Sorry peeps, the net connections in India are few and far between and generally terrible.
Brief status:
Spent one glorious week in Darjeeling, including trekking to Nepali border to see Kantenjunga at sunrise for my birthday :)
Came across to Punjab and Amritsar, a horrible town around the gorgeous serene Sikh Golden Temple.
Bused all day and overnight to Srinagar in Kashmir! Spend a few days there... and now..
Am on the marathon TWO DAY bus trip from Srinagar to Leh. Am staying the night at Kargil, which is generally where India and Pakistan start fighting, as they are prone to do!
More later, and I'll reply to all your mails from Leh, I promise!
Namaste!!
Monday, August 20, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Escape from the Black Hole!
New Market
North from Sudder Street, we wander past the New Market looking for somewhere to eat. There don’t seem to be so many restaurants in Calcutta compared with Bombay, I think this is because there is much more of a street-food culture. We finally find somewhere, only for me to be told that because I’m wearing a longyi (Burmese sarong – a gift. Yes, I’m wearing a skirt!), I can’t come in! Then the chap “kindly” lets us in as his restaurant isn’t busy at the moment, but by now Thuzar is fuming because of the longyi dig and we both notice that the place is fairly dirty, so we walk straight back out anyway, and end up back in Sudder Street, trying the LP-recommended Zurich Restaurant, which is quite good.
Thali
Next we walk to Sealdah Train Station. This walk takes us through the area where Mother Teresa worked. She lived from 1910 – 97, and was born in Serbia, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She became a nun in 1929, and was posted to India in 1937. When arriving in Calcutta she was horrified by the poverty, and set up a new order, her Missionaries of Charity, to “give wholehearted and free service to the poorest of the poor”. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. The main criticism levelled against her order is that they do nothing to address the root causes of suffering.
The latest model, I believe
Whilst not knocking in any way the good that they do, except the Catholic “no contraception” outrage that they perpetrate, I agree with this “address the root cause” sentiment in general – on the taxi into town from the airport I gave Thuzar instructions not to give money to any beggars here. There are too many poor in this country and the last thing you want to do is encourage people to beg – if you want to help, donate to one of the organisations that help people out of these situations (being careful to give to one of the organisations where money won’t be swallowed up by “administration” of course.
Mayhem
We don’t find the Missionaries of Charity, but eventually arrive at Sealdah. It wasn’t a fun walk. Inside, we head up to the “computerised ticket office”. Unfortunately there is no foreigner booth here, so I queue and shove my way to the front with everyone else. The chap tells me that there are tickets available on the train tonight, in the same 1A class! Hurrah! What I don’t do is ask him how many, as I later discover there is 1 ticket. How helpful of him to not tell me this. Anyway, he says because I booked on the internet he cannot cancel the ticket, and I must go to the foreigner ticket office the other side of town. I strongly suspect he was lying just to get rid of me.
There is logic there somewhere
I walk away then have a brain wave – there’s an internet café next door! Maybe I’ll be able to cancel my ticket online, then rebook here (or online). I do this, cancel my ticket, then go to rebook for tonight. All the way through, then of course I discover that there is only the one ticket. I check and discover that I’ve also lost my original places on the train in two days – there was obviously a waiting list and my tickets went to the next as soon as I cancelled them. Great! Now I have no tickets at all!
Helpful
We walk back round to the ticket office but the chap who “helped” me has gone, so we speak to another woman, who confirms that there is only one ticket. However, there are two tickets left in 2A, i.e. air-conditioned second-class, tonight, but only in the “foreigner reserved quota” which she cannot issue. To get them I’ll have to go to this special foreigner ticket office. And hope that no one snags them in the meantime. Right, off we go. I ask them to write down the address for me.
Outside, there’s a taxi stand, and we have a choice – metered or fixed price. I ask them which would be better for me, and am told, in almost a threatening tone that as I don’t know exactly where this place is, I had better take a fixed-price taxi, as otherwise he may be driving round for a while looking for the place. As it happens, he had no idea anyway. In addition to the address, the station person had written “near the GPO”, which is all the driver knew. Luckily for us LP had the train office on their map, otherwise we would never have found the place – I ended up directing the driver myself, which I could have done with a much-cheaper metered taxi.
So in the office at Fairlie Place, we join the queue and wait our turn, eventually getting served and yes, we get the two tickets left in 2nd class AC! We’re leaving the hell-hole of Calcutta tonight! This office is strange. It’s big, spacious, and there are sofas, and desks at the front where two people will serve you at a time. I can only assume that it was set up as the Indian train system is confusing at the best of times, and they didn’t want foreigners clogging up the busy regular station ticket booths asking awkward questions like “how can I go from this station to another?”.
As an example of the inconvenience of the system, take the online booking system. Say you wish to query a journey from Darjeeling to Delhi, both well-known places. The system will merely spit back that no train has been found. Why? Because you need to change trains, and it can’t cope with this. You have to know the train you want, which of course you don’t, that’s why you’re enquiring! Other gotchas include trains all being named, and referenced by their name, rather than source and destination or anything useful geographically. Any idea where the Poorva Express goes? Calcutta to Delhi, surely you could guess?
Finally, if you work out what train you want, next you have to choose what class you want before checking availability. You plug in date, source, destination, and class (there is no “any available option”) and if it happens not to have a seat available in the particular class you’ve chosen, it will give you the same error message as if there is no such train, or it just happens to not run on that date, or any number of other potential issues. You just don’t know.
It’s strange that there are all these quirks, as the system has the potential to be really good – it’s computerised and all you need is an e-ticket number to show to the conductor. It would seem that no common sense has been applied to the whole system. They need Process Analysts here, and to study how people use the system and work out what needs improving. Simple things. And why can’t normal stations issue the foreigner quota tickets? There’s no reason for it at all, just antiquated ways of working.
So we’ve got the tickets.
General Post Office
We walk back to the hotel, another punishing trek. Round the BBD Bagh square, the main administrative centre for the British in India (remember that the British used Calcutta as the capital until the active independence movement here forced them to move it to Delhi) - hence the square is lined with grand buildings that would never have been built by the Indians. At the north end of the square is the Writers Building, which I think is some sort of parliament building – as usual in India the troops won’t let you take photos of anything to do with government: they’re too important, don’t you know.
Next Eden Gardens, for a Burmese Pagoda, past the Raj Bhavan, the British-built (1799) Government House and now home to the Governer of West Bengal, a beautiful palatial palace with hints of Buckingham!
Eden Gardens is closed now, so we continue down, along the Hooghly River and past Fort William, constructed in 1758 after Siraj-ud-daula destroyed the original. It’s still a military base, so you can’t see much of the inside, but looks like it has some lovely gardens. Apparently the whole area around the fort was cleared to give cannons a clear line-of-fire, creating the current Maidan gardens. We also past the West Bengal Cricket grounds, which I’m sure would be fun to visit when a match is on.
According the traditional sources (disputed by some Bengalis) Calcutta was created by Brit Job Charnock in 1686, though a better date would be 1698, when the villages of Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kolikata were formerly signed over to the British East India Company. Over the next few centuries, the British created a miniature London on the banks of the Hooghly river, with stately buildings, wide avenues, English churches and big gardens. Apparently at the height of the Raj, the average British family had 110 locals working for them.
However, in 1756, Siraj-ud-daula, a local warlord, recaptured the city and imprisoned dozens of the British in a cramped room underneath the original Fort William. About 40 died from suffocation, and this became the legend of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The following year, Clive of India retook Calcutta for Britain, and made peace with Siraj-ud-daula, who sided with the French and was promptly defeated at the Battle of Plassey.
Calcutta was then made the capital of British India, with a new strengthened fort. Little effort was made to improve the lives of those who worked under the colonists though, who lived in slum suburbs, hence why the independence movement was especially strong here – forcing the British to move the capital to Delhi in 1912. Even now, the Communist Party is dominant in local politics, calling general strikes whenever a new policy is introduced from Delhi that they don’t approve of.
Enough walking – we taxi home, though the driver seems to have no idea where Sudder Street, the most famous tourist hotel street in the city is, rather unbelievable - he drives off in completely the wrong direction! I frown, and track his progress on my LP map, undeterred as yet as we’ve agreed a fixed price, 50 rupees, for the journey. Eventually he asks someone, does a U-turn, and heads the right way. We stop off at the Fairlawn Hotel for tea. I had hoped to stay here, a colonial hotel run by the same British family since before Independence, but it is full. It’s rather run down, but has lots of character (you know the type of hotel I am talking about I’m sure!).
On the way back to the hotel, I pop into a small travel agent which has caught my eye. I hate travel agents, but we need some domestic flights, and Air Deccan don’t take international credit cards. I ask these guys to check flights, but it soon becomes apparent that they are completely incompetent, and I have to prompt them at every step of the way to check alternatives. After a half an hour of my life wasted, I give up, ignoring their suggestion of booking one seat (non-refundable) on a flight with one seat available and trying later to book the second ticket – how ridiculous. Later I use the internet, and on makemytrip.com (an Indian travel portal) find another airline with two tickets available for cheaper than those idiots would sell me the one seat, and I complete search to booking in about 30 seconds. As I say, I hate travel agents!
Back to hotel, shower, and we have a cab booked – the damned front desk have pushed me in my tired state to agree to a hotel taxi for 120 rupees, a complete con. I can’t deal with any more hassle though, so we pay up, and before going to the station walk round to the same sweet shop as before to stock up for the journey! Leaving the hotel, the hotel boys, who have done nothing for us – I was particularly disappointed that the room was not made up – we have paid for two nights after all, having only changed our plans this afternoon, demand tips! I somewhat angrily ask what exactly they want a tip for, and the taxi pulls away.
At the station too, we are jumped by porters as soon as we pull up, and no amount of polite declining will get rid of them. Inside we have a look at the air-conditioned lounge we have access to with our second-class ticket, then walk round to the station restaurant for some food. Goodness it’s hot in the restaurant. Absolutely unpleasant – how can one eat with sweat running down one’s nose? We retire to the internet café upstairs, with the lovely air-conditioning, and I check out some more options for trains and planes.
Half an hour before our train we head down to the platform. For some reason all the platforms are number 9, then suffixed with a letter to differentiate. We want 9b. At the foot of the platform is a large board with dozens of lists stapled up – these appear to be passenger lists with seat allocations – this is not done when you buy your ticket, instead shortly before the train. As we only bought our ticket a few hours ago, our ticket does bear the correct carriage and seat numbers, though it’s still a challenge to work out what the random carriage number corresponds to in terms of the train carriages – they all have a five digit number, our ticket says A1.
The Indian Railways are supposed to be the world’s biggest employer, but are they really? I can never find a member of staff when I want one, and ticket booths are always woefully understaffed.
Anyway, in amongst the thousands crowded on to the platform, I finally find someone who tells me that 2A corresponds to 87073! Of course! The carriage looks old, but at least has been painted, and has glass in the window frames!
On board, we are presented with a very narrow corridor with curtained-off sections on either side – single beds on one side, and “rooms” of four beds on the other.
I take upper bunk, Thuzar lower, and we have an elderly Indian couple on the other side. I offer to swap their upper bunk for our lower, but they want to keep theirs – and somehow the husband clambers up once he has been fed by his wife from small aluminium tiffin pots.
Supposedly the carriage is air-conditioned, though there is little evidence of this. Except for it not being unbearably hot I suppose! There is an old fan on the ceiling which is amazingly noisy but at least circulates air in the rather cramped space. Someone comes along and hands out a small towel and sheets; there are already blankets and pillows sitting on the plastic leather beds when we arrive. The train starts smoothly, on time at 22:05, but bumps about as it runs along as what doesn’t seem like a particularly “express” pace. The name of the train is the Darjeeling Mail, despite it not going all the way to Darjeeling - it terminates in New Jalgapuri, which is where we take the "Toy Train".
After working out how to get up to my bunk (secret: there is none, just climb on top of the person below and pull yourself up), I read for a bit then doze off, and get a fairly good sleep all night, with just an occasional toss and turn on my high bunk.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Sweets in Calcutta
Arriving into Calcutta’s domestic terminal is all fairly efficient – the plane docks at the terminal building, we’re out quick, luggage is fast, then I’m careful to not leave the building. You see airports in India generally are restricted to passengers only – so if I leave, I potentially won’t be allowed back in, and I’ve got about four hours till Thuzar arrives, which I don’t want to spend outside. Calcutta is noticeably hotter than Bombay, possibly connected with the sun being out, whereas it’s drizzled or been overcast the whole time in Bombay. I think the airports are restricted in this way because in such a poor country, if people had the opportunity they’d probably just sleep in the airport all the time – I’m sure air-conditioning is a luxury most don’t have access to at home – indeed home for many here is outside on the street.
Darjeeling – here we come
I wimp out whilst waiting and decide to reserve somewhere in town rather than traipsing around looking for somewhere. I book an LP suggested place around Sudder Street, the backpacker area of Calcutta. They push really hard to provide a hotel pickup from the airport, which I politely refuse several times, despite it being more expensive than a pre-paid taxi from the airport! Why on earth would I want to use them exactly? Doesn’t bode well though.
Using the telephone is a chore in itself. I queue up for an “Airtel” booth but when I get to the front, the chap tells me they’re expensive, and are really for calling Airtel mobile customers – I’m better off using the coin payphones. I ask where I’m going to get change from here – he helps me out. As I use the dirty phones I am reminded of the Newton Hotel in HK, which proclaimed in the lift that the buttons were anti-bacterially cleaned hourly.
So next, after a snack of an Indian puff pastry and some unsweetened (!) tea, I go researching flight tickets. The Indigo flight I’ve just come off has convinced me that flights are almost inviarably the way forward in India – they generally cost about 20 pounds, and can save you a two day train journey. I ask about flights to Leh in Ladakh but they seem expensive and booked up already for a month ahead. Then for Bagdogra, the airport near Darjeeling, to Delhi. This seems more do-able. The cheapest is still Air Deccan. I tried to book them in Bombay, especially as they had a 60 rupees per ticket offer, but they rejected foreign credit cards on their website. Here I find their sales booth outside, so join the scrum to purchase.
It’s hot, but eventually I get to the front with my purchase requisition form, something you always seem to have to fill out here, whether for train tickets, flights, anything involving tickets. I suppose it avoids confusion, especially in a country with so many languages. The chap tells me that there is now only one ticket available at the 60 rupees rate, which is slightly annoying, but the deal is still very reasonable for the other ticket. So now I have ticket from Delhi to Calcutta on the 6th September, then flight on the 7th with BA to the UK!
Next conundrum: where is International Arrivals? I’m given conflicting information, and sent back and forth a few times before finally working out myself that the building is completely separate and round the corner. I walk there. It’s so hot. Of course I’m not allowed in, but then I notice a small booth selling entry tickets. Yes, for 60 rupees I could go in and wait in a small arrivals room! What a privilege! It’s air-conditioned though, so I wasn’t going to debate the morals for long.
The arrivals board had Thuzar’s flight, which was scheduled to arrive at 4:10pm listed as being scheduled for 3:15pm but currently delayed until 5:05pm. It does arrive close to their estimate. Whilst waiting I wander up to the Viewing Gallery on the third floor, but bizarrely they don’t allow one to take photos! In the airport viewing gallery! I don’t suppose I would have been caught, but as there was nothing to take a photo of anyway I wandered back down to the air-conditioning!
When Thuzar finally comes out, we take a taxi to town which costs 2-3 hundred rupees. It’s her first experience of the chaos and dirt of India. It seems to take an age, negotiating Calcutta’s notorious traffic. I don’t have a feel for the geography of the place yet, but the thing that struck me was that we spent the majority of the journey on small back streets. Now whether the driver, who had been pre-payed, was avoiding tolls, or following a creative route, I don’t know, but we soon arrived in the run down streets of Sudder Street and Chowinghee Lane, at the Capital Guest House that I telephoned earlier.
Watch your wallet
I don’t like the guys on front desk, which is always a bad sign with a hotel. Still, they show us a room, and I decide it will do. I carry my bag up the four flights of stairs, then head down for Thuzar’s, but she’s let a porter take it, so tip. When we’re finally settled in the room we realise the air-con isn’t switched on. It’s hot. There also aren’t towels or toilet paper. There are about 12 switched all next to each other by the door, none labelled, and none seem to operate the AC. Downstairs I ask, and it is explained that reception have to switch it on for you. Well why the hell haven’t you done so already? A chap also agrees to bring me the towels, then tells me he will sell me toilet paper!! I resolve to change hotels the following morning.
We head out and round the corner to the Blue Sky Café, which we go into because it looks busy – in fact it is recommended by LP. The food’s good, though they bring more than I ordered.
Hungry customers
After eating, we walk around the area. It’s noisy, very run down, and we’re frequently hassled. Cars and jeeps whizz along the narrow streets far too fast, clearing the way ahead using their horns. The roadside and buildings are filthy – one would not like to fall over into some of the black sludge which seems to cake the pavement.
Note Hilson Hotel. There’s also a sHilton!
The first mission is to look for another hotel. Unfortunately after walking around for a while, we realise that there is not really any better on offer. The whole area is a pit. Better the devil you know.. Finally something appeals – a sweet shop!
Haldiram Sweet Shop
Apparently Calcutta is known for sweets, which are more like bite-sized cakes to us, and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records for having the most sweet shops in the world. Bengali people are famous sweet tooths and their sweets, usually milk, sugar, honey and nuts blended together, come in hundreds of varieties.
Choices choices
Darjeeling – here we come
I wimp out whilst waiting and decide to reserve somewhere in town rather than traipsing around looking for somewhere. I book an LP suggested place around Sudder Street, the backpacker area of Calcutta. They push really hard to provide a hotel pickup from the airport, which I politely refuse several times, despite it being more expensive than a pre-paid taxi from the airport! Why on earth would I want to use them exactly? Doesn’t bode well though.
Using the telephone is a chore in itself. I queue up for an “Airtel” booth but when I get to the front, the chap tells me they’re expensive, and are really for calling Airtel mobile customers – I’m better off using the coin payphones. I ask where I’m going to get change from here – he helps me out. As I use the dirty phones I am reminded of the Newton Hotel in HK, which proclaimed in the lift that the buttons were anti-bacterially cleaned hourly.
So next, after a snack of an Indian puff pastry and some unsweetened (!) tea, I go researching flight tickets. The Indigo flight I’ve just come off has convinced me that flights are almost inviarably the way forward in India – they generally cost about 20 pounds, and can save you a two day train journey. I ask about flights to Leh in Ladakh but they seem expensive and booked up already for a month ahead. Then for Bagdogra, the airport near Darjeeling, to Delhi. This seems more do-able. The cheapest is still Air Deccan. I tried to book them in Bombay, especially as they had a 60 rupees per ticket offer, but they rejected foreign credit cards on their website. Here I find their sales booth outside, so join the scrum to purchase.
It’s hot, but eventually I get to the front with my purchase requisition form, something you always seem to have to fill out here, whether for train tickets, flights, anything involving tickets. I suppose it avoids confusion, especially in a country with so many languages. The chap tells me that there is now only one ticket available at the 60 rupees rate, which is slightly annoying, but the deal is still very reasonable for the other ticket. So now I have ticket from Delhi to Calcutta on the 6th September, then flight on the 7th with BA to the UK!
Next conundrum: where is International Arrivals? I’m given conflicting information, and sent back and forth a few times before finally working out myself that the building is completely separate and round the corner. I walk there. It’s so hot. Of course I’m not allowed in, but then I notice a small booth selling entry tickets. Yes, for 60 rupees I could go in and wait in a small arrivals room! What a privilege! It’s air-conditioned though, so I wasn’t going to debate the morals for long.
The arrivals board had Thuzar’s flight, which was scheduled to arrive at 4:10pm listed as being scheduled for 3:15pm but currently delayed until 5:05pm. It does arrive close to their estimate. Whilst waiting I wander up to the Viewing Gallery on the third floor, but bizarrely they don’t allow one to take photos! In the airport viewing gallery! I don’t suppose I would have been caught, but as there was nothing to take a photo of anyway I wandered back down to the air-conditioning!
When Thuzar finally comes out, we take a taxi to town which costs 2-3 hundred rupees. It’s her first experience of the chaos and dirt of India. It seems to take an age, negotiating Calcutta’s notorious traffic. I don’t have a feel for the geography of the place yet, but the thing that struck me was that we spent the majority of the journey on small back streets. Now whether the driver, who had been pre-payed, was avoiding tolls, or following a creative route, I don’t know, but we soon arrived in the run down streets of Sudder Street and Chowinghee Lane, at the Capital Guest House that I telephoned earlier.
Watch your wallet
I don’t like the guys on front desk, which is always a bad sign with a hotel. Still, they show us a room, and I decide it will do. I carry my bag up the four flights of stairs, then head down for Thuzar’s, but she’s let a porter take it, so tip. When we’re finally settled in the room we realise the air-con isn’t switched on. It’s hot. There also aren’t towels or toilet paper. There are about 12 switched all next to each other by the door, none labelled, and none seem to operate the AC. Downstairs I ask, and it is explained that reception have to switch it on for you. Well why the hell haven’t you done so already? A chap also agrees to bring me the towels, then tells me he will sell me toilet paper!! I resolve to change hotels the following morning.
We head out and round the corner to the Blue Sky Café, which we go into because it looks busy – in fact it is recommended by LP. The food’s good, though they bring more than I ordered.
Hungry customers
After eating, we walk around the area. It’s noisy, very run down, and we’re frequently hassled. Cars and jeeps whizz along the narrow streets far too fast, clearing the way ahead using their horns. The roadside and buildings are filthy – one would not like to fall over into some of the black sludge which seems to cake the pavement.
Note Hilson Hotel. There’s also a sHilton!
The first mission is to look for another hotel. Unfortunately after walking around for a while, we realise that there is not really any better on offer. The whole area is a pit. Better the devil you know.. Finally something appeals – a sweet shop!
Haldiram Sweet Shop
Apparently Calcutta is known for sweets, which are more like bite-sized cakes to us, and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records for having the most sweet shops in the world. Bengali people are famous sweet tooths and their sweets, usually milk, sugar, honey and nuts blended together, come in hundreds of varieties.
Choices choices
Thursday, August 09, 2007
The Gateway of India, Art, Beach, Food and Tea
Out latish, and I hop in a taxi to the Gateway of India, a 20r fare, probably paying too much as the chap agreed too readily. I’m suspicious of meters here as they are all out of date and therefore all use these conversion charts to ramp the fare up from what the meter says.
The Gateway of India
Arriving, there are a few touts which I ignore with my mp3 player. The story behind this enormous archway is that it was built in 1924, in the Islamic styles of 16th-century Gujarat, intended as a symbolic entry point for those arriving at the continent from Europe. Instead the last British troops marched ceremoniously through it in 1948.
This is also the point from when the boats leave going to Elephant Island, Mumbai’s top tourist attraction. The weather’s not looking great though, and I decide not to go.
The boats going to Elephant Island
So, past the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, built by JN Tata, a Parsi industrialist, after he was refused entry to one of the European hotels on account of being a “native”.
The Taj Hotel
I walk around Colaba, the foreigner backpacker area (supposedly). On my way to a modern art gallery, I pass a busy vegetarian restaurant, and of course have to pop in. My policy on food the last few days has been that if I pass somewhere busy, unless I’m actually feeling full, I pop in for tea and something to nibble. This has to stop!
Anyway, I’m happy sticking to vegetarian food here, as the majority of people are vegetarian, for religious reasons (apparently UK has highest proportion of vegetarians for non-religious reasons). It’s worth going with the majority – given the general state of hygiene here, I’d hate to imagine meat, how it’s prepared, and how long it hangs around for!
Another dosa, this one supposedly paneer, not that I could find any in it
An idli, sort of rice-cake, in a yoghurt-like sauce
Reminds me of Nepal, when Raju invited Adrian and myself for a feast at his mother-in-law’s house, which was wonderful, except because we were special guests, they prepared meat, which was, put kindly, not the highlight of the meal!
By the way, I’ve decided to stop posting photos of cups of tea. I might bundle them into a spot the difference competition at some point in the future, but for now just assume that everything I eat is washed down by a 50% tea 50% sugar mix. Will I ever be able to drink unsweetened tea again after this country? Pippi will be pleased!
Art
Next the National Gallery of Modern Art, a beautiful stone domed structure built by Sir Cowasji Jehangir. Unfortunately photography is not allowed, always annoying when this is the case. I sneaked a couple of shots, but my favourite pieces were too-well guarded!
The charge for entry was 10r, or 150r for foreigners. They then made an issue when I handed them a 500 note, saying they didn’t have change. I replied that I had change for the local price, but if they were going to charge me 15x the standard price they can jolly well find some change.
Next across the road to the Jehangir Art Gallery, a commercial gallery with weekly rotating shows by different artists, with most works for sale, hence no entry fee.
Better than art..
Next door is the Prince of Wales Museum, this time with local price 10r and foreigner 300. I’m sorry, this is too much, I decide I’ve had enough of being ripped off for the day, I am not paying THIRTY TIMES the local price for entry, so decide instead to wander the city in the light rain.
Walking in the rain
Further along the street is Bombay University, designed by Gilbert Scott of St. Pancreas fame, looking, as LP describe it “like a 15-century Italian masterpiece dropped into the middle of an Indian metropolis”, and the High Court, an imposing structure.
I head behind the University, across the Oval Maidan, one of the best-known grass areas, where kids play football in the mud and rain.
The clocktower, the Rajabhai Tower, seems to be at the back of the university, and is obviously a city icon of some kind, as it’s one of the few postcard shots I can find!
The other side of the maidan is the Oxford Book Store and Cha bar.
I stock up on penguin classics, then enjoy “Nan Such” tea and a salad! Salad, who would have thought it! Against the traveller’s rules, but I need some green stuff after three days of curry!
Train to Chowpatty
It’s chucking it down as I head up to Churchgate train station. This is the other main station in the area, and seems to serve the local routes more than CST.
I buy a second-class ticket to Charni station, which costs 8 rupees, and catch the next train heading that way. It’s only two stops, effectively round the bay to Chowpatty Beach. The train itself is filthy. There are no doors, so people hang out of the sides, even though it’s not that busy now.
Chowpatty Beach, at the end of Marine Drive, a road stretching round from where I was earlier, is apparently all on reclaimed land from Back Bay. LP advises against swimming. There are a collection of tatty fairground rides on one side. Most people seem to be having fun.
Kotachiwadi
My final stop of the day is Kotachiwadi, a hamlet (wadi) which has survived unscathed from a previous era - two story colonial houses line narrow streets, a small Christian enclave. I am here to eat at Anantashram. Apparently Mumbaiites will travel across town to enjoy the curried chicken or fried fish.
I’m seated by a friendly chap, who asks me if I came here because of LP, and then launches into a long apology about the entry which states that the staff are “surly”! He says his brothers don’t speak English, hence why the reviewer may have had this impression. I order some fish.
The chap tells me this area was originally populated by British officers, who when they left gave their houses to their orderlies and servants. He’s a friendly chap who tells me all about his work on cruise liners selling jewels. He doesn’t stop when my food arrives. Eventually I am left to eat!
My meal is a fried pomfret fish served sitting on top of a pot of curry, with rice and chapatti. It’s nice, though I start off badly with a mouthful of bones when I cleave the flesh apart the wrong way. The restaurant is interesting, in that the majority of it is filled with “tables for one”. It looks like the platform for a solitaire competition!
I walk back to my hotel but get slightly lost and end up wading through my rugby pitch maidan again! Always good to wash ones feet before getting home, I always say! As I’m not full to bursting point, I pop into the local restaurant for tea, but end up ordering what my neighbours have, which is aloo with chapatti.
Time for bed, possibly with a few episodes of King of the Hill before sleep. Thank you Lewis!!
Quiet Sunday
They really do Sundays here. Nothing is open! Almost all the restaurants and shops around the main station have their shutters down. I’m a bit surprised to be honest. Main post office is open, so I get some stamps for postcards. They turn out to not be sticky at all.
Quiet
I walk around town, the streets are almost suspiciously quiet. I guess most of the people working around here live further out in the suburbs and so are not about today. Even all the internet cafes, which are hard to find at the best of times, are closed! I end up back at my 20r per hour one, which is open. You really would have thought India would be teaming with cafés – in general under-developed countries where not so many people have computers at home tend to go mad for cafés, but here there are literally hardly any. I don’t understand it. And no wifi anywhere either.
Partially for something to do, and partially because it allegedly has free wifi, I decide to go to a large shopping mall called InOrbit, which is a fair way away – I have to take a train from Churchgate to Malad, which takes about an hour. There I ask a few people where the mall is – it’s supposed to be the biggest in Mumbai. No one has heard of it. No “Local Area Information” in the stations here!
Eventually I find a security guard who knows it, and writes down the name on a piece of paper for me, which I show to the auto-rickshaw driver. These are two seater things bolted on to the front of a motorbike, and on the roads they are remarkably like bumper cards, swarming about, squeezing through the smallest gaps, etc.
The meter goes up incredibly slowly – the 20 minute journey slowly creeps up to 2 rupees and 60p. I was thinking how cheap this was, then the driver started demanding more money. Not speaking any English, we were about to get into a punch up, then I beckoned a passer-by to help out. He asked the driver for his card. Ahhh, conversion cards. I had read about these.
Basically they hardly ever update the meters on taxis and rickshaws, so instead they carry tables around with them. This was ridiculous though, as he multipled 2.6rupees up to 26! Usually these tables are a temporary measure – it’s mad to have almost no relation between the source number and what they’re going to charge you.
The mall is unexciting, and there is wifi, but it’s not apparently connected to the actual internet. I have a beer and some nibbles then head back, sharing the rickshaw with a friendly chap from near Calcutta, who insists on paying for it at the end. He says it’s friendship day today. I wait for the con, but he’s being genuine. Perhaps I should drop my guard slightly.
Early start, I have a flight to Calcutta. I’m almost escorted off the premises by one of the helpful lads. I’ve decided rather than take a traffic-jam-prone cab, I’ll take a train to near the airport, then rickshaw or walk it from there.
The train is not too busy, it’s about 7am. LP strongly suggests not trying this route in rush hour. I can understand. Even at quiet times the trains are still what one would describe as fairly busy, particularly between certain stations.
The train passes a putrid river, the awful smell filling the carriage and making me retch. I can see people washing and brushing teeth with fingers in the water. I actually feel sick thinking about it.
Walk to airport
Bombay airport has free wifi, which my phone could use when I arrived a few days ago. Not today though. Vista in particular seems to be very fussy about DNS. According to windows the primary DNS server is not responding. There’s a chap sitting a couple of tables from me happily surfing, so why can I not? How frustrating in a country with almost no internet access, to find it only not to be able to use it, for no good reason!
As seems to be the way in India, they don’t let you into the terminal until you show them a ticket. I have an e-ticket. The army types guarding the door don’t seem to have grasped this concept, so I have to go to the IndiGo office to get a print out of my itinerary. Check in, breakfast at a coffee shop, then a brand-new A320 direct to Calcutta. All fairly smooth. Suspiciously so...
The Gateway of India
Arriving, there are a few touts which I ignore with my mp3 player. The story behind this enormous archway is that it was built in 1924, in the Islamic styles of 16th-century Gujarat, intended as a symbolic entry point for those arriving at the continent from Europe. Instead the last British troops marched ceremoniously through it in 1948.
This is also the point from when the boats leave going to Elephant Island, Mumbai’s top tourist attraction. The weather’s not looking great though, and I decide not to go.
The boats going to Elephant Island
So, past the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, built by JN Tata, a Parsi industrialist, after he was refused entry to one of the European hotels on account of being a “native”.
The Taj Hotel
I walk around Colaba, the foreigner backpacker area (supposedly). On my way to a modern art gallery, I pass a busy vegetarian restaurant, and of course have to pop in. My policy on food the last few days has been that if I pass somewhere busy, unless I’m actually feeling full, I pop in for tea and something to nibble. This has to stop!
Anyway, I’m happy sticking to vegetarian food here, as the majority of people are vegetarian, for religious reasons (apparently UK has highest proportion of vegetarians for non-religious reasons). It’s worth going with the majority – given the general state of hygiene here, I’d hate to imagine meat, how it’s prepared, and how long it hangs around for!
Another dosa, this one supposedly paneer, not that I could find any in it
An idli, sort of rice-cake, in a yoghurt-like sauce
Reminds me of Nepal, when Raju invited Adrian and myself for a feast at his mother-in-law’s house, which was wonderful, except because we were special guests, they prepared meat, which was, put kindly, not the highlight of the meal!
By the way, I’ve decided to stop posting photos of cups of tea. I might bundle them into a spot the difference competition at some point in the future, but for now just assume that everything I eat is washed down by a 50% tea 50% sugar mix. Will I ever be able to drink unsweetened tea again after this country? Pippi will be pleased!
Art
Next the National Gallery of Modern Art, a beautiful stone domed structure built by Sir Cowasji Jehangir. Unfortunately photography is not allowed, always annoying when this is the case. I sneaked a couple of shots, but my favourite pieces were too-well guarded!
The charge for entry was 10r, or 150r for foreigners. They then made an issue when I handed them a 500 note, saying they didn’t have change. I replied that I had change for the local price, but if they were going to charge me 15x the standard price they can jolly well find some change.
Next across the road to the Jehangir Art Gallery, a commercial gallery with weekly rotating shows by different artists, with most works for sale, hence no entry fee.
Better than art..
Next door is the Prince of Wales Museum, this time with local price 10r and foreigner 300. I’m sorry, this is too much, I decide I’ve had enough of being ripped off for the day, I am not paying THIRTY TIMES the local price for entry, so decide instead to wander the city in the light rain.
Walking in the rain
Further along the street is Bombay University, designed by Gilbert Scott of St. Pancreas fame, looking, as LP describe it “like a 15-century Italian masterpiece dropped into the middle of an Indian metropolis”, and the High Court, an imposing structure.
I head behind the University, across the Oval Maidan, one of the best-known grass areas, where kids play football in the mud and rain.
The clocktower, the Rajabhai Tower, seems to be at the back of the university, and is obviously a city icon of some kind, as it’s one of the few postcard shots I can find!
The other side of the maidan is the Oxford Book Store and Cha bar.
I stock up on penguin classics, then enjoy “Nan Such” tea and a salad! Salad, who would have thought it! Against the traveller’s rules, but I need some green stuff after three days of curry!
Train to Chowpatty
It’s chucking it down as I head up to Churchgate train station. This is the other main station in the area, and seems to serve the local routes more than CST.
I buy a second-class ticket to Charni station, which costs 8 rupees, and catch the next train heading that way. It’s only two stops, effectively round the bay to Chowpatty Beach. The train itself is filthy. There are no doors, so people hang out of the sides, even though it’s not that busy now.
Chowpatty Beach, at the end of Marine Drive, a road stretching round from where I was earlier, is apparently all on reclaimed land from Back Bay. LP advises against swimming. There are a collection of tatty fairground rides on one side. Most people seem to be having fun.
Kotachiwadi
My final stop of the day is Kotachiwadi, a hamlet (wadi) which has survived unscathed from a previous era - two story colonial houses line narrow streets, a small Christian enclave. I am here to eat at Anantashram. Apparently Mumbaiites will travel across town to enjoy the curried chicken or fried fish.
I’m seated by a friendly chap, who asks me if I came here because of LP, and then launches into a long apology about the entry which states that the staff are “surly”! He says his brothers don’t speak English, hence why the reviewer may have had this impression. I order some fish.
The chap tells me this area was originally populated by British officers, who when they left gave their houses to their orderlies and servants. He’s a friendly chap who tells me all about his work on cruise liners selling jewels. He doesn’t stop when my food arrives. Eventually I am left to eat!
My meal is a fried pomfret fish served sitting on top of a pot of curry, with rice and chapatti. It’s nice, though I start off badly with a mouthful of bones when I cleave the flesh apart the wrong way. The restaurant is interesting, in that the majority of it is filled with “tables for one”. It looks like the platform for a solitaire competition!
I walk back to my hotel but get slightly lost and end up wading through my rugby pitch maidan again! Always good to wash ones feet before getting home, I always say! As I’m not full to bursting point, I pop into the local restaurant for tea, but end up ordering what my neighbours have, which is aloo with chapatti.
Time for bed, possibly with a few episodes of King of the Hill before sleep. Thank you Lewis!!
Quiet Sunday
They really do Sundays here. Nothing is open! Almost all the restaurants and shops around the main station have their shutters down. I’m a bit surprised to be honest. Main post office is open, so I get some stamps for postcards. They turn out to not be sticky at all.
Quiet
I walk around town, the streets are almost suspiciously quiet. I guess most of the people working around here live further out in the suburbs and so are not about today. Even all the internet cafes, which are hard to find at the best of times, are closed! I end up back at my 20r per hour one, which is open. You really would have thought India would be teaming with cafés – in general under-developed countries where not so many people have computers at home tend to go mad for cafés, but here there are literally hardly any. I don’t understand it. And no wifi anywhere either.
Partially for something to do, and partially because it allegedly has free wifi, I decide to go to a large shopping mall called InOrbit, which is a fair way away – I have to take a train from Churchgate to Malad, which takes about an hour. There I ask a few people where the mall is – it’s supposed to be the biggest in Mumbai. No one has heard of it. No “Local Area Information” in the stations here!
Eventually I find a security guard who knows it, and writes down the name on a piece of paper for me, which I show to the auto-rickshaw driver. These are two seater things bolted on to the front of a motorbike, and on the roads they are remarkably like bumper cards, swarming about, squeezing through the smallest gaps, etc.
The meter goes up incredibly slowly – the 20 minute journey slowly creeps up to 2 rupees and 60p. I was thinking how cheap this was, then the driver started demanding more money. Not speaking any English, we were about to get into a punch up, then I beckoned a passer-by to help out. He asked the driver for his card. Ahhh, conversion cards. I had read about these.
Basically they hardly ever update the meters on taxis and rickshaws, so instead they carry tables around with them. This was ridiculous though, as he multipled 2.6rupees up to 26! Usually these tables are a temporary measure – it’s mad to have almost no relation between the source number and what they’re going to charge you.
The mall is unexciting, and there is wifi, but it’s not apparently connected to the actual internet. I have a beer and some nibbles then head back, sharing the rickshaw with a friendly chap from near Calcutta, who insists on paying for it at the end. He says it’s friendship day today. I wait for the con, but he’s being genuine. Perhaps I should drop my guard slightly.
Early start, I have a flight to Calcutta. I’m almost escorted off the premises by one of the helpful lads. I’ve decided rather than take a traffic-jam-prone cab, I’ll take a train to near the airport, then rickshaw or walk it from there.
The train is not too busy, it’s about 7am. LP strongly suggests not trying this route in rush hour. I can understand. Even at quiet times the trains are still what one would describe as fairly busy, particularly between certain stations.
The train passes a putrid river, the awful smell filling the carriage and making me retch. I can see people washing and brushing teeth with fingers in the water. I actually feel sick thinking about it.
Walk to airport
Bombay airport has free wifi, which my phone could use when I arrived a few days ago. Not today though. Vista in particular seems to be very fussy about DNS. According to windows the primary DNS server is not responding. There’s a chap sitting a couple of tables from me happily surfing, so why can I not? How frustrating in a country with almost no internet access, to find it only not to be able to use it, for no good reason!
As seems to be the way in India, they don’t let you into the terminal until you show them a ticket. I have an e-ticket. The army types guarding the door don’t seem to have grasped this concept, so I have to go to the IndiGo office to get a print out of my itinerary. Check in, breakfast at a coffee shop, then a brand-new A320 direct to Calcutta. All fairly smooth. Suspiciously so...
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