A New Part Of The City

Today we got out of Bandra, the area of the city that we're staying in and went south to Kala Ghoda. While it didn't seem to be that far away the trip there was over an hour in a car because of traffic. On the trip there I learned that Mumbai has many faces. The different areas of the city are noticeably different in social class and especially architecture. The route we took purposefully didn't go by many slums, but we did see a lot of sites.

Our first stop was at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, formerly the Prince of Wales Museum. It was very hot in the museum but cool nonetheless. Denise and Manav know the director of the museum so we got in and got audio tour headsets for free. The museum was in a very cool, very large, old, Indian looking building. The coolest part about it was that it had a very wide array of exhibits. There was all kinds of art and artifacts from India, Nepal, Tibet, Japan, China, Europe and probably more. There was even a natural history section with statues of animals from all over Asia, most of which you'd never see in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. I only took one video of a statue I particularly liked before I was informed that there is a charge of 200 rupees for pictures and 1000 rupees for video and decided that I would just take mental photographs, but check out this statue:



After that we went to two art galleries that were absolutely awesome. I told the guys working at the second one and even signed in a guest book that I've been to the Louvre in Paris and the Met in New York but the paintings I saw there were by far some of my favorites I've ever seen.

At this point we were starving so we got lunch at a place called Britannia where Manav knew the owner, a very funny old man with huge coke bottle glasses that magnified his eyes. His sons now run the place but he still works there and was our waiter because he likes to stay busy. The food was some of the best we've had so far, especially this fish I had that was baked in leaves and given a sweet coriander rub. Here's me and Megan (one of my fellow travelers) with our waiter whom we only knew as Uncle:




Next we went shopping. I got several t-shirts as gifts for friends at home. In The Bombay Store I tried on some more Indian style shirts for myself and while I liked the style and fit they fabric was itchy and uncomfortable so I only bought myself a wallet. And in Fab India I bought two shirts for myself, some really light, loose pants that will be perfect for our meditation retreat at the end of the trip and for Goa, and gifts for my mom and sister. I also bought a set of hankerchiefs on the street because I've almost constantly got sweat to wipe off my brow.

On the way home I took a long video of the traffic that I hope to turn into a time lapse, so look forward to that if and when I can put it together. For now here are some pictures from my day in Kala Ghodei and from the drive home:




The Shrine of Haji Ali


I have no idea what this is advertising.


The Mayoral Bungalow

Goats