City of Contradiction

The warm smell of sandalwood and the blare of horns fill the air with the essence of Bangalore.  In the three months that I've been here, the best way I can describe Bangalore is a city of contradiction.

Traditional and modern, it's an old city but the fastest growing metro city in India.  A mix of religions, mostly Hindi some Muslim, a little Buddhist and a tad of Christians thrown in on the side.  It's a city of agriculture and technology.  

The first couple of weeks of being here, it's a little overwhelming and shocking.  Everything looked so  dirty and trashy.  Cows meandering down busy roads or eating out of garbage piles is a little suprising at first.  Garbage litters the beautiful country-sides and lakes are foaming with soap. 

But many people are here to "clean" the city.  I have seen women with thin little stick brooms sweeping the streets, piling the trash high for someone else to collect in baskets and throw onto a truck to go somewhere for final dumping.  These very women are so poor some don't even wear shoes, yet as a street sweeper they are wearing beautiful sarees, sometimes even embroidered with sparkling threads and beads.

These women sweep the streets and clean the yards. 

I have seen slums right next to an estate or beside a high rise, modern, office building.  Right beside the 5 star hotel where we stayed there was a small river of "gray" water, which simply put, is stinky sewage water.  The smell will almost knock you over as you cross over the bridge.  But the hotel has discreetly covered it from view with a wall of beautiful foliage and fragrant flowers.

And the traffic...with the way people drive and their incessant honking around here, one might think the city was full of New York city taxi drivers all having a bad day.  But the honking is not used to express aggression, its a means of letting the other drivers know you are there - which is kind of important when you have 5 lanes of traffic smashed in a 2 lane road.  In reality, I've never met friendlier people in all my life.  They will not tell you "no";  Instead they do the famous Indian head bobble and tell you "no problem".

Bangalore is growing so fast and there is construction everywhere.  They have the fastest growing middle-class so affordable single family apartments and homes are going up everywhere.  But with that comes infastructure problems: traffic is a mess, drainage can't keep up with the heavy rains, and the roads are horrible.  We drove past a knee-deep hole in the middle of the road -- but instead of warning signs or traffic cones they just filled it with debris, shrubs, and bits of concrete, and the handful of cars that end up falling in.  It eventually gets filled up.   

A strand of Jasmine in a braid.

Despite the sewage water smells, and garbage strewn about, Bangalore is called the "garden-city" for a reason.  You know how I love gardens and have a fascination for plants.  I constantly ask the names for everything so I can see if it grows in our zone back home.  Owen informs me when he sees a great climbing tree.  They are abundant and in full bloom with these bright orange clusters of flowers.  There is a shrub here that no one can recall the name of, but it has gorgeous white blossoms.  The coconut trees and palms line the streets.  Women even wear strands of fragrant jasmine in their braids. 

Eventually you see that the city has a rhythm and a flow, if you try to resist, you'll be frustrated but if you go with the flow you begin to see the beauty of it's land and the love of it's people.

 

Mumbai

They're excited and ready to see the big city.

We toured Mumbai last week.  It's a huge city, too big to walk around in.  I normally like walking and touring a new city by foot, but not this time. For one thing, it rained buckets on us the whole four days we were there.  The second thing, with three young children in tow it didn't seem like the safest, most relaxing option.  So I'll tell you about Mumbai from a backseat driver's perspective.

A travel book I read recently described Mumbai as having both "all the beauty and all the ugliness of humanity".  It's a perfect description. 


Rain soaked window perspective...what is this sign telling us?  We can't go straight, left or right?

 

While my husband sat through meetings all day I realized I was going to be stuck in the hotel for four days with three kids looking through rain blurred glass at a pool and an ocean we couldn't use.  This was not good. What to do??   


View of pool and ocean from our room.

 

I rented a hotel taxi for a half day, packed up the kids and rode into downtown Mumbai to catch a show about constellations at the Nahur Planetarium.  BORING, I know, but hey, things were looking up (catch the pun?)  

Next stop was the  Gateway of India,  which was built in 1911 to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Bombay.  Next to the Taj Mahal, the Gateway is one of the most recognizable symbols of India.


 The architecture is a mix of Muslim and Hindu designs which I thought was quite ironic and interesting. We didn't get out of the car since the place was crazy crowded and I was alone with the three kids.  So I told the driver to keep going as I did drive by (photo) shootings.  I have many terrible shots so I added a link above from wikipedia where you can see a great shot.  Now you can compare my two shots.  A good photo wasn't worth getting drenched or braving the crowd.

We did take the time to go across the street and step inside the famous Taj Palace Hotel.  It was built by Tata (his name is everywhere) back at the turn of the 19th century. Rumor has it that he was denied access to a "Europeans only" hotel so he built a bigger and better one.  I don't know if there's truth in that story but it's a beautiful hotel.  It's definitely worth a cup of tea to sit at the upstairs "Sea Lounge".  From there the view is calm and serene.  I could enjoy the ocean and the Gateway of India, and people-watch from a distance. After a very expensive lunch (two pizzas and three ice creams = $100) we explored the hotel's many walkways and strolled down a hall of fame.  Behind glass we saw many framed photos of famous people like presidents, the Queen of England, various politicians, rock stars and silver screen stars.  My photo wasn't on the wall yet but I'm sure it'll be up there before long. 

Aside from all this, the Taj Palace Hotel is famous for another reason.  It was the site of an unfortunate 2008 terrorist attack where over 160 people were killed. It took a couple years to repair the damage to the hotel and it was a sobering reminder of the delicate times we live in. Everywhere we go I'm reminded of this. Security is tight all over India and guards are a common sight at the entrance to every building.  Cars are inspected, everyone must pass through metal detectors, and bags have to be checked just like at an airport.  

On the way back to our hotel that evening we experienced true Mumbai traffic.  The kids and I were told by the driver that the hour and a half drive down would now be a 2 1/2 hour drive up due to rush hour, heavy traffic, and rain.  The kids were pretty exhausted and bored, but as luck would have it, things got exciting. The left side of our van smeared the right front fender and hood of another car.  I saw it all happening out my window in slow motion, as the other driver pounded on his horn, there was nothing I could do but watch as our driver turned into the smaller car with a crunching and scraping sound (that sound that gives everyone goosebumps). Horns from every direction joined together as the chaos ensued. The drivers got out, hats were thrown, and a yelling match began. The kids were suddenly alert and wide eyed as they took in all the excitement.  I expected this at some point in my India visit,  but the part that had my nerves all to pieces was when the big bus behind us came mearly inches away from our backside and filled our entire back window with a view of the engine grill. The monstrous horn was blaring at us as if to threaten us that at any moment the driver of that bus might just decide to push us out of the way. In less the three minutes the argument was resolved, everyone got back in their car and traffic resumed as normal.  That was it.  No cops involved, no exchanging of insurance.  I don't know who won that one.

Peninsular City of Mumbai

Mumbai is unlike any city I have ever seen before.  It's got the fifth largest populated city in the world all crammed into a peninsula surrounded by ocean.  They have a huge amount of ocean front property and no one is using the beach.  What a waste!!  And I mean that literally.  The ocean waves rise up not with surfers or swimmers, but with trash riding the waves.  I felt shock for Mumbai's total disregard for the trash and lack of interest in the ocean.  It has become a toxic waste dump and I've heard from a local resident that it was like that back in the 60s when she moved there.  You couldn't swim in it even back then, she said.

The hotel we stayed at, Novotel,  was modern, clean, and in the Juhu beach area, on the north part of Mumbai.  Juhu Beach is lifestyles of the rich and famous.  It's a nice area and Bollywood celebrities are everywhere, not that I would recognize any of them.  There was an outdoor pool and covered lounge overlooking the beach and the waves were massive due to an approaching storm, it was impressive at first glance  There is an energy that the ocean exudes so I was anxious to get out there and enjoy the view from the pool side lounge. However, we never got to enjoy the pool since it rained nonstop from the moment we settled in to the moment we packed up.  We did spend our final morning at the sea side lounge to enjoy a few last minutes of the ocean view.  From a distance all appeared normal as there was a lot of  activity and soccer games being played on the beach (even in the rain) but we noticed a strange smell in the air.  It was not salty ocean water we were smelling.  It was a chemical smell, hard to describe.  The water is gray like storm water and it's covered in floating debris.  It's any one's guess where the smell is coming from, but I'm guessing it was coming from the ocean. 



Dhobi Ghat is a large outdoor laundry facility.





The rain paused just so we could take some photos of Dhobi Ghat.

On our last day there was one other place I wanted to make a quick stop at called, Dhobi Ghat.  This place is famous because it is a massive outdoor laundry cleaners where many hotels and restaurants have their laundry done. I didn't get out of the car again.  Just the boys got out to get pictures and take a look.  The pictures show an organized and efficient operation.  It fascinated me how organized it was.  It was also quite gross, notice the gray water and the men standing in it.  Does anybody ever wonder where that water goes?
Mumbai is the richest city in India and home to one of the worlds largest slums area.  There is a Slumdog tour that used to be available.  The slums seem tolerated and I've heard they are not so bad for India.  It actually produces a lot of revenue for the country.  Our neighbors explored the slums the same weekend so they shared pictures and stories.  They informed us that the slums actually make a lot of items that we use everyday, for instance, one building was manufacturing backpacks for a company's promotional item. 

Our driver told us that beggars were not too much of a problem this weekend due to the heavy rains.  But we did have one little boy about Owen's age come up to the car begging for money.  I couldn't resist, and as only a mother would do, I rolled down my window and told him about the importance of going to school to get an education.  We were told by our driver to never give money to young beggars, only give money to elderly or disabled.  He said the young people can get a job and work for money.  We keep to this rule of thumb in every city we go to.  In fact, the driver always locks the doors when we are stopped at intersections and likes to keep all the windows rolled up. However, in this last instance my motherly instincts kicked in and I couldn't resist giving him a little motherly advice.

Mumbai's skyline is impressive and you get a great view from the recently completed sea link bridge.

Wikipedia photo of the sea link bridge which links the north end to the south end cutting the commute time way down.

 Office towers and apartment complexes light up the skyline at night.  It's so beautiful at night that Marine Boulevard was nicknamed the Queen's Necklace.  But by day the buildings with minimalist architecture, look awfully old and run down with black mold shadows staining all the buildings.  Apparently the insides of the apartments are quite modern and nice, but we only saw our neighbors' pictures and never actually went inside one.  You definitely can't judge the inside of these places by the outside appearances. 



This is what the train station through the rainy car window.

Mumbai city centre on the way southern tip had some beautiful architecture from the British colonial days.  Old European style buildings have now been converted into government buildings and museums.  There was one particularly beautiful building once called the Victoria Terminal which is the largest rail station in India.  Really striking building because of its mix of Gothic style, and traditional Indian.  It was also one of the other locations of 2008 terrorist attack.



One of the other quick stops we made was to the famous late freedom activist, Mohandas Ghandi.

He is considered the "father of India" and his portrait is on the Indian money called rupees.  He was able to lead India to independence from foreign rule by using non-violent protests and demonstrations. 

His residence has now been converted into a museum but we didn't take the time to tour since this would have taken hours.  I'm hoping to visit his memorial site in Delhi, but that's another adventure to write about in the not too distant future.



We were all exhausted after a long day.  There was so much more to see.  If I ever go back again I would like to visit Leopolds which is a famous pub not far from the Taj Palace Hotel and the Gateway.  Mumbai is a big city and takes many days to explore. But despite the rain I feel like we saw a lot in a short amount of time and had a memorable trip.


wiped out after a long day in Mumbai...



Monsoon Season has officially arrived!