Amrit's Tour of Mumbai

The Dolan's love a city bus tour. Unfortunately, you won't be surprised, this option does not exist in Mumbai so we did the next best thing which was to hire a car and a diver from the hotel! Gill don't worry we didn't break the bank - £40 for a four hour, chauffeur driven, air conditioned Mercedes seemed worth it in these circumstances.........until later, when talking to Amrit we learned what he earned in a month to keep a family of 5 on the straight and narrow.

As you know from my earlier Blogs taking a road trip in any part of Mumbai is a life changing experience in itself. Amrit's tour did not disappoint.

In short we did the following:

Open Air Laundry - hand washing factory were the dirt and the grime of Mumbai is beaten out of well worn clothes by third generation workers born to the industry.

A revamped colonial natural history museum - great buildings and quiet (!!!!!!) gardens - on the whole swerve it unless you like miniature paintings and statues of many folded gods.

Gate of India and Raj Hotel - splendid Classic British architecture from the turn of the 20th Century - all massive and splendid and opulent, grand and in your face 'we own you and we are the top dogs in charge' - worth a photograph.

Of course we insisted on stopping and getting out and Amrit guided us though the streets, and we walked and we talked. He had a drink with us in the now infamous Leopold Cafe where the Mumbai terrorist attack started. He talked us though what happened in 2008 when gunmen opened up indiscriminately on the occupants of the cafe killing 11 people and injuring many more including grenade wounds. In all over 250 people died in the attacks on many of the places we visited and 700 people were injured. Amrit talked about the impact on the city and how quickly the local people returned to businesses as usual in defiance - opening the cafe only a few days later with massive queues outside so big that the police had to close it back down again to restore order before allowing it open again the next day.

Amrit lived two hours outside of the city of Mumbai. He lived with his wife, daughter (4), Mother and Father. He was the only member of the family that earned a living. He worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week, by the time he got home after a 16 hour day all he could do was sleep. He was lucky he had a great job!! He earned around $250 dollars a month from his basic salary. Lucky not to live in the slums where more than half of Mumbai's 22 million people live!!!

Travel definitely broadens the mind and is the greatest gift - I have no doubts. Speaking to people when you are there multiplies that experience - our taxi driver in Krakow, on the way to Auswitz, and Amrit in Mumbai  definitely enhanced that gift for me and Connor. What will we do with it when we get back home?

PS Amrit took some piccies for us - some of the better ones are enclosed.

The Willingdon Golf Club Experience - Mumbai

http://willingdonsportsclubgolf.golfgaga.com

So on a revision day for Connor - whilst he is learning about Mumbai for his Geography AS 1 (true dat no sheeeeiite - family joke) - what can I do? I know I'll ask the concierge to organise a game of golf - I need the practice - maybe I'll learn something about this place myself - "simples".

Ring ring ring ring. Valencia on the concierge desk phones me in my room  and informs me that she has booked a round of golf for me at the famous Willingdon Golf and Country Club - one of India's first golf clubs. Great, I wonder what that will be like????  "Mr Dolan you will be playing with the hotel General Manager at 2:30pm, you will need to hire a caddie and a ball spotter (they'd obviously heard about my last few rounds at Aintree Golf Club) and I presume you will want to hire golf shoes as well as your golf clubs?".

OMG. Don't fancy playing with the General Manager - don't need that pressure! I apologise for the hassle I have caused Valencia and decline to play on the grounds that I don't want to put the General Manager to any trouble. She accepts my apology.

Two minutes later ring ring ring. "Hello it is Valencia here from Concierge. Your car is waiting to take you to the golf club. Mr Rogers is waiting in the foyer to escort you. He has to sign you in but understands that you do not wish to play with him because you are chicken"........not exactly what she said but what she meant .......,Valencia just wouldnt take no for an answer. Maybe it's a Concierge badge of honour thing or the fact that her boss is now involved. Connors  shaking his head but I accept and sound as pleased as I can. Changing into my golf pants and best short sleeved shirt (ie not the new Hawaiian flowered number that I am saving for the Old Buggers Tour), I confess to being a little bit excited and now genuinely chuffed that Valencia has made the effort and persuaded me to play.

Chris Rogers, the South African sounding Four Seasons GM from Yorkshire, is actually a nice guy and when I find out that he is a 24 Handicapper I regret not taking his offer to accompany him. Too late. In the limo he gives me the lowdown on the rules and regulations of the Willingdon, the fact that due to it being strictly members only that normally guests are only allowed to play if playing with a member but hopefully (!!!!) in this case they will permit him to sign me in on condition I go round with a playing caddie and a spotter. He tells me how much to tip the at the end, not to take photographs near the club house and numerous list of course rules that I forgot immediately. I arrive at the Willingdon to exactly what I now, given the briefing, expected - a bastion of British Colonialism with the only difference being that in modern India the white patrons of bygone days had seemingly been replaced by the rich Indian castes of Mumbai. Or was it? Actually Lord Willingdon founded the club in 1937 to create a place where none whites could participate in sports alongside and with their British white counterparts ie he wanted to play a round with the Indian Mahuraja.....not exactly a Mumbai Martin Luther King then....so yeah I was 3/4 right.

What a fantastic afternoon it turned out to be. My playing caddie, Dev (honest Chess), played off 7, he selected all my clubs (I couldn't refuse a little help), told me where to aim (in English: 'left hand side of the fairway, water on the right' - under his breath in Hindi....'just twat it'), pointed out the hazards and the history of the landscapes that surrounded the course. My spotter (who actually didn't need to spot anything I was that good -I amazed myself), Sanjay, played off 11, gave me the line on all the greens and pointed out how to improve various aspects of my game (mostly putting). I wish I could take them to Italy for the annual "Old Buggers Tour Golf Comp". 

What about the other 1/4 - you decide. Although their English wasn't great they were great Lads and chatty. They played in all the comps and the club loaned them clubs and equipment to play. As a team the Caddies beat the members regularly and were the current champions of the Mumbai Caddies league, though they couldn't play the members of other clubs in any competitions they earned a living and got to talk and play golf all day........ sadly you don't need me to tell you that you could do a lot worse outside the gates of the club. During the round the course crossed a road that took us through a slum area. Dev and Sanjay both lived local. Maybe they lived there......

The rest of the course was immaculate, beautiful, an oasis in the noise and chaos of the real Mumbai. At times it seemed like I was the only one playing - I swear I only saw 5 maybe 6 other golfers - perhaps the afternoon heat was not the time to play for the patrons. Apart from me and the other 6 golfers I did however see; the odd small group of Indian women sitting in the fairway, a man in the lake on the par 3 14th whose job was to retrieve miss directed or short tee shots - he stayed in the lake all day!!! - and a couple of packs of 'course dogs'. I asked Dev about the wildlife at one point and he pointed out a couple of birds and a micro squirrel......'no snakes today' he said.......lucky for me..... as that possibility included a black headed cobra and three other poisonous varieties.

So what about the golf I hear you ask. Pretty good. One completely fluffed shot and one ball in that par 3 lake. Great (unusually for me) off the tee with some very long drives, putting very poor first 5/6 holes, pitching not the best.......but ended up 21 over par (decent for my 24 HC) with a score of 36, due to a par, a birdie and pretty much nothing worse than  bogie on most holes including 5 of the 6 where I had two shots. Chuffed with that - actually meant to be a pretty tough course - though as I said I had a little bit of guidance.

At the end of the round I tipped well, the round itself although expensive locally cost me about £50 including the hires of clubs, shoes, a caddie and a spotter+ the purchase of balls, a glove and a cap., which Dev kindly signed for me...... You never know he might be famous one day.

The Willigdon Golf Club experience, Mumbai, India. A Geography and History AS revision rolled into one.

Watch This Space - A Video Capturing The Mumbai Experience

Ok very few words from this time.

This video and the guy who narrates it says it all. We have seen all this apart from the girl.

http://youtu.be/Wze-0XLVw1c

There is a course the danger that we focus totally on the .......this would never happen in the UK........downside of Mumbai. My next few blogs will therefore give the contrast of this World City - watch out for the Mumbai Comedy Club Experience and an insight to my round of golf at the Willingdon Country Club.

Mick

Jaywalking in Mumbai

As I sit here to start this blog the evening call to prayers is ringing out around me, there is a light breeze and hot sun. Every time I hear that sound it brings my senses to the edge of an always spine tingling place. A place where some sort of God weaves in and out of the buildings and the people that live and breathe there, before sliding in and out of me on the exhalation of my own breathe to a far flung place beyond. I hope I have done it justice. [Connor says I am no Kaziguro but it'll do......Kaziwho?]

Today we took to the streets of Worli to find Dhobi Ghat, the worlds largest outdoor laundry, and Haji Ali's Floating Mosque. We found them both - but what we discovered was streets awash with a whole set of new memories for the Dad and Lad on this magical tour that we have been taking for the last 6 years.

"Is it officially the most foreign place you've ever been Dad?" - Connor asked me standing by the mosque looking out over the Indian Ocean and the skyscrapers on the Mumbai island being built in front of us as we talked.

Mumbai streets are busy, busy, busy. All tooting horns, dusty broken pavements, full of food stalls and street sellers of all kinds. Every body Jay Walks - people mingle with the yellow cabs, trucks, buses and general traffic at junctions and along the side of the surprisingly very wide, very good roads. Dogs sleep under parked buses where people appear to live? Cows, bullocks?, goats and the odd hen - some tethered some free roaming - mingle too. Mostly ram shackled old buildings and mini shanty towns, the odd golf course (Willingdon Sports Club) and race course (yes race course) dotted in between! But most of all there are the people. This is the Olympics of people staring - not just for me and Con, but also for all the little brown faces that stared back at us, the little girl selling silk cloth and the one legged beggars that took up strategic spots on the path to the floating mosque.  But of course as Connor concluded - we were the strangest people in town, the weirdest looking, the ones to be gawped at, my stupid hat aside, fair play. The odd thing for us was rather than making us feel foreign that made us feel at home, more relaxed about really looking at and taking in the sights and the sounds of our walk. We felt settled in and ready for a Wednesday night out......where over a curry we discussed amongst other things Jaywalking in Mumbai.

Laters.

#MumbaiBanter

Note to reader. I know I have misspelt the heading of my blog.  Blogger I might now be - but I am not yet sufficiently qualified to edit titles. Another time perhaps.

First Impressions of Mumbai

The journey in from airport was a sight and sound sensation that we will likely never forget.

Of course peeping horns. Of course cars and tuk tuks dodging and weaving between the bikes and small lorries.....traffic totally without lanes......but with emotion and 2 second roared rage only Italians can appreciate (oh and the folk of Marrakech). Of course shanty town slums at the airport and on the road into Mumbai proper. All this was to be expected. This is what the books told us. But what about the new space age airport terminal, modern business districts and San Fran copying bridges linking the islands of old Bombay. Oh and the stray dogs and people looking in bins to recycle food an materials #firstimpressions.

The Four Seasons is not the Taj Mahal Hotel but is not far off. Staff accompanying our every step eager to help and assist, and ask how our stay is, and whether our room is the right temperature, and can the concierge help, and can I carry your bags, and mop your brow and waft you with palm leaves to keep you and your beer cool.....and yes I am sure they want to ask - does your a:se need a wipe?To be honest normally this would bother me but not today, it's all part of the welcome to Mumbai. 

Small NOTE: There is a hangover from recent terrorist acts in that there are multiple security checks and bag and body scans to be had+ mirrors under cars and taxis to be observed. Better safe than sorry - whilst noted it so far has not made us feel the least uneasy.

Room 1504, a double deluxe, with a sea view: "kind sirs I hope you enjoys your stay". wow-wow-wow. For the price of a night at Oxford Business Park Premier Inn you get: two king size dream beds, shag pile deep enough to loose Archie the dog (a @one_woman_dig reference), a bathroom that the Ritz would be proud of, and wall to ceiling views of the Mumbai skyline over looking the sea. We stared for an hour out of the window just watching the scene below and in front of us which included a Muslim Quarter slum and a sweat shop factory area - as Con said an economy all on its own with its own commercial district, kids playing cricket in the squares and the sound of the Mullahs singing out the call to prayer. By night part of the slum lit up to attract passers by in what's got to be some sort of small brothel - not that I would know mind - a fact that we will clarify if we ever get the bottle to explore this part of town at night.To be honest apparently the slums in Mumbai are not renowned for violence or crime (so MR Geography AS student tells me) - so you never know we might just be able to validate that fact at later stage.

So tomorrow we venture out on our first official trip to the Laundry!, another blue mosque and a sacred temple - before a swim, the gym and a curry in one of the local traditional restaurants.

Regards 

#the MumbaiTwo

Catching The Plane T Mumbai_ Just

#BombayBanter

Hi Readers

Coming to the end of the flight to Mumbai so I thought that I would post for our loyal followers a few details of our adventure to date.

I suppose most notable is the fact that we almost missed the flight having got to Heathrow 3 hrs early!!!

After a good chin wag over fish chips and a burger (Paul McKenna where are you when I need you?) having so much time we had another beer - well it would of been rude not too - whilst Con gave me a potted version of the Ghandi story and the creation of the Indian (and Pakistani) nation. Time enough to charge the phones we sauntered to the lounge and took a seat. I felt like a bit of a wander so strolled casually down the corridor and nonchalantly looked up at the departures Board on the way past. MUMBAI FLIGHT CLOSING!!!! No way no way we have a couple of hours to go. Still nonchalantly (not an easy spelling this so tendency to over use when I discover how to spell it) we strolled to the gate to find out (yes way) flight closing and we are amongst the 10 last stragglers to Board. But board we did.

Good flight though leg room economical - hence the ticket type no doubt my left leg feel more like a Pirelli tyre - fully inflated not like the Mick Mobile - hard as rock. Veggie curry not bad - not quite our first taste of Indiia - both got a few hrs kip - I watched Captain Phillips (recommended as a good thriller) - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and Lincoln for Con (Funny and recommended in that order). Well got to go flight coming into land. weather outside #smoky.