Mumbai (1 - 2 December 2007)
The flight to India was smooth - as could always be expected by Cathay Pacific Airlines. The only strange thing was the airhostess’ announcement to “…cover you eyes and mouth…spraying the cabin with…”. We could not make out the whole sentence, as the Indian lady talks way to fast. Then the air hostess walked through he aisles, spraying something that we think was insecticide…if anyone knows what this was - please reply to this post.
We arrived at Mumbai’s International Airport at 20:05. We waited and waited and waited to get our luggage, now it was 21:15. They queue at customs was relatively painless, although the gentleman assisting us was either a mute, or he really, really did not want to talk to us - at all! We suspect it was the latter. Then we approached the Tourist Information booth - awaiting an attempted scamming at any second - to get assistance with accommodation and some info on Mumbai. Surprisingly, the man at the booth was amazingly helpful and friendly. No scam yet!
Just before you leave the airport, your luggage needs to be scanned again. The queue at the x-ray scan was enormous! And for some reason, they Indian guy who worked there decided that we could be exempt from this and he shoved us past the scanner! Yippee, everything is going so smoothly!
Now we had to book a pre-paid taxi. We got to the booth that said ‘Pre-paid car rentals’, were quoted Rs 750 and told to meet the driver outside. We did not have any cash on us, so we were told we could withdraw the money outside the airport and pay directly to the driver. We agreed and as we walked off, I saw another booth saying ‘pre-paid taxis’. I immediately knew that we had made mistake - we should have noticed that ‘car rentals’ and ‘taxi’s’ are not the same. So we approached the pre-paid taxi booth and decided to rather book a pre-paid taxi to take us to our recently-booked accommodation at Sea Shore Hotel - the budget option. Eon had to venture to the outside of the airport to withdraw Rupees. He returned, after what felt like an eternity, looking grim. He had an attempted scan - when withdrawing money, a guy told him that he can break one of those Rs500 notes. He gave Eon four Rs100 notes and when Eon asked where the fifth note was he said: “oh no sirrrrrrrr, it is a serrrrvice charrrrge!” Eon grabbed back his Rs500 and walked off. 
Now we had to leave the airport, face the masses and find Taxi 1963 - how difficult could this be?
Did you know that there are 40 000 taxi’s in Mumbai? They all look exactly the same - black, puny, old as Noah’s ark, India’s version of the 1950’s Fiat. The only distinction is that some has working lights and others don’t. We spotted our taxi quicker than expected, jumped in and started travelling to somewhere in Mumbai called Colaba.
Our driver could not speak a word of English and was instructed where to go by one of the older taxi drivers. His English might be non-existent, but his driving skills are amazing! I feared for my life, as playing chicken with the on-coming traffic is apparently an exciting sport in Mumbai. It was 21:40 when we left the airport, and traffic was far worse than the N1 on a Friday afternoon. There are four lanes, occupied by at least seven cars at any given time. I seriously do not know why the government even spend money on painting lanes.
We drove until 23:10 and were dropped off at our guesthouse - a very unlikely event as we were sure that we would be dropped off at at least two other places, the driver trying to get commission. Sea Shore Hotel is on the fourth floor of a crummy building that looks like it should be scraped from the earth.
The owner is a friendly, helpful man. We checked in - regardless of what it looked like as we were just too exhausted to look for something better. We thought that we would just spend the night and look for something else the following day.
The room, o my word, the room! It looks like one of those rooms that you see in a movie about druggies passed out in a filthy, dodgy room. The paint on the walls are peeling, the holes in the walls are covered with A4 papers, there are two very small beds covered in dirty, hair-infested linen. There is a TV (showing Bollywood movies and cricket). A small bench covered with dust and white scaly things. It has shared bathroom facilities that smell of bleach - at least an indication of hygiene. It is by far the worst room we have stayed in. But it was a place to sleep. And we actually slept well.
The next morning we ventured out into Colaba’s streets to have breakfast and then look for other accommodation. The breakfast was great - I had toast (four slices!!) and beans (Indian-flavoured baked beans) and coffee. The search for accommodation was not as great - we could not find anything that matched our current hell-hole. It was either at the same price, but worse facilities or it was slightly better facilities for around R600 a night! So we are sticking to Sea Shore Hotel
On our way back to our hotel, we were approached by a guy who claimed he is not a scammer, but from a reputable Bollywood company. He was looking for westerners to star as extras in a Bollywood film. We would be paid Rs500 each, given lunch and drinks and all we had to do is show up. He even said that we could ask our hotel owner about him - he really is legit. So we signed up and will star in a Bollywood movie the next day!
Later we went for lunch (Indian cuisine is great!) and then on a short Mumbai walking tour. Something worth writing about is the straws you get in the restaurant - they are re-used! You can clearly see that they have made a unsuccessful attempt to wash them, but the fact that there are marks from where someone had chewed on them are clearly visible They also have the most divine Chai (tea) - specifically the Masala tea - a blend of tea, milk, condensed milk and spices including a copious amount of ginger and cinnamon. Although, on the rare occasion, the tea could turn out to be a foul mix of milk, water and about three tea leaves 
We started our walking tour at the Gateway of India and worked our way up Mahatma Ghandi Road. Eon had a guy grab onto his hear and started to clean them! Eon politely refused the service, but the guy insisted that Eon was in a serious need of an ear cleaning. We just ignored him and walked away. Eon with a red, burning ear with some fake earwax in it!
We visited the National Gallery of Modern Art, stopped at a local bus stop to admire the architecture of the Prince of Wales Museum and walked all the way to the St. Thomas Cathedral. Eon was invited to play a cricket game with some local boys in the street right in front of the cathedral.
We walked passed the Oval Maidan, a huge stretch of grass about 500 meters long. Maybe I should rather refer to it as a gigantic cricket pitch, as it was engulfed by boys of all ages playing cricket. And again, Eon was invited to play along while I had to find a ‘not too dusty’ spot to sit and watch ‘the game’. For a girl, I know a lot about cricket. This made me quite popular with Eon’s teammates and we ended up spending over an hour at the Oval. They were very much impressed with Eon’s bowling skills - he took just about every wicket! If there is one sure way to get through India unharmed, it is by knowing and playing cricket. I think we will be okay.
Click on image to view Mumbai gallery: