This afternoon, Matt will catch his sleeper train to Delhi. I am impressed that he has fit everything into such a small backpack, and it's a good thing - today he'll have to carry it around with him.
We catch a taxi to the West side of South Mumbai known as Malabar Hill, and visit the hanging gardens. The taxi swallows us into the heaving, blurting chaos of traffic and spits us out a few hundred metres from our destination whilst stuck in a jam. The hanging gardens are more garden than hanging - awash with colourful butterflies, they are an oasis amidst the city's tower blocks.
We trek north, spying old colonial buildings amidst the modern flats, and enter the Mahalaxshmi Temple, where hoards of people are making offerings of flowers and coconut at the temple shrine. A quick stop for sugary, spicy tea from the chai-wallah (7 rupees each) and we mix our religions by heading along a spur cutting through the ocean out to the Hali Aji Mosque. The guy guarding our shoes introduces himself as James Bond and gives us headgear that may either keep us respectful in the temple or single us out as idiot foreigners. The whitewashed mosque cuts a beautiful outline across the horizon of sea and sky, and has a dazzling ceiling and calligraphied arabic writing across the walls inside.
Finally, we realise there is little time until Matt's train, so hot-foot it to buy him some snacks and get to the central station before I hop in a cab back to the sweet, sweet air-con of the hotel.
In the evening, Pat, Jan, and I head to the Leopold cafe, which is a-buzz with chatter and the quaffing of drinks. Bullet-holes still marr the walls and ceiling from the terrorist attacks five years ago. Jan remonstrates with the taxi drivers until we can find one who will take us back on the meter, and then I am left to continue the adventure on my own for a few days until brother Bryn arrives...
We catch a taxi to the West side of South Mumbai known as Malabar Hill, and visit the hanging gardens. The taxi swallows us into the heaving, blurting chaos of traffic and spits us out a few hundred metres from our destination whilst stuck in a jam. The hanging gardens are more garden than hanging - awash with colourful butterflies, they are an oasis amidst the city's tower blocks.
We trek north, spying old colonial buildings amidst the modern flats, and enter the Mahalaxshmi Temple, where hoards of people are making offerings of flowers and coconut at the temple shrine. A quick stop for sugary, spicy tea from the chai-wallah (7 rupees each) and we mix our religions by heading along a spur cutting through the ocean out to the Hali Aji Mosque. The guy guarding our shoes introduces himself as James Bond and gives us headgear that may either keep us respectful in the temple or single us out as idiot foreigners. The whitewashed mosque cuts a beautiful outline across the horizon of sea and sky, and has a dazzling ceiling and calligraphied arabic writing across the walls inside.
Finally, we realise there is little time until Matt's train, so hot-foot it to buy him some snacks and get to the central station before I hop in a cab back to the sweet, sweet air-con of the hotel.
In the evening, Pat, Jan, and I head to the Leopold cafe, which is a-buzz with chatter and the quaffing of drinks. Bullet-holes still marr the walls and ceiling from the terrorist attacks five years ago. Jan remonstrates with the taxi drivers until we can find one who will take us back on the meter, and then I am left to continue the adventure on my own for a few days until brother Bryn arrives...
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