Mumbai

The reason for us even going to India was because of the book "Shantaram" if you haven't read it, you should, it's really good. The way he describes Mumbai and India in general was very inspiring. Most of the book takes place in Mumbai so we were super excited to finally get to Mumbai and see what we had been reading about. Mumbai is the biggest city I have been to and the traffic there is like nothing I have EVER seen and hopefully will ever experience again. WOW!! It's all I have to say. Our hotel was in Juhu beach and about 25kms from South Mumbai (Colaba) that number could be wrong, but it's essentially not very far. Or so we thought. In reality, it is about a 2 HOUR drive. Traffic is horrible at all times of the day. Like terrible. The most insane traffic I have ever seen. And there is NO order - people are driving where ever they can fit, but this time it is mostly cars and bikes (no random stuff like Varanasi) and the horns - non STOP. We hired a driver for our last day and I swear 6 of the 8 hours we had him were spent just driving. (to put it another way - we had to leave the area we were in at 7pm in order to make it to the airport in time for our 11:35pm flight LOL) You can not get anywhere in Mumbai quickly.

But traffic aside, we LOVED the city. It is really different then Delhi and has some pretty amazing areas - the University, the Train Terminal and Hight Court were sooo beautiful. We drove past the most expensive house in the world. I think it cost 2 Billion to build. CRAZY! In a country as poor as that and someone builds this "house" that is 27 stories for one family is something else.  As we were doing what we called "the Shantaram tour" we came to learn that the main bar he hung out in his book was actually the place where the terrorist attacks started last year. They open fired into that bar before heading off to the Taj Hotel. So now they have armed security guards at the entrance of the bar.  We went to the place where almost all of the laundry in Mumbai gets done. when you see it, you wonder how clothes can actually get cleaned in that water LOL.

Even thought the traffic made it a tough city to really enjoy, but we were happy to end our tour of India there. They were a bit more relaxed in terms of their views of women and had a different vibe then Northern India. The only thing that put a damper on the city is after we left and had heard about the bombings. It was VERY scary - considering that the day before we had been at each one of those spots walking around. I think we both thought "what if it happened one day earlier". There are soo many people just walking around those areas that it's amazing more people didn't get hurt. I think that was it for Arnold - he's never going back LOL. Bombing attacks and two train accidents while we were there - he's done.

Love Melissa and Arnold