Now that I finally have some free time, I figured that I would post all my journals, thoughts and random things from my trip to south India. Sooo, I start with the day before I left for the trip when my Dad arrived....
December 11th: Mumbai
I was so excited for today! I was so excited in fact that I was up at 5:30am—just like Christmas morning excitement. It was such a wonderful feeling knowing that I was going to be seeing my Dad today. After trying to go back to sleep, I managed to sleep until 7am, then just couldn’t sleep anymore. It was too early for me to go meet my Dad & Hollis, so I played some solitaire then started my day. Around 8:30, I just couldn’t take the excitement anymore and went to meet my Dad. After giving him a nice big hug, we went to grab some breakfast.
Breakfast was great! There’s a little café near my apartment, so we decided to eat there. Being in the Indian mood, we all had a south Indian breakfast (for 70 rupees or $1.50 I might add!) and gorgeous looking coffee.
After fueling up on coffee and needed energy, we began our trip downtown. Our taxi driver that we had was very interesting too. I’ve noticed that anyone who knows a little English wants to “test out” their English on foreigners. And the taxi driver was no exception. He pointed out the Hanging Gardens, the Oberoi Hotel and told us of a story of how dumb white people can be. The previous people he had in his taxi had accidentally left an expensive Sony camera on the seat of the taxi. Whoops! I was surprised to hear that the taxi driver had actually wanted to give it back.
After spending $4 US dollars on a 40 minute taxi ride, we had arrived in Colaba, downtown Mumbai. We saw the unfortunate Taj Mahal Hotel blackened from the smoke damage of the recent terror attacks. We saw about 20 men all dressed in white, chanting in an open area near the Gateway of India. Taking pictures didn’t do this area or the men chanting any justice. There’s only so much you can take pictures of, before you want to somehow capture the memories. After taking pictures of the Taj Mahal Hotel and Gateway of India, we started to make our way to Fab India for some clothing.
You never know what you’re going to find in India though or where your day will take you. On our way to find FabIndia, we found a government Emporium shop that had a permanent exhibition….wooden elephants, Buddhas, Ganeshes, silk sarees—so much for the eyes to take in! At every section of the store, if you wanted to buy an item you had to bring it to the counter in that section. There, a person would write out a receipt/bill for the item. Your item would then go to the delivery section of the store and you would carry on with your shopping. Before you carried on with your shopping, the receipt was not complete without a few stamps. Every piece of paper that they gave you was stamped by these government officials. After finishing shopping, I managed to only buy a cloth notebook in the tie and dye style of fabric. We then went to the cashier to hand in our receipts and pay for the items. But the process of shopping was not done—now we had to actually get the item back. So then we had to go to the delivery section of the store to pick up our various items. Such an interesting way of doing things! I guess that’s one way to employ 20 people in a regular sized shop! Then we started off on the car congested road to try and find FabIndia which we were able to find quite easily. Dad & Hollis were able to get some kurtas and pants and I got a beautiful teal and gold colored dupatta (shawl) for $12. Soon enough, we were getting hungry so we made our way back to Bandra (where the taxi driver jipped us off and made us pay $10 US dollars for a taxi). In Bandra, we went to the Red Box Café for some lunch. I got this really yummy paneer (cottage cheese tofu thing) burger. Hollis and my Dad also got really good vegetarian dishes.
Then it was time to show them the bargaining side of India. My cheaply made Indian purse had ripped so I needed to get another one. Bargaining here is such an art! The shop owner might start the price off at 700 rupees, but I know that I should be able to get it for 250. In order to get it to a good price, you have to tell a little tale. “I’m an American and I want to love your country” or “I just had this bag and it’s cheaply made just like the one I’m buying from you”…I knew if I had taken a little bit more time, I would be able to get the price down to 250 or so—but I managed to get it for 300 rupees (about $7 US dollars).
After walking off our lunch and plowing through the crowds and people wanting us to buy cheap shoes and bags, we stopped for some Natural Ice Cream. This ice cream store has custard apple, jackfruit, coconut ice cream…the list goes on and on. It’s so nice to have a small group because then we’re able to share the ice cream and food.
After sorting out the luggage, we made our way back to the hotel, ordered ourselves some lassi (a yogurt drink) and called it a night.
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