Arto's Blog

Mumbai, also known as Bombay, showed itself to me as a city of contrasts. It had a touch of British glamour from the 19th century and modern highrise buildings, but also large slums spreading haphazardly in every direction. The local commuter trains were the most packed I've seen anywhere but it took only a short boat ride and a few steps away from the beaten path to escape the city and be alone inside a forest.

A walk through the Fort district clearly showed that Mumbai was an important city under the British rule. The Victoria station, main post office, public works office, high court and other buildings in the area were constructed during the 19th century in grandiose style. A few details such as double decker buses still remainded of Britain, but otherwise the atmosphere was very much Indian: the mix of small shops, street vendors and beggars told loudly that it wasn't Europe no matter what the buildings looked like.

I stayed in Mumbai with Gaurav, another Indian friend from my INSA year in France. He lived 20 km north from the center and a ride there showed the more recent development of the city. The road went through vast areas of slum dwellings, dotted with islands of modern highrise buildings. Construction companies are actually making big money from these so called slum rehabilitation projects, where they get valuable land in exchange for arranging housing to the people whose homes are bulldozed away. The constructors proceed by building high towers containing dozens or even hundreds of apartments each and arrange them around a western style shopping area. Security guards sit at the gates watching that outsiders don't come in.

Gaurav lived in one of these newly developed areas which are housing increasingly larger numbers of Indians. Many of them are singles or young couples who have moved away from their parents' house and are working for multinational companies. They do long days in the office and spend free time in the shopping malls, which try to mimic their American and European counterparts in almost every way. One particular difference which still tells it's India is the smaller number of household appliances in the apartments — it's cheaper to hire a maid to do cleaning, laundry and dishes than to buy machines for those tasks. Gaurav told that the daily maid service for him and his two flatmates was 1500 rupees per month, less than ten euros per person.

A completely different and very enjoyable experience in Mumbai was a day trip to the Elephanta Island. Boats to the island leave from the city center and take about one hour to reach the destination. The island is famous for caves which were carved some 1200 years ago and used as temples. The Hindu sculptures in the caves were impressive, but there was also a less known side of the island. It didn't take many steps away from the main walkway to be inside the surrounding forest without anybody else around. I walked a couple of kilometers around the western half of the island, partly along the shore and partly following a small path going through the bushes. Some of the trees with lianes were quite impressive.

After Mumbai I resumed cycling and rode about 150 kilometers east to Pune. On the way I saw some more temple caves in Karla and crossed a small mountain range. In Rajasthan it was quite flat but from here onwards there'll be more hills and small mountains ahead.