With a long story to get the Indian visa (I needed to go to Koeln five times), my trip to India was already quite a story. I consider I passed the motivation test to go there :-) My first impression of Mumbai was dusty, there were autoricksaws everywhere which gave me a familiar feeling, it reminded me of Jakarta. I was on a business trip with three other colleagues. Our first five days there were spent between the hotel and the office in north of Mumbai where the company we are working with located so I could not say I really saw Mumbai :-). We only went outside the hotel three times in the evening, two times to the mall close to the hotel (trying to get an alternative restaurants and bit of shopping ;-)) and one time, one of the managers took us to a bar to have some drink and food. Then we had one full day on Saturday to explore Mumbai.
On Wednesday we were invited to join the outing of our development group there which was quite an experience. We definitely had fun that evening. There were some team building games which are interesting (and I never had before). Oh my group won by the way :-). Then we had dinner and the dance session. The dance session was awesome, never knew that Indians are good dancers. Well I know the Bollywood movies always involve dances, but I haven't really seen the Bollywood dance live. That evening I proved it, they are good dancers :-).
After five working days, we were so excited to have the Saturday to explore Mumbai. Mumbai is huge and the southern part of Mumbai where almost all the interesting places located are quite far from where we stayed. We were lucky to have a car and a driver, and Kaustubh, one of our Indian colleagues who was so kind to be our guide that day.
We started around 10am, and went directly to visit Dolby Ghat, the manual laundry service in Mumbai, which is an interesting spot. Then we went to the Hanging Garden to have a small walk. The weather was nice (a dream weather for the people from the area with a temperature close to 0C degree at that time ;-)). The next destination was the promenade a long the Marine Drive. It's a nice place to stroll with friends and family. Around 2pm we had our lunch in Maheshlunchhome, a seafood restaurant which was recommended by a colleague. The big prawns and fish were delicious.
After lunch we went to the Gateway of India, which is located close to the Taj Mahal Tower Hotel where the 2008 terrorist attack occurred. We spent some time there (and some photo sessions for sure) and then went shopping/cafe time in Colaba and Fashion street. After that we dropped by to taste a local street food called Panipuri. I can still imagine the taste of it ;-) And then we decided to call a day, which was quite a good decision since we caught a traffic jam on the way back to our hotel.
Having a week there I could see the big gap between rich and poor. I saw some slums and some homeless people. Being Indonesian it should not be surprised me, but I traveled mostly to developed countries recently (and lives in Germany) and that somehow still made me feel 'strange'. I always like to observe the surroundings and I remember a scene when we trapped to a traffic jam. It was under a fly over and some people live there. From my car's window I saw a woman and a small child sitting on the ground surrounded by some cardboxes (or something I don't know exactly, it was dark already so I could only see the silhoutte). There was a young man slept beside her and she tried to wake him up. It looked like he was sick and she asked him to drink/eat something. He ate it finally and that scene, the three of them only several minutes, somehow touched me and was kept on my mind. First I thought that the woman was his mother, but after the car moved I recognized the woman was also still young, so they might be a young family. Well they could be anything actually, it's just something like a silent movie that you can interpret it to whatever you want.
After all, it was definitely an interesting 'sneak preview' of India. Some people said that you don't really see India in Mumbai and that could be true, I just have to visit it again to explore it properly and discover the real India someday. Fingers crossed!!
On Wednesday we were invited to join the outing of our development group there which was quite an experience. We definitely had fun that evening. There were some team building games which are interesting (and I never had before). Oh my group won by the way :-). Then we had dinner and the dance session. The dance session was awesome, never knew that Indians are good dancers. Well I know the Bollywood movies always involve dances, but I haven't really seen the Bollywood dance live. That evening I proved it, they are good dancers :-).
After five working days, we were so excited to have the Saturday to explore Mumbai. Mumbai is huge and the southern part of Mumbai where almost all the interesting places located are quite far from where we stayed. We were lucky to have a car and a driver, and Kaustubh, one of our Indian colleagues who was so kind to be our guide that day.
We started around 10am, and went directly to visit Dolby Ghat, the manual laundry service in Mumbai, which is an interesting spot. Then we went to the Hanging Garden to have a small walk. The weather was nice (a dream weather for the people from the area with a temperature close to 0C degree at that time ;-)). The next destination was the promenade a long the Marine Drive. It's a nice place to stroll with friends and family. Around 2pm we had our lunch in Maheshlunchhome, a seafood restaurant which was recommended by a colleague. The big prawns and fish were delicious.
After lunch we went to the Gateway of India, which is located close to the Taj Mahal Tower Hotel where the 2008 terrorist attack occurred. We spent some time there (and some photo sessions for sure) and then went shopping/cafe time in Colaba and Fashion street. After that we dropped by to taste a local street food called Panipuri. I can still imagine the taste of it ;-) And then we decided to call a day, which was quite a good decision since we caught a traffic jam on the way back to our hotel.
Having a week there I could see the big gap between rich and poor. I saw some slums and some homeless people. Being Indonesian it should not be surprised me, but I traveled mostly to developed countries recently (and lives in Germany) and that somehow still made me feel 'strange'. I always like to observe the surroundings and I remember a scene when we trapped to a traffic jam. It was under a fly over and some people live there. From my car's window I saw a woman and a small child sitting on the ground surrounded by some cardboxes (or something I don't know exactly, it was dark already so I could only see the silhoutte). There was a young man slept beside her and she tried to wake him up. It looked like he was sick and she asked him to drink/eat something. He ate it finally and that scene, the three of them only several minutes, somehow touched me and was kept on my mind. First I thought that the woman was his mother, but after the car moved I recognized the woman was also still young, so they might be a young family. Well they could be anything actually, it's just something like a silent movie that you can interpret it to whatever you want.
After all, it was definitely an interesting 'sneak preview' of India. Some people said that you don't really see India in Mumbai and that could be true, I just have to visit it again to explore it properly and discover the real India someday. Fingers crossed!!
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