. ( The actual capital of India is Deli). Mumbai is definitely where East meets West and totally crashes head on! You'll see skyscrapers next to squatter type people that are living in shells of buildings that look like they were hit by bombs in WWII. Women in Sari dresses walking next to women in business clothes walking next to women carrying an infant and a toddler with her other children running behind her. Everyone has something to sell. If you think NYC has street vendors, you are right, they do, but if you put NYC on some sort of mega sterroid drug and let it go crazy out of control then you might have some idea of what the streets of Mumbai look like. The beach picture you see here is of the main beach where people go to hang out and have fun much like the photos we posted of Rio's beaches. However, in Rio people look carefree in their "almost there" bathing suits. In Mumbai, people are covered from head to toe at the beach! The Muslim religion has really caught on here!! I never saw a female over 11 with her knees showing. This beach is a haven for pigeons!! They had a huge pinnned like area that must have been an okay place to feed them. There were thousands of pigeons on this beach! I can't imagine what it would be like to try to find a spot that was poop-free to put down your beach towel!! Mumbai hits you hard both with it's sites and smells! The haze of pollution hangs over the city like a blanket. You don't realize why God gave you nose hair until you come to India! Having a lot of filtering out nose hair would be a big plus if you lived here. Riding in the bus on the way to the airport is where these photos were made. The streets are narrow and crammed with bikes, taxis, cars, cows, dogs, vendors, children, you saw most everything. However, I found out I did not have a clue, because Agra offered a whole different duck when it came to traffic jams. Mumbai is very tropical feeling as far as weather goes. You don't feel a balmy breeze but you do feel intense heat on top of all the congestion and craziness of the city. There are pockets of palm trees and then stretches of poverty stricken areas that go on for 10 football fields. These slums are made of scaps they may have found in the trash, sticks, rocks sitting on top of the pieces of metal they found to keep the roof on, mud, paper, trash in general was holding some of their "homes" together. Some people don't even have that. There are over 18 MILLION people in this city!! That is almost the population of Alabama 4 times over!! All in one place!! Does that make you feel squished?? They "think" that there are about 2 million people that move about the city that never even get into the worst poverty stricken housing. We saw some families laying maybe 5 feet off the highway in a gutter-like area that only had a blanket for ground cover on the dirt and a few bowls. They were part of the 2 million people that will never know what it is like to have a home, a real bath, a real meal, mail, a holiday with family, be able to read, go to a doctor, have shoes, go to a real bathroom, talk on a phone, go to school, look out a window, things we can't even imagine as not ever having. I went to Mexico when I was in high school. There was poverty there on some level as this but not nearly as crowded and most of those people had some sort of shelter. Mumbai is both disturbingly eye-opening and incedibly exciting. There are bargain street bazaars, Rolls Royce dealerships, for the new western companies that are pouring into this city, there are horse drawn carriages that can take you past Vistorian buildings and steet vendors selling everything from flowers to bras. There are people cooking on the sidewalk every 15 yards. Everything from Indian doughnuts to curry everything!! You can get a haircut and shave on the sidewalk, and stop at a tailor that is right on the sidewalk ready to fix your torn sari!! I will try to type my way through this, and give you the best tour I can.
This family found a nice corner to squat on. They all were happy to give us a wave and liked knowing we were taking their picture. The people in India have beautifully clear skin. A dermotologist would starve tring to make a living here. They stay so covered up that skin cancer has not been much of a problem I am sure!These ladies were ALL covered in black. Not even their eyes were showing. They had thin veils covering their eyes. Look what they are doing. They are at a sidewalk sale!! They were obviously looking for more black clothes, as that is the section of the rack they were crowed around!!
The Hindu people take offerings to their temples. These are the type flowers they buy along the roadside. They look like leis in Hawaii. All handmade and all just a few cents to buy.
Here is a typical picture of poverty at some of it's worst right near new buildings. The lake was polluted beyond words. I hope you can figure out a way to enlarge these photos and see them better as they are far away and hard to see the squaller they live in.
This gives a whole new meaning of why you go to college and don't become a ditch digger! They dig ditches here with their hands!! They scrape the sides of the walls with their hands and pass the buckets of mud by human chain to the street level where the last guy dumps the mud and passes the bucket back down the human chain and they start all over. We were stopped in a gridlock at this point and we were able to watch about 20 men digging this hole. It looked like there was a leak of sorts they were trying to find. At home there would be one guy on a backhoe and 4 guys watching all making $40 an hour. These 20 guys were breaking their backs and probably made $2 dollars for the day.
This guy was set up on the street sewing on his sewing machine. A tailor at your service curbside! I would imagine alterations here are much more affordable than at home!
People all around buying and selling their goods all on the sidewalk! I never saw one police officer while we were there. I saw a few police stations but no officers walking a beat so to speak. Also, I never heard a siren of any kind. No ambulances, no fire trucks, no police cars....that was odd. You'd think with 18 million people, there would be some sort of emergency all the time. Think about a big city at home. When you are walking the streets you here sirens and see police officers almost every corner. The only sounds were of the people, horns on cars, and bells on bikes!
This building is a leftover from Victorian days. It sits in the middle of all the madness, looking like somebody that wore a tuxedo to a luau. Very out of place but very beautiful. Look at the beautiful trees out front. Look at the gargoils shooting out the sides of the top. A magnificent, empty structure. Sad.
Look at the cars, people and congestion!!
Everywhere you looked there was absolute poverty.
The new India. When you have telephone problems at home and you call for help from your cell phone, who do you get? Not an operator in the USA, you get an operator here in Mumbai! If you want to make an investment, come to India. Mumbai is a boom-town for new companies. It is a real good time to be 25 and in the right cast of citizenship in India. The opportunities are abundant! But what is going to happen to the rest of them??
We are arriving in Muscat, Oman in one hour. I will post our trip to Agra and the Taj Mahal tonight. You might want to have an hour or so to devote to your computer when you read about Agra. I have the his, mine and ours of photographs we made plus an interesting kids-eye view. Nicholas took his own camera to Agra and I will make a seperate posting of his pictures and his thoughts. It was a trip of a lifetime.
The Hindu people take offerings to their temples. These are the type flowers they buy along the roadside. They look like leis in Hawaii. All handmade and all just a few cents to buy.
Here is a typical picture of poverty at some of it's worst right near new buildings. The lake was polluted beyond words. I hope you can figure out a way to enlarge these photos and see them better as they are far away and hard to see the squaller they live in.
This gives a whole new meaning of why you go to college and don't become a ditch digger! They dig ditches here with their hands!! They scrape the sides of the walls with their hands and pass the buckets of mud by human chain to the street level where the last guy dumps the mud and passes the bucket back down the human chain and they start all over. We were stopped in a gridlock at this point and we were able to watch about 20 men digging this hole. It looked like there was a leak of sorts they were trying to find. At home there would be one guy on a backhoe and 4 guys watching all making $40 an hour. These 20 guys were breaking their backs and probably made $2 dollars for the day.
This guy was set up on the street sewing on his sewing machine. A tailor at your service curbside! I would imagine alterations here are much more affordable than at home!
People all around buying and selling their goods all on the sidewalk! I never saw one police officer while we were there. I saw a few police stations but no officers walking a beat so to speak. Also, I never heard a siren of any kind. No ambulances, no fire trucks, no police cars....that was odd. You'd think with 18 million people, there would be some sort of emergency all the time. Think about a big city at home. When you are walking the streets you here sirens and see police officers almost every corner. The only sounds were of the people, horns on cars, and bells on bikes!
This building is a leftover from Victorian days. It sits in the middle of all the madness, looking like somebody that wore a tuxedo to a luau. Very out of place but very beautiful. Look at the beautiful trees out front. Look at the gargoils shooting out the sides of the top. A magnificent, empty structure. Sad.
Look at the cars, people and congestion!!
Everywhere you looked there was absolute poverty.
The new India. When you have telephone problems at home and you call for help from your cell phone, who do you get? Not an operator in the USA, you get an operator here in Mumbai! If you want to make an investment, come to India. Mumbai is a boom-town for new companies. It is a real good time to be 25 and in the right cast of citizenship in India. The opportunities are abundant! But what is going to happen to the rest of them??
We are arriving in Muscat, Oman in one hour. I will post our trip to Agra and the Taj Mahal tonight. You might want to have an hour or so to devote to your computer when you read about Agra. I have the his, mine and ours of photographs we made plus an interesting kids-eye view. Nicholas took his own camera to Agra and I will make a seperate posting of his pictures and his thoughts. It was a trip of a lifetime.
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