Mumbai Again

I suspect now I'm traveling alone this blog will take on a different character. I'll probably write more with nobody else to say things too. Please tell me if I start going on about minutiae.

I've mentioned before how there's not much to do in Mumbai, but I decided to everything that was left yesterday. In the morning I decided to stop delaying the inevitable and get a hair cut. Unfortunately it's not quite what I hoped, but it was only 30p so what do you expect? After a falafel for lunch I then went to the (formerly) Prince of Wales Museum (easier to remember than the new Indian name). It was pretty good and just the right size, I realised that the caves at Elephanta would have been much nicer if they hadn't removed the nicest statues and put them in there! There was a painting of Glen Finnan, which did make me a touch homesick. (The first photo here is of the "Victoria Terminus" station).

I then walked to the Crawford Market, not that exciting, but sufficient to make it into the lonely planet's top sights of Mumbai section. I then walked on along the sea shore to Chowpatty beach, pausing to watch a bit of a cricket match and rest. Chowpatty beach is a nice enough beach (providing you don't go in the water) where the locals go to stroll around. There's some food stalls, men offering massages, kids fairground rides (human powered) and hawkers of various things. It was a bit hot when I got there so I walked on to see some more of the city and a former residence of Ghandi's, now a museum.

I'd already seen two of these former residence cum museums in Delhi, but this was quite a nice one: it's displays were not just reams and reams of text. I then went on to have a look at the Haji Ali mosque (see photo). This is reached by a walkway and only accessible at low tide. It was quite picturesque, but not much to look at inside apparently. I then walked back to Chowpatty beach for the sunset, via the hanging gardens, a fairly average park where the locals go to walk among an army of penguin shaped bins.

Dinner was a very un-Indian plate of Nachos (I'd eaten Indian all week!) and I walked most of the way home along the sea wall. I clocked up a lot of miles and my legs were quite sore as I wasn't used to it. I also wore my sandals which I wasn't used to, resulting is sore feet.

Being alone I noticed more of a tendency to look for interesting photos of the city and people, rather than just sights. Maybe it was a tendency to record things I saw to show to other people as there was no-one to show then? However, I then noticed a few moody looking lone westerners with styled hair searching out arty photos of the real India, and decided I didn't want to end up like them.

Well that's me finished with the sights here now. I leave early on Friday and I may enjoy a few of the city's eateries with some of the guys from the institute before then (did I mention the rats in the institute canteen?). I've also been taking advantage of the tv in my room which has about 10 live premiership matches over the weekend and HBO. I don't expect to be in rooms with tvs for a while after this week.