Mumbai (Bombay) India

Bombay Harbor is seven miles wide at the base and tapers as it goes north.  It is an impressive sight.  The port of Mumbai, which shares with the port of Calcutta the distinction of being one of the two largest ports in the country, handles by far the major portion of the passenger traffic part of India’s import-export trade.  With a vast and growing industrial hinterland, Mumbai is ideally situated to be the “Gateway to India” for all sea traffic from the west.  The city really took off in the middle of the last century, the railway brought prosperity, textile mills were put into operation and solid Victorian buildings were erected to prove that this was an empire on which the sun never set.  Land was reclaimed, mud flats and swamps were rid (comparatively speaking) of disease and Mumbai was pointed in the direction of the international glamour city it has become, though the Western visitor to this seething mass of 12 million people might find several interventions between cleanliness and Godliness. The city was called Bombay for much of the last 400 years, but Mumbai has been used in local languages for equally long.  An Act of Parliament officially changed the name to Mumbai in 1997.

Both Davids, & Barbara wanted to shop all day – Gary and I didn’t.  The two of us hired a car for 4 hours ($25.00) and went to various places that we hadn’t seen before.  Our first stop was the Victoria Train Station, quite impressive from the outside and equally impressive inside. This is where the end of “Slum Dog Millionaire” was filmed.  It was teaming with people and was absolutely fabulous.  We then went to see the men doing laundry.  It is an amazing sight as you can see from the picture.  We saw two, the first from a bridge above and the second was street level where we walked down a long passageway. Got some great pictures.  Our next stop was the Royal Bombay Yacht Club which dates back to the mid 1800’s.  We were granted entry as Gary was Commodore of our yacht club and they honored the reciprocal. We stayed long enough to have a drink then went across the street to the Taj Mahal Hotel (where the terrorists struck in ’09) for lunch.  It is truly a magnificent hotel and they had just finished renovating it after the attack.
 

Across from the hotel is the Gateway of India, which is a huge archway that was built to commemorate the visit of King George V in 1911.  We have been to Gandhi’s house/museum before and also the Prince Albert Museum so we skipped both this time.  I stopped in a shop before heading back to the ship and made my second purchase of the trip.

Tomorrow is “India Night” where everyone wears the sari’s they bought and there’s a big party around the pool.  No,      I didn’t buy a sari.

 It was a full day and an interesting one, but totally exhausting.  We have 2 days at sea before reaching Oman and after that Dubai.