The mumbai adventures : day 3

After a good nights sleep we were forced to get up at 6 in the morning and not because we had to get somewhere reaaly early or see the sun rise or catch a flight.It was because we had to take bath and finish early morning activites before 7. wondering why? because the city receives water for only 1 hour in the morning.the hosing society does not have a tank provision for the whole apartment but each flat has its own separate ank and tank is obviously not big enough for 9 people to do all the things with limited supply ,so get up early and finish water consuming activities by then... something like make hay when the sun shines... this is take bath when water comes!!I had bath and hit the bed again to catch some pending sleep.We had early homely lunch by 12 and then proceeded to Ulhasnagar, a nearby town which is also famous as USA(Ulhasnagar Scindhi Association) due to the predominant scindhi population . this town is famous for shopping from clothes to imported stuff, leather articles,dry fruits and what not.but it is also famous for its chat stalls .The next 4 hours were spent shopping and buying some real good handy stuff.we then returnedto our base and after getting fresh we went to anubhav a bar and restaurant for dinner. and not so surprisingly the restaurant was run by a shetty and my tulu came in handy and we got great service.Chinese bhel was a lip smacking discovery .It was made of fried noodles with chilly sauce, vinegar, tomato sauce and garlic sauce all mixed in relative proportions to leave your taste buds craving for more..the other stuff we ate aws regular biryani,tandoori etc...and then we got back and called it a day..
Day rating; 7.5/10

The mumbai adventures : day 2

After a good nights sleep i got up early as we had to attend the wedding of my relative and by 630 we were alll dressed up and were waiting for the bus that was chartered to pick us up. It did come on time anhd we began hour 45 minute long journey to the venue. The same distance would have taken us 2 hours during peak time. What fascinated me about the roads of mumbai were the use of interlock tiles which are used primarily for footpaths and in the compound premises; majority of the roads had these in place and were functioning very well but later i found out they were custom made heavy duty tiles and not the ones which we used for our backyard. once we reached the mutt at wadala , there was this all familiar sight of people settled in footpaths with concrete walled house made for themselves and surprisingly enough every 10*7 feet house had a color tv with cable connection, electrical meter,fan, most had refrigerators, some even had air conditioner!!!only thing they lacked was a place to wash stuff for which they resort to the sides of the roads and toilets for which they find some bushes nearby or do it very early in the morning before sun rises and exposes them. terrible the way they are living but believe me they have no complaints or regrets about how they are living! supposedly the 'mumbai spirit'.we then decided to check out Dadar market and we had a tough time cos it was december 6 and apparently it wa the death anniversary of father of constitution dr.B.R.Ambedkar and his samadhi happens to be in dadar! we had the world famous Batata vada at Shri Krishna and it was worth its fame. we then returned back to the hall.marriage got over and a grand buffet lunch was served which was really lip smacking and finger licking good(as good as kfc) . from there we had to go to kal;yan in thana district for which we hired a innova and took to the highway in less than a hour and a half we reached our destination passing through 4 tolls which cost 150 bucks !! but no regrets because the roads were worth the toll. after refreshing we proceeded to see the birla temple and ganapati temple at titwala. both were nice one was more architectural in appeal and latter more spiritual.we came back home and had homely dinner and hit the beds.

Day rating : 8.5/10

The mumbai adventure- day 1

Of the innumerable must see tourist places in the country if I had not yet gone to were kolkata and mumbai. but not anymore, mumbai is explored. so that leaves me with only one more holiday to cover INDIA and I am proud of it. the next few posts will trace my journey. on 5th dec which could safely be called as one of the relatively(this word means a lot) cooler mornings in mangalore, I got up early and thats by 7 o clock not because i had a early flight. my flight was at 1115 but still the excitement of visiting the financial capital of the country,the city that never sleeps, dream city and what not did not allow my senses to take rest for long and then i finally succumbed to it and got my quintal weighing body out of bed and was ready to catch the flight by 830. my cab arrrived on timeat 930 and was at the airport by 1015.check in was smooth and i rested in the crampy and suffocating lounge at the mlore airport. it definitely needs some improvement.the worst part is walking in the hot sun for half a km is punishment of sorts ,they could do good with a bus or two(every airport has 1!!!)air hostesses were cute though and as hot as the weather outside.the artificial smile on their faces could not be more deceptive i thought.i quietly settled onto my seat controlling my emotions and snapping my fantasies short.hit by recession (flight was running full though) airlines decided not to offer anything other than a bottle of water free. i had to shell out 170 bucks for a cold stale chicken croissant, a good 6cm*6cm piece of plum cake and a 200 ml carton of froti and thats called as a non veg meal!!! not even a terminally ill patient would have a low appetite sop that u could call it a meal!!! but they do; and i found out why people say prices have reached skies! 170 for 25 rs stuff thats 6.75 timesu are charging and they say they are hit by recession! what the.....anyways i should ve been smarter not to have been tempted to try it but then temptation got the better out of me and i gave in.

the flight landed at mumbai at 1220 and i was out by 1250. as i was attending a weddibng they had sent a cab for me and i got into it and proceeded towards gorai in the suburban mumbai. I had my first taste of mumbai and its traffic, buildings and people. it took 2 and half hours to reach the destination twice the time i took to travel from mlore to mumbai! after lunch and refreshing , we (me and family) took cabs and went to ISKCON at juhu and then to juhu chowpatty beach, had some disgusting chat. it was supposed to be famous but i would give it less than 1 on 10.it sucked. but what i ate next cheered me up, it was the famous ice gola in which the crush ice and put it in a glass and top with flavours of your choice so you could suck the juice and dip again and suck the juice again till all the ice melted.it was good and i sucked for a change not the food!!! we then went to borivili from there in search of authentic gujrati meal and I was not disappointed. It was nice rotis soft, chutney tangy, sabu vada crispy, dal and subzi tasty but sweet(u cannot complain about food being sweet when u eat gujrati meal apparently) . all in all a day with lot of activities ended with a good meal. we went back to gorai picked our luggage and went to borivili were arrangements for our stay was made and as soon as I got there i obliged to the bed and slept off to glory....

DAY RATING : 7/10