Before I start on Mumbai, I thought you might be interested
to hear that now we are ready for the pirates. On deck 3, promenade, they have
water canons mounted and have put barbed wire around the deck. They are now
doing a drill for the crew on what to do. At night they stand watch on deck
three for any other ships. We report regularly to UKMTO in Dubai. UKMTO is the
United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organization who co-ordinate all of the coalition
warships in the area assigned to antipiracy operations. We are being tracked
during our entire transit and although we may not see them, warships and AWASs
will be monitoring us. We have 4 LRADs (Long Rand Acoustic Devices) rigged,
manned and ready for immediate use. If the alarm is sounded (one long ring of
the ships alarm followed by an announcement – testing, testing, testing from
the Captain, staff Captain, or the Officer on watch on the Bridge, we are to go
into the halls and sit down as the ship will be going fast and could be
heeling. Nothing should happen though, but we are prepared.
We are now in Mumbai, India. We are here for two days and
have seen so much, I am going to break it into two days. This is the last port
in India. Mumbai is the world’s fourth most populous city. Some of the world’s
richest and poorest people live here. Once one of the major centers of the raj
(the 300 year British occupation), Mumbai retains vestiges of the Empire, from
its Victorian buildings to its tea time tradition and the English spoken nearly
everywhere. Mumbai is the home of Bollywood, the world’s largest film industry,
and its music and dance pervades the city’s culture.
Mumbai was called Bombay, which means goodbye in Portuguese,
till 1996. Mumbai is named after the goddess Mumba. Even though we are here
overnight they are closing the port at 11PM, so if you are not back by then you
cannot get back on the ship till 6AM the next morning.
The first day of our tour was very busy. It turns out that
Mumbai is not what I expected, but interesting. We started the day by going by
Mumbai University, which you cannot enter the grounds, the High Court Building,
the old Fort area, Victoria Terminus, Prince of Wales Museum and City Hall. Victoria
Terminus is the main train terminal. A half million people go through there
everyday. We were there at 10:15 AM and it was very busy. Women ride in the
first car and the men in the rest. In all of these ports how we dress is very
important. If we are going in any temples we must have long pants and shirts on
(men and women) and take our shoes off. In a mosque, if women are allowed, they
must be covered from head to toe. Hence I bought a scarf. In India, Hindu is
the largest religion. We then saw the Queen’s Necklace, which is lights around
the biggest bay in the city. We went by Chowpatty Beach, which is a large beach
where they party each night. We also visited the Mani Bhawan Gandhi Museum,
which was really interesting. It is the site where Mahatma Gandhi’s Bombay base
was between 1917 and 1934. A series of dioramas tell Gandhi’s life story, One
letter is addressed to Hitler, asking him to refrain from war. Gandhi also
corresponded with Roosevelt, Tolstoy and Einstein. We then went to a vegetarian
Indian restaurant for lunch (we had pizza).
After lunch we went to the Hanging Gardens. These gardens
are built on a reservoir and when they were built they sat above the city and
looked like hanging gardens. Today the city has built up around them and they
no longer look like they are hanging. We then went by the Hoji Ali Mosque. It
is located off a long pier, and it was very hot, so did not take the walk to go
in. We then went to the public laundry, Dhobi Ghat, similar to the one in
Cochin, except this one you can only see from an overpass. Last, but not least,
were the Dharavi Slums. Over a million people live in these slums. They live
here, go to school (up through high school) here and work here. People from
other parts of the city also come here to work. They have a recycling business
in this slum that makes more than a billion dollars a year. We also saw the
American Tourister luggage that they make here. Our guide for this part of the
tour was a gentleman who is getting his Masters in Physics, and has grown up
here in the slums. His ambition is to go to the US. The other guide we had here
is getting his Bachelors in Commerce and never wants to leave the slums. It was
a very dirty and depressing place, but interesting. The people here were very
polite and dressed very well, except those doing the menial tasks. They refer to
this area as a community.
We then came back to go out in the evening for more
sightseeing and dinner. However, the tour company forgot to make our dinner
reservations, so we just did some sightseeing and got our money back. It was
better because, as I said they close the port early and we did not want to be
left on the pier at night. We got to see the Queen’s Necklace at night. We also
saw the Babullanth Temple. It is a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva. We have
learned a lot about the Hindu religion.
They believe in one god, but they have many to pick from. It was 108 steps up
to the top where the temple was. We also walked on Chowpatty Beach as people
were gathering. We ended up at the Gates to India and saw it and the Taj Hotel
lit up at night. It is a 5 star hotel and beautiful inside as we found out the
next day. We will return here tomorrow to take the ferry to Elephanta Island.
Today we were talking to a friend of ours and he showed us a
way to keep pictures in the right order when moving them to a folder outside of
iPhoto (I know a little late), so I have them in the same order in my folder as
in iPhoto, now hopefully they will upload in the same order to the blog. It looks like they added the in reverse order
1 – Mumbai Cruise Terminal
2 – Street by University and Court
3 – Church
4 – 5 Mumbai University
6-7 Supreme Court
8 – Cow resting on sidewalk
9-13 Victoria Terminus
14 City Hall
15-16 Skyline
17 Aquarium
18-19 Chowpatty Beach
20-21 Gandhi Museum
22 High Rise
23-24 Hindu Temple
25 – Name of restaurant
26 – Jain Temple – one of the strictest Hindu sects. You
must be of this religion to enter. Our guide said they are mostly merchants and
very wealthy so their temples are all rich and beautiful.
27 – Most expensive house in the world. It cost over $2
billion to build. A family of 4 and their 700 staff live there.
28-30 Hanging Gardens
31 School class at the gardens
32-33 Laundry
34-36 Slum
37 Slum – our guide on left
38-39 High Rise
40 Sunset
41-42 Temple
43 Taj Hotel (old section)
44-45 Gate to India
46 Carriage
47 Fountain
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