Mumbai

My first impression of Mumbai is that it’s hot as fuck! The second thing I notice is that it’s a little more civilised (emphasis on little)! There’s notably less honking, despite the traffic. The 17 mile journey from the airport to my hotel in Colaba takes almost an hour. I guess that’s to be expected given it’s the most populated city in India, with a population of around 22 million. Nuts. Mumbai is a completely different world to New Delhi, which seems like a distant memory at this point. Everyone here is really friendly, and far more respectful. It’s a much more modern city in terms of its infrastructure, although there’s still lots of old dilapidated housing in the shadow of the massive modern skyscrapers. 

After checking into my hotel, I have a quick walk around the neighbourhood. I feel like I’ve returned to the modern world, and the locals couldn’t give two shits about me. I order an Uber to get to the general vicinity of where my dinner reservation is. Again, it’s another 40 odd minute drive just to reach it. It’s like me jumping in an Uber and heading to Glasgow for a quick bite to eat. Although that would cost me way more than £4.20, and to be fair I’d probably feel less safe there! 

As I’m early for dinner, I head to a cocktail bar across the street called Bumipura. I’m the only person in there so I sit at the bar and get chatting to the lovely barmen. I have two drinks here, one of which is one of the best cocktails of my life. It was called 

Dear Seri and consisted of pandan-infused coconut oil fat-washed gin, vodka, and Japanese sake, topped with a warm coconut rice foam with a savoury peanut rim. Wanky description taken from the menu. The two drinks costs me around £30, so similar prices to back home really. 

Dinner was at The Bombay Canteen, which does a modern twist on traditional Indian dishes. Generally the food is meant to be shared, but as I was on my own I went for the tasting menu so I could try as many dishes as possible, which at £28 was really good value! It included seabass ceviche with spicy mayo, beef tartare, chettinad prawns, pork taco, a spiced kebab, and then a chicken kurma with the best garlic naan I’ve had in my life. And to finish off, salted caramel ice cream with almonds. Plus they kept asking me if wanted second helpings of anything. I ate consistently for about 2.5 hours. My head barely touched my pillow before I was asleep that night. 

The next morning I find a cafe nearby serving flat whites. What a treat! I order a coffee and some overnight oats with dates (the masseuse told me to eat more dates in winter after all). I then meet my guide, Tanvi, at the Gateway of India to start my morning tour. Over the next 3 hours she takes me on a tour of the city including a ride on the cheapest form of transport here, the local trains. It costs about 40p for a journey. The trains, which carry 8 million people on a daily basis, have a limit of 70 passengers per carriage, but Tanvi tells me during rush hour there’s over 600 crammed in any given compartment. Horrific. The ceiling is full of handles, and obviously there’s no AC, so that’s a lot of sweaty pits in your face. 

We stop at Swati snacks, a street food restaurant popular with locals and tourists. We order a few dishes including sev puri (crispy fried discs topped with potatoes onions and tomatoes), pav baji, and dahi batata puri. The latter is probably one of the tastiest little bites I’ve ever put in my mouth - basically puris filled with yoghurt and chutneys. I could eat a million of them! 

We also visit Dhobi Ghat, the worlds largest and oldest outdoor laundry. Over 7,000 people work here, many working shifts up to 20 hours per day. They still do a lot of washing by hand in giant concrete baths, although some machines have now been installed. They wash clothes, uniforms, towels and linen from people all over Mumbai, including many hotels and restaurants. I’d given some laundry to my hotel the night before, so my pants are likely on display for all to see down there. It looks like a logistical nightmare, but each item is coded to be traced back to the respective client. Mind blowing. 

I stop for a cocktail at the Harbour Bar in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the first licensed bar in India. There’s a famous cocktail here that was created when prohibition ended in 1933. Two American sailors came to the bar the day prohibition ended and asked the bartender to make them a drink. He created a drink for them, and they were asked to name it. They stood up and toasted “from the harbour since 1933”. Hardly rolls off the tongue does it lads. The poor barman spends a good few minutes giving me the spiel and making it on front of me. I’m sure he dies a little inside whenever someone orders it. It tastes just like my mum’s bahama mama cocktail, although hers is better as she’s far more liberal with the alcohol. And hers doesn’t cost me £18!

That evening I join the final street food tour of my trip. It’s just me and a Dutch woman, Chantal, who I bond with quickly over our shared despair about the lack of alcohol here. Neither of us have ever drank so little on holiday before. But it turns out we’re both heading to Goa next, so we swap numbers and agree to party together when we’re there! The tour itself has a ridiculous amount of food and I feel quite sick after it. Our guide Rishi is lovely. He tell us he lives in the slum with 3 other colleagues sharing one room. His wife and kids live a 44 hour train journey away near the border with Nepal and he sees them two or three times per year. He came to Mumbai to find work, but its too expensive for his family to live there with him. Sadly this is not an uncommon story here. 

The next morning I’m up early for my Dharavi slum tour. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it and was a bit worried that locals would think us foreigners just come to gawk at them. But it was actually the complete opposite and was an eye-opening experience. I did the tour through Reality Tours which partner with the NGO in the slum, investing 80% of their profits back into the community. The tour is also carried out by residents of the slum, it covers a very small part, and photos are not allowed out of respect for those that live and work there. 

Here are some things I learnt:

• Spread over 500 acres, over 1 million people live in Dhavari, making it one of the most densely populated areas in the world. 
• It’s like a town within a town, as the slum has everything you’d expect to see in a local neighbourhood such as cafes, banks, barbers etc
• The slum is broken down into commercial and residential areas. There are numerous small-scale industries producing products delivered all over India and beyond, including leather production, pottery, textiles, and recycling. The slum's annual turnover is estimated to be over $1 billion.
• Salaries of workers depend on how skilled their industry is. The average monthly salary for an unskilled worker is approximately £115, and £280 for a skilled worker.
• Rent can be as high as £45-£95 per month.
• There are different levels of wealth here. Many people live inside shacks with tarps and sheetmetal for walls and the ceiling. Others live in 3 story houses. Not everyone who lives in the slum is poor, and many people choose to live here. 
• Only 30% of houses in the slums have their own toilets and showers. The majority rely on the community bathrooms run by the government, who charge 3 rupees per use (30p)
• The government supplies electricity and water for a monthly fee, although the water is only on for 3-4 hours each day so the residents have to store water in barrels.
• Dharavi has a literacy rate of 69%, making it one of the most educated slums in India
• Crime is virtually non existent given the strong sense of community 
• Although it’s been the subject of redevelopment plans for years, there’s a strong resistance from the residents who are concerned about losing their sense of community and the industries that support them. 

So it wasn’t entirely as I expected, not that I actually knew what to expect in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, it was still an attack on all my senses. Parts of the slum were quite unpleasant in terms of quantity of rubbish, damp, foul smells. But the people here seem happy, they work hard and they take pride in what they do. 90% of the people living here are employed and take no help from the government. Can’t say the same about my own country! 

After the tour I head to the Bandra neighbourhood for lunch at Veronica’s, which specialises in sandwiches. I order the prawn sandwich and one of their own brew beers, which costs me more than the workers earn in one day of hard labour. Certainly puts things in perspective. 

That evening I head to Masque restaurant for a 10 course fine dining menu which I’d booked a few weeks prior. Again, I feel like a right arsehole over-indulging on delicious food after my experience this morning. I donate the price of my meal to the charity organisation to ease my conscience slightly.
 

Overall, I actually quite enjoyed Mumbai. But I’m more than ready for a week of relaxation on the beaches of Goa!