Saturday Walk Round Mumbai, Part 3

From the coffee shop I went to have a look at the old Opera House. This was, apparently, built at just the wrong time, as film was beginning to become very popular and as a result never made money. The guidebook said that it was now very run down but worth seeing. Unfortunately, it is now covered in scaffolding and thus can't really be seen. It is, according to Wikipedia, in the process of being restored although it would seem to be some distance away from completion.

My next target area was to be Kotechiwadi, a small area apparently of Portuguese origin. Whether or not I actually went through it while I was diving through the warren of little back streets I can't be certain, but I certainly found a lot of buildings that you can see are old and which would have been lovely at the time that they were built. Some of them still look in reasonable nick (even though you get the distinct impression that there are more people living in them now than they were originally designed for). What was clear was that this was not a wealthy area, although the people themselves seemed happy.

I had been warned before coming out that I would get culture shock. In reality, I haven't really had it. I think that's because I've been to places like Egypt, Indonesia and South America which have at least some similarities, so I think I've had my culture shock beforehand. It will be interesting to see how my 9 year old daughter reacts, though. Hopefully it will allow her to appreciate how lucky we are in Europe and not freak her out too much. Fortunately, she will be able to retreat to a pretty nice hotel if she does start having problems.

One thing I noticed while walking around was that particular types of shops group together. This is something that happens in London, too, but I've never understood why it happens. I can see why it helps if your customers know that if they need X then they can be pretty sure of finding it if they go to a specific area, but it seems that you then end up competing only on price with the others around, and that can't be great for profits. Anyway, I found the areas for car repairs and also for cards (who would have thought that there was enough demand for wedding cards to keep pretty much a whole street busy?). Note to my wife, I almost certainly won't be able to find the card area again.

I wasn't really lost while I was wandering around, although I didn't know exactly where I was at any point, and the map I had wasn't hugely useful. Also, road name signs in Mumbai are few and far between, and those that there are as often as not only in Hindi, which isn't helpful for a tourist. However, I broadly knew which way I was going at each point, and I knew that I wanted to end up at Crawford Market. With only one bit of assistance from a local I managed to get there.

Having finally got there I didn't actually spend much time there, though I'm not really sure why. It just wasn't appealing to me at the time. Perhaps I'll give it another go at some stage. I then carried on walking down to the main train station, the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, previously known as Victoria Station. This is a magnificent old building (Victorian, surprise, surprise) that I understand was modelled on St Pancras Station in London.

Next to the Station was the General Post Office. I've long said that the Madrid Post Office is the most OTT Post Office I've ever seen, but the one in Mumbai is more so. A huge flock of birds was roosting in a tree in front of it, and occasionally would rise up in a cloud.

I was getting hungry by now, so went and ate at one of the small restaurants nearby, and started watching the first match of the cricket World Cup. There has been a suggestion from one of the people at work that we should try to get tickets for the final, since it's being held in Mumbai. Not that she (Spanish) has any particular interest in it from the sporting perspective, but more from the event side. Tickets haven't yet gone on sale, and the chances are very low that we will manage to get any tickets, but we'll give it a go.

By this time I was beginning to get quite tired. My feet were hurting (fool that I am, I'd worn work shoes for the walk) - it turned out I had a blister about the size of a 10p piece on the sole of my right foot - and my need for a loo was growing (I hadn't really felt the urge to go into one of the public loos that I'd passed at Crawford market and the restaurant didn't have one. So after a very brief further walk I got a taxi back to the hotel. That turned out to be more of an issue than I'd expected - the first taxi drivers I asked didn't know where the hotel was. I ended up giving my key card (with the address on it) to the taxi driver, but it turns out that the street name is not necessarily a hugely helpful piece of information to taxi drivers. He found out the area that I wanted (Worli), drove there and then asked for directions when he got closer.

The rest of the day was spent in the hotel, at the pool and in my room, with a brief trip out with various members of the client team for dinner at a local restaurant.