Tuesday, 24 November 2009

Indian Farewell

MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA - 24th November 2009

It's the end of days for Mumbai - tomorrow I depart on Qantas flight 52 to Singapore as my 7-month journey heads another step eastward. However, departure is not before a couple more action-packed days...

Our journey back from Matheran turned into a minor epic - after climbing up we decided to take the toy train back down, and hop onto the mainline suburban train from the bottom of the hill. The toy train journey was epic - certain stretches provided spectacular panoramic hilltop scenery akin to that of the Bangalore-Mangalore line through the Western Ghats (photos will follow in a few days); the difference being that our toy train ran on a 2ft narrow guage and simply worked its way progressively down an isolated hill, as opposed to carving a route through the middle of a range.  It was 2 hours down to Neral at the bottom, but it was there where the wheels somewhat fell off what would have been a relatively quick journey back to Mahim.  It turned out - much to our chagrin - that the Central Railway line into Victoria Terminus was undergoing Sunday maintenance for a stretch of our journey, so we'd have to switch to bus.  

Simple enough?  No chance.  

Unlike the UK, when weekend maintenance is pre-planned and forewarned with posters for months in advance (leave alone announcements to the same in pretty much every station within 100 miles), this is India.  Maintenance wasn't mentioned when we bought our tickets in Matheran, and it's a fair probability that most of the people at Neral station had no advance notice either.  The consequence, naturally enough, is another aspect of chaos - our train terminated at some station up the line and we exited the station to find a state of total bedlam.  Buses were nowhere to be seen, instead was a wall of traffic punctuated with auto-rickshaws jostling for the custom of the hundreds of displaced rail passengers, themselves pouring out of the station and out into the middle of the vehicles.  And a scene of general bedlam was finished off by the ongoing construction of the new Mumbai Monorail directly above our heads and on top of the middle of the road.  

Auto drivers are a crafty bunch, and they clearly they'd got wise about railway maintenance - rates across the 10-15km distance to the next station were off-meter and suitably hiked up.  However, with little alternative and my 7-year-old cousin generally unimpressed with the state of affairs, we hopped on board one - only for the driver's seat to be flanked by another two lads heading the same way.  One auto-rickshaw, 6 adults and a kid, at the height of the midday sun... combined with a massive increase in traffic due to the rail passengers... and you have yourself an hour and a half journey and a half.  Personally, I loved it - going on the old "When in Rome" dictum, there's little India does better than chaos, so make hay when the sun shines!  

Monday was supposed to herald a trip to the Elephanta Caves - a UNESCO World Heritage Site located on Elephanta Island, an hour's ferry from downtown Mumbai.  Thankfully, however, Anna called us up just in time with insider info that the ferries don't run on Mondays... so the trip got postponed 24 hours.  Instead, my uncle gave me a comprehensive tour of downtown Mumbai on his motorbike - with the 2 wheels of the bike we were able to cover a distance in 2 hours that would have probably taken at least double on 4 wheels.  It's always satisfying when you realise you roughly know your way around a city - particularly one as intricate as Mumbai - so I was pretty pleased with myself whenever I knew where we were and where we were going!

The trip to Elephanta did indeed proceed 24 hours later, and we got on board a launch from behind The Gateway to India - adjacent to the Taj Palace Hotel that was the centrepiece of the terrorist attacks here almost a year ago to the day.  It's about an hour's ride to Elephanta Island, from which you have a 120-step walk up to the Main Cave.  First, however, came entrance fees - and another opportunity for an argument over whether or not I could get away with paying the "Indian" rate of Rs.10, as opposed to the foreigner's rate of Rs.250.  Mssrs. Dowson, Marshall and Nimmo will remember similar situations occuring fairly regularly last year - most notably at the Taj Mahal in Agra, which boasts one of the most crooked pieces of price discrimination I've ever seen.  Indians: Rs.10.  Foreigners: Rs.750.  It's a safe policy - no foreigner is going to mind paying the equivalent of £10 to see one of the most beautiful structures on Earth, and furthermore no one who's come all the way to the dump of city that is Agra is going to leave without seeing it's only jewel.  But the audacity of charging 75 times the rate... unbelievable.  

Anyway, my uncle told the guard that I'm from Mangalore, and I had to answer to a bit of cross-questioning, but after various backhand comments from all sides I got in for the "proper" rate (though there was no chance of this for Anna the Ukrainian!).  The Main Cave is spectacular - the walls are filled with intricate carvings of Hindu deities and scenes from mythology (such as the one of Ardhanari to the right - a half-male, half-female god) - but, much to my disappointment, the supposed army of theiving-monkeys on the island failed to materialise.  And having seen the litter pollution dumped near some of the island's other caves, it's apparent that despite its UNESCO status, Elephanta is typical of many places in India - a cultural monument that needs a great deal more care and attention in future years to ensure its proper preservation for future generations.  

That's pretty much my story from India tied up though... 7 weeks of travel have already flown by, and from here it's Singapore and onward.  I'd like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to everyone who has fed, housed, entertained or otherwise helped me over here.  India is home, so needless to say I'll be back.

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