India travels are over - home again - end of the blog

I ended my travels in India with dinner and a few beers at Leopold's Cafe in Mumbai. There were demonstrations in the street marching up and down the main street in front of Leopold's and there was an absolutely packed house inside Leopold's. The crowd inside Leopold's was mostly local Mumbai people, many wearing the day's most popular "I love Mumbai" T-shirts. They had come out to show support for Leopold's, and to see, and to be seen, at Leopold's. The crowd was loud and frequently breaking into song or chants, which were not in English, so I could feel the spirit, but didn't understand most of the words. There was a strong nationalistic feel in the air and a defiantly proud Mumbai spirit, and also sometimes a strong anti-Pakistan sentiment. I had left my bag at the hotel and arranged for a cab to pick me up at 11pm to take me to the airport. Due to the hightened security, it was suggested that people get to the international airport at least three hours before their flight departure time. My flight was scheduled to depart at 3am. I caught my cab, got to the airport, the flight was an hour late leaving, and I was real tired before my flights homeward began. I flew on Lufthansa and the flights were well run and they treated me well with lots of food and drinks. I had a two hour stopover in Frankfurt, Germany where it was a grey wet cold morning. From Frankfurt we flew a polar route over Greenland, across northern Canada, down across the Canadian Rockies, the Washington North Cascades and south into Portland, flying past Mt Ranier, Mt Adams and Mt St Helens. It was a great traveling trip to India and Nepal, but it is great to be home. I have mostly adjusted to Pacific Standard Time now and I was glad to be greeted by some bright crisp Fall days for my return...blogger Dave signing off...end of my India travel blog...

Mumbai CST

I arrived in Bombay via the overnight train from the south. The destination terminal was Mumbai CST (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus). I awoke shortly before the train arrived at Mumbai CST. I was rather surprised to discover that almost all of the people on the sleeper car, that had been full of people when I went to sleep, had already gotten off at some stop before Mumbai CST...seemed odd... When I got to CST, it was deadly quiet and there were lots of police and military, but it was early and still dark, and I was tired, so I just got a cab and headed out to find my hotel. Later I found out that the Mumbai CST has also been one of the targets of the terrorists. Perhaps this is why most of the people chose another station to get off the train at before getting the Mumbai CST, but by a week later, the place was packed, busy and noisy.

wandering the streets of Bombay

Bombay feels like a city of business, everywhere there are businesses, mostly small shops or sidewalk stalls, but also bigger businesses and upscale shops and restaurants. It is busy and energetic, but also it is dirty and noisy.

Bombay Museum

I spent a couple of hours in the museum in Bombay. It is called Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly called the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India). They had a modest collection of historic artifact which were well labeled and housed in a pleasant to spend a few hours.

McDelivery

In the middle of the tourist section of town, there is a McDonald's restaurant. I was not surprised by the restaurant, but I was surprised to see their fleet of delivery motorcycles.

circus ebb and flow

By Wednesday morning, a week after the tragic events, the news story had started to fade and the satellite up-link news vans and their video crews had mostly packed up and moved on. But by the evening, protesters had assembled by the Taj Hotel, and the news crews were returning in force. The protesters seemed to be of several flavors, some lambasting the politicians as incompetents, some advocating war with Pakistan, and some wanting peace... Army vans with soldiers started to arrive, and I decided to move on and do my final blogging before I start my journey home.

Elephanta Island

I took a 30 minute boat ride to an island northeast of where I was staying in Mumbai. The island, Elephanta Island, has been a place of religious significance since before the second century BC. Around the 7th century AD, a series of Buddhist caves were carved out of the hillside. The caves were interesting, but after seeing the caves at Ajanta and Ellora, these were not particularly impressive, but it was a nice peaceful place, especially after the tension remaining in Mumbai. While I was there I met a group of Hindu monks. They had come to Mumbai to celebrate their guru's eighty-eighth birthday, but the guru decided that they should not celebrate due to the recent tragedy in Mumbai, so the monks decided to visit the caves before they returned to their home in central India. They had brought their own fresh vegetables to prepare their own food. They invited me to join them for a meal. The food was very good and very fresh. They are strict vegetarians, no eggs, no onions, no garlic. They make a life long commitment to service, giving up all material belongs, no sex, and no contact with immediate family. This particular sect only admits men older than 21 years and having a college degree, and having permission from their parents to sever their relationship with them forever. The food was great and they all seemed very committed (some were from the US, UK and Japan), but it was too much for me, so after an enjoyable meal and discussion, I went my own way.

Cafe Leopold

After I got myself settled into my room in my Hotel in Bombay, I got out my guidebook and picked out some local bars and restaurants to checkout in the neighborhood. One of the places prominently mentioned, in the bars section, was Cafe Leopold. I came across it while I was out exploring and I decided to go in and check out the menu. They had a big menu, but it did seem more like a drinking place than an eating place, so I decided to come back later in the evening. The waiter made me promise to come back. I looked around, there were very few people inside...but there were throngs of people looking in the two big doors out front, snapping pictures with their cell phone cameras...weird, I thought, as I stumbled out to continue my exploration of town. Later in the evening, after I had some great grilled chicken on a stick at a street vendor's booth, I dropped back by Cafe Leopold. As I was going in, someone told me that bad things had happened there, and that perhaps I should go somewhere else. It is a standard tactic for competitors in India to scare off people from other establishments and steer them to their place, so I brushed the guy off and went into Leopold's. I sat down, ordered a beer, and a guy came in and asked if he could join me, I said OK. This guy had been in town for five weeks and so he filled me in on the recent happenings at Leopold's. It had been one of the targets of the terrorist commandos. Thirteen people, mostly foreign tourists, had been killed there. He had planned on being at Leopold's that night, but had decided to stay in his room and read instead. He was a 29 year old jew from Chicago. He had been living in China for the past five years teaching English. He was shaken by the events, but he decided that he wanted one more evening in Leopold's before he left the country. He was cutting his stay short and returning to the USA the next day. This was the first day that Cafe Leopold's was open again since the rampage, and it was a big story that it had opened up again, local and international news photographers and video crews were in and out of the place all evening. We got interviewed and photographed many times. It was spooky! There were bullet holes in the walls and in the front window. The beer was good and the company was engaging.

cricket

Coming from America, cricket is a very unusual game, and it continues to surprise me when I come upon yet more people playing cricket or caught up in cricket mania. Kids play cricket on the school playgrounds, in fields and on the beaches. The parks in the big towns almost always have a few cricket matches going on. Jolly good!

colonial relics

Bombay was an important center of trade and business during the British colonial period, and there are many grand old building from that era that are still in active use and in pretty good shape. There are also many crumbling relics of those bygone days. Sometimes when I see these buildings I wonder what it would have been like to visit the colonies in the days of glory, days of glory for the colonizers, at least.

Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

The Taj was the center of much of the mayhem and tragedy with the terrorist commandos. The hotel is about four blocks from the hotel that I am staying in. These are in the Colaba area of town where most of the foreign tourist hotels and restaurants are. It is located close to the water, but then most places are because Mumbai is an island, similar to New York, which Bombay people often compare Mumbai to. The area immediately around the Taj was blocked off as they continued to sanitize the scene and to clean things up a bit before they let the tourists back in.

newspapers

During my travels in India, I have been struck by the number of people who read the newspapers. There are many newspapers available, mostly in Hindi, but always a few in English. The newspapers don't have much international news, but there are always a few news items about the USA, mostly about Obama. The newspapers now are dominated by the terrorist strike on Mumbai.

Bombay

When I arrived in Bombay, it was still very dark. It had rained over night, but it was warm and very humid. There were few people on the streets, but there was a heavy military and police presence. I got a taxi to take me to my hotel, in the Colaba district, but that is where the terrorist trouble had been, so many of the streets were blocked off. My taxi dropped me off about six blocks from my hotel, at a police checkpoint, and told me just to walk a few blocks down the street to my hotel. It was more than a few blocks, but with a bit of help from the street people of the night, I found my way to my hotel, verified that I had a room, dropped my bag off at the desk and headed out to find some breakfast. Bombay is a large and busy city. It is a center of business, finance, fashion and movies. Some of the town is rich, but much of it is poor. Over half of the people in Bombay live in shanty town slums. These people work in sweatshops in the slums, are beggars, or have small sidewalk stalls. The sidewalks are lined with small merchant stalls. The name Bombay originated during a period of Portugese rule. In 1996, Bombay was renamed as Mumbai, after a goddess, Mumba, who was important to the fishing communities that lived in the area at least back to 2 BC.

Arambol to Bombay

On my last day in Arambol, I met some people who live there for three to six months each winter. The main season in Arambol is December through February, but there are some people there from October to March. The rest of the year it is unbearably hot and humid, so the town is just about empty. There is quite a social network in town among the longer term residents...it is quite amazing. In the motorcycle spirit of the town, in the late afternoon I hired a motorcycle taxi to take to the train station for my overnight train to Mumbai. It was a nice ride on the motorcycle to a small town train station at Pernem, about 25 miles from Arambol. The train was a bit late arriving at Pernem, but it made it to Mumbai on schedule.