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21/3/2011
Late rise and tried out our first bit of Indian cuisine, a vegetable-omelette with toast. Not bad.
Sarah, a Portuguese girl at the hostel, showed us the ropes by taking us to the city centre of Mumbai (as we were staying in the outskirts in a place called Andheri) via our first tuctuc ride and a 45-minute train costing less than 50p in total!
The trains in India are an experience and our first one was crammed, extra sweaty and hold-on-for-your life. People literally hang out of the doors and at one stage some disabled youngster was sleeping on the floor and dozens of people dived on not even noticing him. Luckily he didn't get trampled!
They are thick as when it comes to getting on buses and trains. They don't let people come off first, they don't allow others to get on first, it's almost like who can be the most selfish and dive on quickest!
I solved this problem for me with my giant bags. Slam the duckers out the way if they aren't going to learn! That's how I roll....
In Mumbai, Sarah went off with some old French woman living in the country (random) and me and Jacques walked to the seafront to checkout the Gateway of India. Large and impressive monument erected by the British following the landing some couple of hundred years ago.
In the vacinity along a beach wall, locals were fishing with a handreel and catching needlefish so easily! They got me and Jack involved holding them and Jack tried to fish but these boys had it down to a fine art. And then cheekily they asked for some money. Welcome to India. Give us your money....
At the Gateway, there were tonnes of tourists from afar, stunning buildings and hotels and a tree which appeared to belong to hundreds or maybe thousands of pigeons. At the platform of the Gateway, there were tonnes of salesman, from wanting to take your photo, to selling postcards, to getting you on boat trips, city tours and even one guy that asked if I wanted to see his special book. Inside this book was a wod of pages missing replaced by a bag of marijuana. I reckon that's pretty clever!
One guy was trying to flog a trip for 1500, and using the advice of Indian friend Bash in Mozambique (he said divide what they tell you by 5), I immediately said 750. The guy accepted that with no arguments so imagine what it should be! Still, we weren't bothered about the tour.
Our first curry was in order and after Jack bartered with some guys for yet another pair of sunglasses (he is constantly on the hunt for them despite having had like 5 or 6, it's like a women and shoes), he promised the guy if he recommended a good restaurant he'd buy his sunnies (liar!).
We went off, had a delicious curry, naan and rice with a drink for less than two quid. I have no idea about the names about most of the curries I've eaten. Problem being I just pointed to one on the menu and just said: "I'll have that."
The centre of Mumbai, despite being quite crowded and muggy wasn't all that bad and I in particular liked the huge clock tower that overlooked a large playing field and cricket pitch where a game was going on. I don't know about the standard, but I'm guessing they were good playing where they were, yet the facilities they had were far below that of Martley's!
In the later afternoon, there were masses of kids and adults alike playing cricket and football along the stretch.
We visited some markets, with an attempt from almost every stool to get you in, but ended up buying nothing. Reason more than anything being, when you're on the road for a year, you don't have the room (or the money in our case) to buy souvenirs. And that's a shame because there has been so much cool stuff (even African canvas paintings and bracelets I sent back that never made it!).
Back at the hostel we went for a meal with Maccem (Sunderland) Ben, Sarah and an old man from Colorado (USA) for another super curry.
Chilled out watching tv with some Canadians and got let down by a guy called 'Jon', an Indian that started chatting to me on the train and was begging me and Jack to come out with him, meet Bollywood stars and promised to pay for some of our drinks! And he was genuine! He said we don't go out until late but he left it so late, we couldn;t be bothered.
Oh, earlier, Jack nearly fought with a tuctuc driver as he didn't know where he was taking us and tried to charge double, so a row began between them and Sarah. I just walked off laughing and then they came along. They do love a scam.
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