The Home of Slum Dog Millionaire: Mumbai

Gateway of India

So Mumbai was quite the experience. If I could summarize it in one word it would be hot. I have never been somewhere that was so hot and humid at the same time, I honestly don't know how people live there and actually go outside every day, it was so unbelievably hot we would step out of our room and just be drenched in sweat before we even started walking anywhere! Being exhausted form our adventures in Hampi probably wasn't a big help either, plus another 15ish hour bus ride where we hardly got any sleep, not fun. BUT we tried to come into Mumbai with an open mind because, let's be honest, how many times are you going to get the chance to explore Mumbai in your life? So we set out as soon as we dropped out stuff off at our hotel (which took a while to check into because the people at the front desk were NOT accommodating to us only having copies of our passports). We decided that since we were so tired we would just walk to the Gateway of India, explore around there for a bit, and then just come back and relax in the hotel room to prepare for four days of exploring Mumbai. Well, we did make it to the Gateway and we did take a few photos and appreciate the scenery, but it was certainly not the last thing we did that day. On our way out from the

Fishermen's Boats

Gateway we had, yet another, tour guide approach us. This one, though, was asking us if we knew how to buy tickets to the Elephants Islands, which we didn't but wanted to know how because we wanted to go in the days to come. He explained it to us before pitching to us his tour details. We had no intention of taking a tour of Mumbai, and and avoided all the other tour guides harassing us while we were trying to enjoy the scenery, but this one sounded pretty cool, the guy said he had an AC car, he was with an actual program, his father was from Bangalore, and I bargained the price down to only Rs. 700 per person, which is about $14 USD. We decided to go for it, why the hell not, so we all piled into his gloriously ACed van and headed out to the different hotspots of Mumbai.


One of the first spots we visited was Mumbai's version of a laundry mat. This was a massive outdoor project where there were cement tubs all lined up cell block style where people were hand washing clothes. After they were hand washed, they were all hung on clotheslines, without clothespins, though, to dry. How they did this without clothespins was they had two ropes and they just twisted the ends of the

Ghandi's House

clothes between them, therefore not needed any clothespins. Also, there are millions of articles of clothing that pass through the place every day and not once has one been returned to the wrong person. Just amazing.


The next place we went to was the docks to see where the fishermen came in. The water was so dirty, as to be expected anywhere in India, but I could almost smell the smell of the ocean through it. Almost. I thought it was particularly hilarious that their dingies were simply fishing nets stuffed with styrofoam. Regardless, it was peaceful and I liked being close to the ocean again, even for a brief time.


Our next stop was Ghandi's house. Yes, I got to go inside Ghandi's house. It was AWESOME. I love him. But anyways, so we got to go walking around his house, which is perfectly preserved and turned into a museum; you can even see where he sat and meditated during his hunger strike. It was amazing. His library was also perfectly preserved which was incredible. There were tons of photos of his life and

Largest Train Station in the World

even a little exhibit of the events of his lifetime. It was really neat to go inside and see where he actually lived and worked.


Our next stop was just a drive by the largest train station in the world. It was built by the British, which is staggeringly obvious when you look at it. It was actually really strange, Mumbai looked, to me, what I would imagine England would look, except with an Indian twist. The cars looked like they did in old England and there were still double decker busses that were installed before India got its independence. It was quite trippy and really neat at the same time. For being such a huge place for the British to colonize, though, not very many people spoke English, which we found surprising and super difficult to find our way around. If we

Setting of Slum Dog Millionaire

actually learned Hindi in our Hindi class then it would have been helpful, but alas, we haven't. We hit a few more stops, although none as memorable as these few. Plus we were super tired and ready to crash by the time we were nearing the end of our tour. We headed back t bask in the AC of our room (yes, we paid extra for AC THANK GOD) and to watch The X Factor, which we are now all addicted to.


The next day Melissa and I decided that we wanted to do the slum tour that our guide had told us about. It was way too overpriced, but we were really glad we did it; we learned a lot. We went to the same slum that Slum Dog Millionaire was filmed in, and it was trippy; the movie did the slum justice. It was just like you would

Touching the Arabian Sea

picture it: smelly, dirty, cramped, garbage, kids, and people everywhere. It was a mess, but so amazing to walk through. We saw all sorts of different things. Not only did we see the conditions people lived in, which I don't know how they do it and still actually live, but we got to see a massive recycling plant as well. This place clearly had no regulations, the people were working in squalor just to earn a penny, but they were recycling and earning money none the less so I guess it could be worse... although not much worse. All in all it was super eye opening to see the slums in person, I think the smell will stay with me for quite a while, it is hard to forget.


We headed to the beach one evening (called Cowpatty Beach) to watch the sunset. It was really crowded and people would not stop looking and taking pictures of us, which was super annoying, but the sunset was beautiful over the ocean and the city line. We got to touch the Arabian Ocean, although I didn't go in further than my toes because it was super polluted, but others did. They were swimming around in all their clothing, just having a grand old time just playing around in the water. Right as the sun went down, though, we

Amazing Caves

decided to scadaddle because of all the attention we were getting; we hate that.


We did a lot of other stuff in between, including just hanging out in the hotel room relaxing and watching TV, nothing wrong with that! But one other really neat thing we did do was we went to Elephanta Island to see the ancient caves that were carved out of the rocks. It was amazing! These caves were not only massive, but they were literally just carved out of the side of hills. They were elaborate with carvings of deities and gods, with huge pillars with details and steps that had been worn over by age. It was just incredible. There were also monkeys that stole tourists' water bottles if you didn't hide them as you walked past; my roommate fell victim to this, it was hilarious, to say the least.


So Mumbai was quite the adventure, way too hot for me to ever stay there longer than a few days, but definitely a completely new outlook on the way that some Indians live, it was amazing! Soooo good to be back in good old Bangalore, even though the mouse has chewed even more holes in our screen and our bathroom light and washer won't work. Welcome to India.

Today, my life is just Shelby.