Mumbai

Mumbai.

Bombay.

Either way.

A city overlooked by many. Indeed, the Lonely Planet confirms that
"most travellers miss out on Mumbai, tending to hang around long enough
only to organise transport to Goa."

Frequently, I have heard people speak of their shock on arriving at
Mumbai and being greeted with smog thin with air and endless slums
threatening to drown the city in a brown ocean of despair. (I for one
certainly expected to step off of the plane into sweet coastal air and
the tree lined streets of suburban bliss - white picket fences and
all).

My partner, Deb, and I arrived in Mumbai at midnight (admittedly not
its finest hour). We negotiated an overpriced taxi, found a
prisionesque guesthouse and slept the deep sleep of the recently
rehemisphered.

When we awoke, we were shocked to discover that we had slept in until
four! Shaking off our grogginess, we quickly showered and dressed,
excited about what was left of the first day of our adventure.

Discovering the front door locked, we shook the lazy snoozing
guesthouse owner to let us out.

"What are you going to do at this hour?" he asked dopily.

"You know, just walk around&;#8230; explore!" we gushed with
enthusiasm.

We rushed outside and were smacked in the face with the stillness and
darkness of night. The rake of reality. It was 4AM! With the
disposition and intellect of mullets, we debated whether the sun could
set before 4pm at that time of year. Slowly it dawned on us. We
sheepishly returned to our guesthouse to accept our 'I told you so's'
and add to our mere three hours of sleep. The guesthouse owner
delighted in spreading the tale of our time zone out . We quickly (and
deservedly) became the laughing stock of the guesthouse and felt
inspired to seek new accommodation.

As we combed the tangled streets of the city we learned that cheap
lodgings are tough to find in Mumbai. We grew sluggish dodging
rickshaws, beggars and the open sewers which made a constant assault on
our noses and toeses.

Turning into one alley, we were shocked by a savage dog, which we must
have either angered or appetised, as it started towards us growling and
snarling. Unfortunately, the average mumbaine canine tends to be a lot
healthier than its peers throughout the rest of India, most even having
four legs, making the scene all the more frightening.

"Back off dog! Back off slowly, if you don't want to get hurt!" I
barked as we backed off slowly, not wanting to get hurt.

We ducked into another lane and immediately stumbled upon the Salvation
Army. It had cheap rooms available! What luck! Checking in, we were
inspired to count our blessings and thank dog for the Salvos.

The Salvation Army proved to be more of a blessing than we had
originally anticipated providing us with our first big break into movie
stardom. Mumbai is the home of Bollywoood which prides itself in
(having the dubious honour of)
cranking out even more feature films than its American namesake. Every
one of these Hindi epics come complete with a love story, the
inevitable triumph of good over evil, singing and dancing to an
exuberant musical score and at least one odd scene packed with young
foreigners. Luckily for us, the Salvation Army seems to be the place
where the movie moguls shop for their extra white extras.

They gave us a free lunch and then made us change our clothes so as to
look more like Indians trying to look like foreigners rather than
foreigners trying to look like Indians.

Our work as extras mostly involved sitting around in the sun for hour
upon hour without a clue what was going on around us (so pretty much a
normal day in India for the most part). Occasionally, we were made to
wander around and pretend to take photos of landmarks. We repeated
these takes countless times while the director's army of assistants
tried desperately to disperse the army of onlookers who gathered to
watch the chest thrusting antics of the Bollywood stars (whose presence
was completely wasted on us). It was gratifying to watch the Indians
turn their national obsession with staring against their own.

The director was noticeably irritated by the crowds, but seemed
unconcerned with using different extras when repeating takes of the
same shot or, better yet, using the same extras for completely
unrelated shots.

After a long day on the set, we were relieved to be free again and
spent the remainder of the day wandering around and taking photos of
landmarks.

Our agent informs us that mumbobia continues to spread and that the
foreigner shortage in Mumbai has worsened. The free lunches are better
and salaries are up!

Mumbai.

A city well worth a look.