Jan – Dec 2008 : Around Mumbai City

Travel Title: Around Mumbai City, Maharashtra, India In Year 2008.

When: January – December 2008

About The Trip:

Purpose: Around Mumbai City, Maharashtra, India In Year 2008.

Days/Nights: -Nil-

Arrangements: ~~Travel Agent~~ / Self-guided Tour

Route: Navi Mumbai INDIA – Around Mumbai City INDIA – Navi Mumbai INDIA

Traveling Method & Time:

Navi Mumbai – Around Mumbai City = by car (≈ 1 hour 30 minutes per visit)

Around Mumbai City – Navi Mumbai = by car (≈ 1 hour 30 minutes per visit)

Details:

Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is the capital city of the state of Maharahstra, India. It is the most populous city in India and the fifth most populous city in the world. The city is always overcrowded with people, cow carts, horse carts, bullock carts, goats and in rare cases – elephants and camels.

Driving in India can give you such a terrible headache! It’s a never ending zig-zagging vehicles and loud honking on the roads. Funny how it seems, it’s like two or three or a group of cars exchanging a few words with each other -“Hello”, “Good day, madamoisselle”, “Hey hot hunk, move aside, please!”, “Tum Pagal Ho?”, or perhaps, “Hey stupid, watch it!”. THIS is what they proudly call – Road Communication.

Whilst other parts of the world are gravely concerned and deeply worried about noise pollution, India turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the issue. How fashionably ignorant! They even promote the use of horns through signs written at the back of their lorries, busses and even, on small vehicles. Everywhere you go, all around India, you can observe the encouraging message of ‘HORN, OK, PLEASE’.

Now that they started to realise that honking is a huge no-no, and before the situation gets more chronic and out of hand, the city of Mumbai has started the ‘No Horn Day’ campaign, which has been going for 5 days already. It’s just about time! Hopefully, it’s not going to be a ’hot hot chicken shit’ (hangat hangat tahi ayam… hee.. hee) campaign, for I am hoping very badly for a peace of mind whenever I hit the road in the near future. Honking is absolutely not okay with me, please!

Good to know that they finally do something to curb this honking madness. Now, just wondering out loud, when will Mumbai start the ‘No Peeing By The Roadside Day’ campaign, uh?

1. One of things we experienced while living in Mumbai is attending an Indian wedding in Karghar, Mumbai. The opportunity came when one of our friends invited us to witness how an Indian wedding reception was carried out.

2. We visited the APMC Spice Market in Vashi, Navi Mumbai and were amazed at the huge varieties of spices, basmati rice, tea leaves, pickles and spicy crackers.

3. We also checked out some sweet shops around Mumbai city. One of them is the Punjab Sweet House located at Pali Hill in Bandra, Mumbai. We bought some of our favourite barfis – badam (almond) barfi, mango barfi, pistachio barfi and milk barfi. The shop even packed them nicely in a box and cover it all with a clear plastic wrapper.

3. We did our grocery shopping at Inorbit Mall and Hypercity, both were located in Malad, Mumbai. By mid of of 2008, another Inorbit Mall & Hypercity were opened in Navi Mumbai.

4. Beef is very difficult to get in the shopping malls in Mumbai. So we obtained that source of protein from Deonar Slaughter House located in Deonar, Mumbai. Please take notes, that women are not allowed to enter the slaughter area.

5. Dadar in Mumbai city is no doubt a textile lovers’ paradise. It is known as the ‘textile shopping district’.

6. One of the amazing things we experienced while in Mumbai was the visit to the slum area at Mumbra, Mumbai. It broke my heart to see those people live in dilapidated tents, with only torn clothes on their backs.

7. Once in a while, friends and I went to the Hard Rock Cafe in Mumbai, located in Worli, Mumbai just to chill out and have a good time.

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