mumbai

i got off the train at cstm, the old victoria terminus, and walked around to find a cheap place to stay. everything is relative... even the cheapest places were quoting 4 figure numbers. the salvation army place was full and looking around the area of colaba, i stumbled across hotel oliver. by this stage, i was a bit exasperated and was telling the hotel manager that i would even sleep on the floor. “calm down”, said joe, “i’ll find you a place. you should not go to a hotel and ask to sleep on the floor”. duly humbled, he found a room for me for 800 rupees. it was small and dirty, and anywhere else in india, i wouldn’t have paid more than 150 rupees for it. the only good thing was that i was able to access ‘imran khan macbook pro’ wifi network from my room and enjoy free internet.

walking around colaba, mumbai had retained a lot of the old colonial buildings and architecture, and it was good to see the cricket ground and green space not far away. there was a good exhibition of paintings at the jehangir gallery, and i quickly found a good place to eat.

i had a couple of days to pass here waiting for a friend to come from poland. i took a ride in one of the local trains to andheri and walked to the airport from there. there was a lot of construction going on in the area for the new metro network. my friend arrived and i could see she was not happy. not used to travelling, and fearful of flying, she was nervous to begin with. and she feared her poor english skills would be a barrier when negotiating her way through the airports.

we took a taxi in the middle of the night through an eerily quiet and deserted mumbai to downtown. and when marta saw hotel oliver, it could've been the final straw. i should’ve realised that now i would not be travelling alone, and whereas i could sleep anywhere, my friend would definitely prefer to have some creature comforts. like an attached bathroom... the communal toilet/shower place was not the most inviting of places!! but joe came to the rescue again and found another room for us in the morning, albeit more expensive and without a real window... but a little bit better than the one we had. by now, marta was in full culture shock, and i was wondering if she would not already be thinking of taking the first plane back to poland. i was already planning our escape from hotel oliver and mumbai as i went to book a couple of overnight bus tickets to goa.

marta was already much calmer at the news, but her general mood was not good. the fact that she had come to india still nursing a broken foot and walking with crutches did not help the situation. but it was as it was, and we had to make the best of it. we said our goodbyes to joe and took a classic yellow and black mumbai taxi to where the paulo travels bus was waiting to take us to the south.