came out, so disgusting. After this back to the bikes and then to the Mumbai Devi temple, a hidden temple in the back streets where people sometimes queue for an hour to see the shrine and get gifts/items blessed. Off again through the local flower market where people buy flowers/make them to sell at temples, very Narrow Street. Next and final stop was the cow sanctuary, where cows are kept to milk and breed, we fed the cows because cows are holy as they provide everything a human needs to survive. Also feeding a cow is considered to be praying to all 200 million gods in its stomach. Also it's lucky to feed the pigeons, as when you die, you come back as a flying creature, hence feeding the pigeons is like feeding your dead mother/sister etc. Came back to the hotel for a photo and breakfast. Had a quick shower and put on clean clothes (don't have many left at this point!)
0830 left for the treasure hunt, which was awesome! Got given 24 questions on a sheet, had to walk around and ask local people to answer the questions, and complete bonus tasks to get more marks including U-K-I-E-R-I photo and memory test. Anish was very helpful though here! Also had a starbucks in Mumbai…mmmm! En-route back we stopped at the lunch box people. So they collect lunches from the wives at home and put them on the train, then a group of people deliver then straight to the offices of the husbands at a cost of £5-£6 a month. Over 200,000 lunches are delivered everyday-Only done in Mumbai- and only 1 mistake is made in every 6 million delivered. They are very efficient! Delivery boys are paid RS8,000-RS10,000 a month for the job. Back to the hotel for lunch and a quick break where I caught up on my diary and napped. (Too much coffee!)
Left to go to Prince of Wales museum for an hour. It was nice, saw a lot of taxidermist work and more interestingly a little bit more about Ganesh and how he got his elephant head, also lots of art in the Tata gallery! Left there to go to Haji Ali Dargah (Islamic shrine) to a sufi saint. But en route we saw the worlds most expensive apartment US$2 billion -> CRAZY -> only 5 people live there, built by the world's 4th most richest man (who has actually never spent a night there because the balcony's are facing the wrong direction and a priest said that was bad luck!) and 600 people work in this one building! So anyway had to walk down a causeway to see the Haji Ali Dargah, where a lot of people were begging (a lot were missing limbs) it wasn't particulary nice. Walked around inside, saw some lovely views, then back to the bus, back to the hotel. There was a half built building on this 'island' I asked why it wasn't finished and apparently no-one works during monsoon season! Interesting! So after tea went to floor 6 and had to draw posters/organise something for tomorrows school visit -> We were expecting ages 12-13 but then told they were actually 1-18 years, but our topic of 'special school days' should be applicable to all people, all ages. So did some planning and posters for that. Then I called mummy, was lovely to hear from home J Going to ring again Wed or Thur, now updating my diary from the long day, and setting my alarm 0545am for Yoga
Night Night
xx
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