Welcome to Mumbai

After a pretty hard trip, indian people welcomed us friendly..too friendly even. Taxis on every step, how can i help you, smiling, helpful, cheating.
for the first taxi we paid about 5 times too much, they asked us 16 times too much.
Arriving in the north of Mumbai, at 3 in the night, with 28 degrees was a bit shocking. People, cows, goats, dogs and cats - everyone was still awake and on the street.
The first impressions...there are millions every day and they cannot be summarized in few sentences, but we post here some photos and short stories to give you an impression.
Maybe we will not post often in this blog, cause it is not so obvious here to find internet points.
On the photo above is the Taj Mahal of Mumbai, which is close to the Gateway of India - huge buildings, surrounded by a square full of people, who want to sell you something. Every 3 seconds you hear "Yes, sir, yes, madame", "Can i help you", "Pssssss", etc. etc. And the things they try to sell you are even more absurd.


The seashore of Mumbai, at the sunset.
Looks great, smells horrible. It s not possible to swim because the sea is black...











Traveling by train is an art in itself. This one time i had the space to do a photo. Normally the trains are crowded until nobody fits in anymore. People jump out and in during the train rolls. There are different wagons for women (didn't use yet).
Once we jumped into the 1st class, having 2nd class ticket, and, of course, we got caught. They made us step down of the train, and took us to an office with other indian people who didn't have the ticket, or had the false one like us...We paid about 10 euros, which is really really much here, the other ones didn't pay anything of course.. This is the way to learn...

Guess which one of us uses sandals?












Children are asking you for money nearly all the time, but they are the the ones who you really want to give it, too. These 3 guys who spoke very well english told us some (true or made up?) stories about their cat, that doesn't eat for days. After we gave them some money, the stories started to multiply, but the chat with them was anyways very pleasant.




We went to an island near to Mumbai, called Elephanta Island.
The island is property of Unesco, and it is the site of very old caves, containing centenary sculpures in the rock of indian divinities...
Very short visit, anyways, and was funny the sight of the thousand monkeys everywhere.


Down also a picture of a sculpure.



There are dogs everywhere on the streets. They all look the same, seem to be not agressive and always sleepy (it's about 30 degrees now). We would like to play with them, but we keep a big distance, being a bit afraid of the illnesses they could have.










Mumbai is full of signs of spirituality and gods. "Oms" are practicly on every corner, car, etc. In each car, restaurant and shop you'll find also little statues of gods, altars.
On the picture a poster in front of the Academy of Science, which was about the hand reading as a scientific learning... in the end who knows..











Honking: for nothing, all the time, in all sounds...
In one moment you can hear about 15 different kinds of honking.
We didn't get used yet...


In the end we went shopping. It was one of the most tiring experiences ever ;) Lower you see the result as well as our wonderful hotel room.