No and I'm sorry, but Bombay is a dump. An unmitigated dump. From what I have seen, and frankly I don't want to see any more, it has not got one single redeeming feature.
It is an industrial/business city by and large and whilst it may have some sort of self-appointed veneer of sophistication somewhere, it is hot, dusty, choked with fumes, noisy, crowded and ugly in the extreme.
I am leaving tomorrow to go to Delhi…the boys will be fine with that…probably elated even, and they are staying behind as they are booked on a train on Friday night to Delhi.
After a cancellation I have booked a room at the Delhi Youth hostel, which people rave about and which is right in the middle of the diplomatic quarter of town and a wonderful launch off point to see things.
So there is brief is what I am up to. Now for what we have done today !
The boys slept in this morning, as usual I couldn't sleep much beyond 10 am despite going to bed in the end at 5 am local time and we left the hotel at about 12.30 and hired a driver for the day. INR 800 for the day with 80 kilometres included.
The traffic was something else….I mean just unbelievable. We crawled into town and were bumper to bumper for about an hour in the searing heat. It was quite awful.
Anyway, we made it to the main train station and staggered about until we found the mythical "Counter 52" which is where they dole out the tickets for trains which are held back for tourists.
It was all very efficient, computerised and stuff, but I am afraid that as soon as they announced to us that the Rajahni Express, the train that whizzes to Delhi in a mere 17 hours and has a degree of comfort, was fully booked my eyes glazed over and I lost any will whatsoever to travel there by train, as the alternative trains were going to take 24 hours and probably longer and would stop at every second bend!
The boys were of course up for whatever was going and so we soon paraded out of the station with 2 tickets in 2nd Class AC on the somethingorother mail train from Mumbai to Delhi on Friday ! My God, I do admire them, but frankly rather them than me!
From the station we drove over the the Gateway of India, where in the old colonial days the liners landed with the Raj types aboard. It looks a little like the Arc de Triomphe and is located for some reason right on the edge of the water.
Well, I don't know….it is an arch in the midde of nowhere with a lot of tatty people and tatty things like acres of nbuilding materials around it and really looks nothing at all when compared to other arches I have seenl. But anyway we dutifully plodded around it and I suggested we take a boat out into the harbour to see things from the water.
The waterfront of Bombay is of course huge, and is filled with rustbuckets of every sort as far as the eye can see. There are a few ghastly gin palaces lying at anchor like the sort you see in the South of France and a few Indian Navy ships - including the old Ark Royal complete with launch ramp which I think we flogged them as a job lot with HMS Victory many years ago! What amused me was that even the sea seemed dusty and dirty !
Anyway, we returned to dry land and had a quick mooch round the Taj Hotel which is right next to the Gateway of India and which is considered the 'best' Hotel in India.
You know what I am going to say, don't you. Well, I absolutely hated it…and I think the boys did too ! It is exactly the same as so many other modernist 5 star hotels around the world, with more or less exactly the same shops selling absurdly overpriced tat.
It was full of self important Europeans and even more self important Indians who somehow think that by dressing in expensive clothes at 3 in the afternoon confers an air of sophistication on them ! The whole place reminded me of the Wynns hotel in Las Vegas, though the Wynns was much classier and much nicer located !
We then went to have an early dinner as we were all tired. We went to Marine Drive which is the Corniche here in Mumbai. Again what on earth it has going for it I cannot imagine, but I suppose if you live here it is all you've got! Rather crummy buildings are on one side of the huge dual carriageway full of traffic and an OK beach is on the other !
We went onto the beach and sat down at a sort of beachside food area which it has to be said was rather nice. It was all very local and w ordered something called Dhosa, which was a type of wrap made of mashed potatoes and onions. It came with some dal and another quantity of slop on a metal plate.
We sat on the ground eating and felt very much 'au jour' and trendy!
Afte dinner we went for a stroll on the beach. Our first port of call was to buy a corn on the cob which the chef cooked on some embers but then promptly slathered in lemon salt (revolting, though Oscar manfully munched his way through it!).
We then went on to buy a fresh Mango from another vendor on the beach which was equally revolting and tasteless and also slathered in Lemon salt ! Oh well….
We then went to a bookshop where the boys bought a guide and I bought a beautiful Parker pen made in India for very little, and then we went back to the boys hotel and I came back to my hotel and crashed!
No, today was wonderful from the point of view of being able to spend time with Tom and Oscar - and as I had no intention of swamping them my leaving tomorrow is just the right thing in order to let them get their feet under the proverbial table of travelling on their own, which they seem to be taking to like a duck to water.
But from just about every other point of view it was absolutely dreadful. I make the world and beyond one promise….I will ever ever return to BOmbay !
Buona Notte and see you'll in Delhi tomorrow. I fly at 11 am with Indigo airways and arrive there at 2 in the afternoon.
Very entertaining recount Peter and thank you. I will now add Bombay to my list of cities I don't want to visit!
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