Mumbai Trip

Last week we took a family trip to Mumbai. Brian was running in the Mumbai Marathon so we decided to see the sights. It reminded me a lot of New Orleans...charming, historical, lots of energy and... dirty:) With children it's hard to venture out and explore dining, museums, day tours, etc but we did get to see quite a bit and still get in our nap time (great for Mom and Dad too!).

Here are some highlights:

-We saw the CST, the Central train station for the local Mumbai commuter trains. These trains transport around 7 million passengers daily! This is where the closing dance scene from Slumdog Millionaire's "Jai Ho" was filmed.
I really REALLY wish I would have had my video camera on me at the time. We were there at rush hour and as the train pulled into the station to load new passengers men were jumping off the platform into the train doors while it's speeding in to grab a seat. When the train stopped women made a mad dash, running to find a chair. It was like witnessing a game of musical chairs when the music stops and all the children scramble to find a seat. I wasn't expecting this scene to unfold and really didn't know what was going on at first so it was rather humorous to me but to think of commuting 30 minutes to an hour or more each day standing up would make me join the mad dash as well.

-Saw the Gateway of India. It's a large arch that commemorated a king and queen arriving from England in 1911. We took our pictures in front of it and were mobbed by street sellers.

-Walked thru the beautiful Taj hotel that was attacked in November 2008 by terrorists.

-went to Chowpatty beach on Marine Drive, a main boulevard that runs along the bay. We enjoyed people watching while driving up and down this street many times. Lots of locals come to sit on the sea wall to hang out and watch the sunsets.

-We went to the former Prince of Whales museum and a public Aquarium that smelled like urine but the kids loved seeing the fish:D

-We visited Dharavi, a slum city that covers one square mile. Statistics say that over half of Mumbai's 14 million population lives in slums. The pictures that I took do nothing to really show what life is like for these people so if you want to view more realistic photos please go to this website that I stumbled upon with a collection of Mumbai slum photos http://artsytime.com/life-in-slums-of-mumbai/
While there, and seemingly the only foreigners around, we gained friends along the way, some of whom I took pictures of and included in the album below (yes, white lady WITH camera around her neck...can you say TOURIST!)

Brian did great in his marathon race! The best part was that he was finishing the same time as the elite runners were coming in (who started an hour later for more running space) so it looked like Brian came in 2nd place when we saw him near the finish line:D Some people came up to congratulate me that my husband came in 2nd:D Actually Kenyans came in first and second:) But the average onlooker didn't know this:D

So here's to Mumbai: