The Loon In Mumbai - P1

I don't know why but I seem to wanna start these kinda blogs as if it were a vlog. Anyway, let me tell you about my first ever trip to Mumbai so far.

So, I landed here on Sunday noon, and I gotta say, quite a view as your plane begins its descent towards the airport. Once I was out of the airport, the weather hit me. It was warm & humid but with a nice cool breeze. My cousin who I'm staying here with  came to pick me up and we took the iconic 'kali-peeli'  taxi to get home. I spent the whole drive asking my cousin about Mumbai and my head just kept swiveling trying to take in as much of it as I could.

We reached home base where I saw what I've heard about living in Mumbai. A middle class guy doing well will pay crazy amount of rent for a SINGLE room, not 1 bedroom, 1 room house. An amount for which he can get a 2 bedroom house in Noida or Gurgaon in a society with nice amenities. But for a working lifestyle, its quite an efficient way to live.

That same evening I covered a couple of the iconic tourist stops of Mumbai when I went out with my cousins. We took the infamous local trains to reach our destination, Churchgate. They told me that the crowd wasn't as much as feared because it was a Sunday evening and I'll take any reason for why I wasn't travelling in a packed train with open doors and impatient jerks (more about that in an upcoming rant). We went to see the Gateway of India first, just so I could get that one off my checklist. It was nice. Not jaw-dropping, but not to say that it wasn't an impressive structure. It's one of those moments when you look at it, cross your arms, tilt your head a couple of ways and say "Nice"

"Erected to commemorate the landing in India of their Imperial Majesties King George V and Queen Mary on the second of December MCMXI"

The Taj hotel - the site of India's worst terror attack in recent history
 After that we legged it around that part of town, stopping to eat some awesome kebabs at a place called Bademiya in the Colaba area. Walked around a bit more, heading towards Marine Drive, which is right along the sea. You can walk along this edge, or just sit on top of the wall-thing and just look at the waves and just enjoy an endless breeze that will restyle your hair. It was pretty crowded, but still nice. Sadly, view gets tiring soon enough once you see the line of garbage floating nearby. Perhaps it is a spot best enjoyed when you're with a close friend or a loved one. We headed back soon after towards the station to take the train home. It was a good start to the trip.

The next day was a holiday too, Independence Day and all, so we just spent most of the day time at home being lazy. In the evening my cousins took me out to Juhu beach which is surprisingly nearby. Second time in my life that I've been on a beach, this time after dark, and the experience was a bit...underwhelming. The breeze was quite pleasant as always, the crowd was not, and the trail of human generated filth even less so. Nevertheless we walked around, found a clean spot to just stand, gaze at the sea and enjoy some masala bhuttas. From there we walked towards the chowpatty area which had the shops and eating joints, and most of the crowd was concentrated there. It was here that I finally had the famous Mumbai Pav Bhaji, a  classic, but yet again, underwhelmed. It was tasty, but nothing remarkable. That concludes the highlights of day 2 here. Still gonna be here for another 7 and a half days. Stay tuned for more about the Loon's trip to Mumbai.

The iconic Bombay double-decker bus





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