After spending some time in London to see my Mum and friends Amy and I flew over to Bombay to see my friend Jvalant that I did my MBA with in Copenhagen.
Mumbai is an insane place, those who have been here know exactly what I am talking about. There are cars and people everywhere and the horn is used for any and every reason. Its there to signal 'I'm here'; 'Please move'; 'I'm coming through'. Traffic rules seem not to exist and a two-lane street easily changes into a one way if there is a lack of traffic the other way.
Jvalant's family are amazing hosts and the first day his father drove us to a couple of spots. First I went and got some suits made from a place where apparently a lot of the England cricketers go to because its so cheap. I had two suits custom made and a pair of linen trousers for about $700. Unlike Thailand (where you can also get cheap suits) these guys were chilled out and not putting the hard sell on. Basically you said what you wanted and they helped you out. That and the fact that they are taking over a week to have it made (Thailand its a one day turnaround) leads me to believe that they are making a quality suit -- I picked up the linen trousers today and they are spectacular....so it was a choice well made.
From there we went to the gateway of India and walked around that area as well as the Taj Mahal hotel in to Colobra district. That evening we just went for a quiet meal and chilled out as we were still dealing with jet lag.
The following day Jvalant's parents organized a driver for us for the day. They gave over their car and we had him for the day -- the total cost for this service was about $8! That day we went to the Prince of Wales Museum; The Gandhi Museum -- which was his old house that has been converted. That was really interesting to check out and they had his room where he worked. It has the balcony where he made many famous speeches. Afterwards we went to the hanging gardens -- it was a nice large green space in the heart of Mumbai. It was here where Amy felt like a celebrity as people were staring at her non-stop. People were bumping into poles as they could not take their eyes off of her. I guess the fact that she has long blonde hair must have something to do with it. It got to the point where people were bringing their children to touch her and families were taking photos with her. I dont think she enjoyed her 15 minutes of fame as the attention was a little too much. That evening we went to the export surplus shop and bought a ton of clothes at about 1/6th the price in Canada (its all the stuff that is made here that is not shipped to overseas).
GOA TRANCE MADNESS!!! ACTUALLY MAYBE NOT...
Since we only had 2 weeks in India we decided to spend a week in Goa. Before coming here I presumed that Goa was a small island or city centre but in fact its a state of about 2 million people on the west coast on the arabian sea. To drive the length of the state woul
d take around 6 hours. We decided to head to Anjuna beach which is in the north (the younger part of the state, the south is where the posh resorts are). Now most of you know Goa for its Trance and crazy rave-parties. Things have changed quite a bit - they have a strict no noise policy after 10pm and
the place where we were staying was relatively remote. Getting around the village itself and the bars along the beach is fairly problematic if you do not have a scooter. Its not like Thailand where there are bungalows along the beach and the housing radiates upwards from the beach -- which is what I had suspected.
Regardless, the beach was really nice and we chilled out more or less and were in search of a party at least one of the nights. We managed to find one the day before the full moon - but apparently its everynight at the club called Nine Baar where all the 'ravers' load up before heading out (it closes at 10pm). The party scene can be best described as awkward at best and to be honest the 'backpacker hippie' wears thin on me quickly. I must be getting older but the scene had so little appeal. The following night we went to the full moon party -- which was really sad and pathetic -- there were about 75 people there and all were dancing awkwardly to Goan Trance. There were families about and kids running around. After sitting down we realized that these kids were the offspring of hippies and all these white-anglo kids had Indian accents when they spoke -- it was pretty odd to hear. We spent maybe an hour there and decided to pack it in as the amount of dreadlock hippie types were too much to bear and the party was reall
y boring.
Mumbai is an insane place, those who have been here know exactly what I am talking about. There are cars and people everywhere and the horn is used for any and every reason. Its there to signal 'I'm here'; 'Please move'; 'I'm coming through'. Traffic rules seem not to exist and a two-lane street easily changes into a one way if there is a lack of traffic the other way.
Jvalant's family are amazing hosts and the first day his father drove us to a couple of spots. First I went and got some suits made from a place where apparently a lot of the England cricketers go to because its so cheap. I had two suits custom made and a pair of linen trousers for about $700. Unlike Thailand (where you can also get cheap suits) these guys were chilled out and not putting the hard sell on. Basically you said what you wanted and they helped you out. That and the fact that they are taking over a week to have it made (Thailand its a one day turnaround) leads me to believe that they are making a quality suit -- I picked up the linen trousers today and they are spectacular....so it was a choice well made.
From there we went to the gateway of India and walked around that area as well as the Taj Mahal hotel in to Colobra district. That evening we just went for a quiet meal and chilled out as we were still dealing with jet lag.
The following day Jvalant's parents organized a driver for us for the day. They gave over their car and we had him for the day -- the total cost for this service was about $8! That day we went to the Prince of Wales Museum; The Gandhi Museum -- which was his old house that has been converted. That was really interesting to check out and they had his room where he worked. It has the balcony where he made many famous speeches. Afterwards we went to the hanging gardens -- it was a nice large green space in the heart of Mumbai. It was here where Amy felt like a celebrity as people were staring at her non-stop. People were bumping into poles as they could not take their eyes off of her. I guess the fact that she has long blonde hair must have something to do with it. It got to the point where people were bringing their children to touch her and families were taking photos with her. I dont think she enjoyed her 15 minutes of fame as the attention was a little too much. That evening we went to the export surplus shop and bought a ton of clothes at about 1/6th the price in Canada (its all the stuff that is made here that is not shipped to overseas).
GOA TRANCE MADNESS!!! ACTUALLY MAYBE NOT...
Since we only had 2 weeks in India we decided to spend a week in Goa. Before coming here I presumed that Goa was a small island or city centre but in fact its a state of about 2 million people on the west coast on the arabian sea. To drive the length of the state woul
d take around 6 hours. We decided to head to Anjuna beach which is in the north (the younger part of the state, the south is where the posh resorts are). Now most of you know Goa for its Trance and crazy rave-parties. Things have changed quite a bit - they have a strict no noise policy after 10pm and
the place where we were staying was relatively remote. Getting around the village itself and the bars along the beach is fairly problematic if you do not have a scooter. Its not like Thailand where there are bungalows along the beach and the housing radiates upwards from the beach -- which is what I had suspected.Regardless, the beach was really nice and we chilled out more or less and were in search of a party at least one of the nights. We managed to find one the day before the full moon - but apparently its everynight at the club called Nine Baar where all the 'ravers' load up before heading out (it closes at 10pm). The party scene can be best described as awkward at best and to be honest the 'backpacker hippie' wears thin on me quickly. I must be getting older but the scene had so little appeal. The following night we went to the full moon party -- which was really sad and pathetic -- there were about 75 people there and all were dancing awkwardly to Goan Trance. There were families about and kids running around. After sitting down we realized that these kids were the offspring of hippies and all these white-anglo kids had Indian accents when they spoke -- it was pretty odd to hear. We spent maybe an hour there and decided to pack it in as the amount of dreadlock hippie types were too much to bear and the party was reall
y boring. Anjuna is famous for the Wed flea market so we took the opportunity to buy lots and lots of things for very little money. Basically people sell the same thing and we were hardened bargainers by then and got some good prices on things (for us - probably good for them). The market is extensive and sells everything from cd's to bags to clothing. It really was interesting to hear the sites and sounds of the market. The saddest thing i saw was Westerners who set up their own stall...pathetic that they would not do such work in their home country but find it 'cool' to have their own in India. The amount of people selling things to you grows tired after awhile and the constant harrassment every 5 meters is just the way of life for the tourist.
