Touring Mumbai

I don't even know where to begin. Yesterday was a fabulous day. But before I start, I want to explain something first. We've  had some wonderful friends bless us with some money for our adoption and the last thing I want is anyone to think that I'm here in India traveling high on the hog and wasting money. Having said that, we did go on a tour yesterday. But I promise that any money that was given to us went toward the flight or is going toward the hotel. And the hotel in Mumbai is really cheap, about $15 a night and we're eating two meals a day, so I promise we're being really frugal. But we did do a tour yesterday and I'm so glad we did because we saw so much that we never would have seen  on our own, and we learned so much history that we would never have learned on our own. It was well worth it.  Well worth it!

We booked with a company called Mumbai Moments.  Sandwich found them on Trip Advisor. They had excellent reviews and it's a small company started buy this guy named Amish. He's super friendly and energetic and was really prompt in returning our emails, so we thought "why not"? This would give us a good chance to explore and learn more about the country our children came from (Sandwich has two kids adopted from India).

So, to make a long story short (because otherwise I will ramble on and on and I'm already behind on my blog), we met with them on Monday and had a full day tour of Mumbai. Amish arranged for us to have a woman tour guide, Manik, and she was fantastic. She took us all around and we got to see the Gandhi Museum, the Hanging Gardens, a children's park, St Paul's Cathedral, university of Mumbai, Victoria Train Station (now called CST), the Gateway of India, Marine Drive, Chowpatty Beach (which we'd already seen), the Queen's Necklace, the Parsi Tower of Silence ( we couldn't go in, but we saw where it was and got a great history lesson), and the Dobhi Ghats (where they do all the laundry). We also had a HUGE Thali lunch in the Churchgate area and Amish took me for a ride on the back of his motorbike. It was brilliant!  Later on, after the tour ended, we walked down to the Colabra area and did some sightseeing and people watching.

I know this blog post is boring, but my battery's about to die and I won't be able to charge it until later tonight. So I'm just going to do some quick bullet points about  the highlights of the day: 

1. Do you know the history of the Hanging Gardens? It used to be a small lake situated next to the Parsi Tower of Silence. See, the Parsis are nature lovers and they don't want to pollute the earth by burying their dead or pollute the air with cremation. So they give back to nature by letting the birds eat the bodies. Kinda gross and poetic at the same time.  Anyway, the vultures kept dropping bits of flesh into the water and polluting it, so the British filled it up, kept water tanks below and turned it into a garden. It's a gorgeous place with a fascinating history. When you visit the Hanging Gardens you can see the vultures circling overhead next door.

2. Mumbai is such a beautiful city! The architecture here is amazing. I'm a huge history buff and it's been fun imagining what some of the buildings looked like in their glory days.

3. I might be getting this bit of history wrong - there was a lot to digest - but we were able to see the gorgeous Taj Hotel across from India Gate. It was built by Mr Tata, who was Indian and who was refused entry into the prestigious Wilson Hotel because he was Indian, so he built the grand Taj Hotel. Later on, he actually bought the Wilson Hotel. ha! I love that!! 

Incidentally, the Taj Hotel is the site of one of the Mumbai Terrorist attacks in 2008. You can see where the attacks happened in the hotel  because the windows have been replaced with stained glass.

The hotel is gorgeous, but we'll never be staying there. They said rooms start around $600 a night!

4. I was very curious about the ladies who sit on the side of the street making balls of something or other with a cow standing near them. It turns out that you can pay the ladies 5 rupees for a ball of "feed" and/or 5 rupees for a bunch of grass and feed it to the cow. There's some sort of religious significance to this, but I wasn't paying attention b/c I was too excited about getting to feed a cow.  Typical tourist, right?

Anyway, I paid the lady 10 rupees and fed the cow. Then Manik, our guide, explained that it's good luck if the cow licks your hand, so I tried and tried to get the cow to lick me, but she wouldn't oblige. I'm sure she was thinking, "Yeah right, sister. I'm not wasting my time on you. I know you don't think I'm holy." I tried explaining to her that my daughter's name means "holy cow", but she just ignored me and continued swatting at flies with her tail. 

Then, and this was my favorite part, she (the cow's a girl and her name is Gouri) started peeing and her owner jumped up and collected it in a pan and then transferred into a Sprite bottle.

And THAT, folks, is why you always check to make sure the seal is intact before you buy a bottled drink in India.

Kidding! I'm so kidding!

Anyway, it turns out that cow urine has many uses in the Hindu religion, and some people will buy the urine to sprinkle on their loved ones before they're buried. I think it's considered holy.

Now tell me I'd have learned that on my own without a tour.

4. Indian Thali is kind of the equivalent of a potluck lunch at a a big family reunion. You put a little bit of everything on your plate, and then you have to unbutton the top of your jeans and pop a couple of Tums afterwards.

Maybe that's why the punjabi pants come with drawstring pants. It's easier to to let the waist out a bit after a huge Thali meal. ;)

Part of our tour included lunch, and let me say, it was the best meal so far. We would never have had the opportunity to try all that food otherwise. I would've just stuck to my beloved Panner Muttar/Butter/Tikka Masalas. And now I have a new favorite...Puran Pani. It's special to the state of Maharastra and is round and flat like a chapati (the closet equivalent we have to chipatis in the States is a tortilla and that's really more like a sixth cousin's brother in law's uncle by marriage twice removed).  Anyway, it's kinda sweet and we were told it's made of beans, but I refuse to believe that anything made with beans could taste that could, so I'm waiting for someone to give me the correct answer.

5. Oops, I have to cut this short. It seems I don't know how to condense my thoughts after all. My battery is about to die. But I have to say that if you're in Mumbai, you HAVE to book a motorbike tour with Mumbai Moments. They're just about to launch it, but Amish gave me a sneak peek. Riding on the back of a motorbike through downtown Mumbai?? Best thing ever! I had a blast.  I highly recommend it!

Okay, it's almost 8 in the morning. We're headed to breakfast (masala dosa for me) and then we're leaving for our next stop at 9. It'll take 4-6 hours to reach it, but by this afternoon I'll be in the same town as Naveen! We get to meet tomorrow. I can just cry thinking about it. I'm a mess of emotions right now.

One more sleep!

PS. I'm so sorry if I messed on explaining some of the history or religious stuff. Please feel free to correct me if needed.