Mumbai Travelogue – Part 4 and Last

Wrapping up the trip …

Friday 

1. Got up early, so we could head out by 7:30a for our countryside tour. We had two hired cars; the office here has a contract with a service for such for visitors, though the previous evening we’d taken taxis hired through the hotel.
2. Long road out of Mumbai, watching the city in the morning. 
3. I have never seen a place in such constant decay and disrepair. There is no road without potholes, no sidewalk that isn’t half-torn-up, no building that doesn’t have bits (chunks, walls) falling off (let alone that doesn’t need a coat of paint of three). Nothing is unworn, unbroken, unmarred. That’s a very slight exagerration, but it seems that everything is built on a slim capital budget and there is no budget for maintenance and upkeep once built. It’s easier for buildings to be abandoned (or squatted in) than to keep them up. Ravi, my colleague from India, noted that reading about apartment buildings collapsing is a not-uncommon event; people turn around and pick through the rubble, then live in the ruins, until someone decides to build on the property (lather, rinse, repeat). 
   Part of the problem is lack of ownership. Squatting in apartments is fairly routine — a family lives there 5-10 years, and then considers it “theirs” and to heck with paying rent. That means building owners don’t have a lot of incentive to keep things up (let alone budget). One also drives past dozens of abandoned, apparently half-constructed buildings. Or are they partly collapsed? Or did the money run out during buiding? Or were insufficient palms greased to maintain the permits? Is it under rennovation? Or was there a fire, now washed clean by the monsoons and only leaving concrete and brick and rebar behind? It’s impossible to tell even most of the time.
   This all applies in the country as well as the city.
4. Laneage, in the city and country, is, as has been noted, a suggestion. It’s not unusual, if traffic is jammed on one side, for people to drive on the wrong side of the road — even on divided highways. This is slightly more common for scooters than full-size vehicles, but only slightly.  It’s exciting for everyone!
5. We stopped at McDonald’s for brunch.
6. Afterwards, we found ourselves on the first “modern” roadway we’d seen — a six lane (three each side) expressway. Wow!
7. Planters — flower-pots — are common. There’s some planted landscape in medians, but much is in pots, both on streets and on the highway. Given all the rain, irrigation systems are unnecessary.
8. Yes, we saw the classic “women with jugs on their heads walking to the river to fill them with water” scenes. Alas, with just a cell phone inside of a car, I did not get any pictures.
9. Bus-side adverts, many of them, for Roadside Romeo, a Roadside Romeo CG-animated flick. It comes out in India next week — not sure if/when it will show up in the US.
10. Many streets, and most sidewalks, are done with interlocking pavers, rather than concrete or asphalt. I’m not sure why.
11. Ravi noted that India has no concept of “self-service” — there is such a surplus of labor, there’s always someone to do anything for you (whether employed to do it or fishing for tips or both), and often two or three people to do the same thing, usually with a smile. There are also usually multiple levels of supervision / management / bosses, simply because the inefficiency is less important than having the jobs for people. That disincentive from efficiency also impacts productivity, as well as slowing down automation efforts and other things that reduce labor needs.
12. We saw some modern scaffolding in a few cases, but, honestly, 90% of the scaffolding we saw was bamboo. People used to construction safety will be in a constant state of cringing here. People who work in construction labor unions ditto. Generally speaking, we use mechanized equipment to move large rocks around (cf. my front yard relandscape), not human labor. Not surprisingly (see previous note), there are plenty of people willing to move around large rocks by hand.
13. It’s one thing to know that the swastika is a Sanskrit symbol used culturally and religiously in India, quite another to see it all over the place.
14. Tata is a huge conglomerate in India. You keep running across the name everywhere — cars, busses, steel plants, telecommunication ads, water bottles. They’re everywhere!
15. Monkeys! We did indeed see monkeys by the side of the road, which was cute. What was less cute was how our driver was willing to swerve over multiple lanes and park half-hanging into a traffic lane so that we could take pictures of the monkeys (quickly before they jumped into the car or took our cameras).
16. Highway sign: “ACCIDENT-PRONE SPOT”
17. Another amusing highway sign: “OBSERVE LANE DISCIPLINE.” I think that about says it all.
18. Our driver got waved through a red light by a policeman. He then got pulled over on the far side by another policeman, asking why we’d run the red light, and explaining we could pay him Rs 50 (doubtless split with the other policeman), or get slapped with a Rs 100 fine. It was the only overt bribery/low-level corruption I observed, but it was still disturbing. It’s evidently much more common around gift-giving holidays and towards the end of the month (when paychecks have run low).
19. There are piles of rubble — rock, stone, brick — everywhere, even in the country. It’s rarely clear if they are waste from a project, the remains of something torn down, supplies left for a project that never happened, or what. It adds to the run-down picture of the country.
20. There are also adverts everywhere — painted, often, signs in other cases. Huge billboards, 2-10x the size of anything anyone would zone in the states. Wide and flat billboards that run the width of overpasses. Everywhere, in both city and villages.
21. We saw a number of dogs, though fewer than I expected. Mostly mutts, with some variation but largely sort of an ur-dog form with color differences. No cats, though.
22. Our first “real” stop in the Lonavala region was Karle Caves, a Buddhist monastery/cave complex dating back to the 2-3rd Century BC. It’s both a tourist site and a local religious site, even though Buddhism has largely dwindled in India; people make promises to walk up all the steps from the town of Karli to the caves as a sort of pilgrimage. The steps themselves (we climbed about half, from the highest parking area) are lined with little shops selling food and nick-nacks, as well as various beggers, and are a long climb but in good shape. There’s an admission of Rs 5 for locals and Rs 100 for foreigners. It’s worth it, though; the carvings are wonderul, the main cave / temple is amazing, and the side caves of the monastery complex looked pretty interesting.
23. India is a terribly dirty country. And I don’t just mean “dirt,” but trash. There is little to no public interest or sensibility about throwing out trash into trash recepticles. People routinely just toss it on the ground (or, if they are conscious of it, toss it far away from them, or over a wall, or somewhere “out of sight”). The result is … well … trash everywhere. Even at a major religious/historical site like Karle Caves, there’s trash fluttering about everywhere, often just over walls. It’s not clear that it’s a matter of infrastructure; in a labor-rich country like India, where there are always three people a
    vailable to do any single job (and usually are), trash-cleaning would be simple. The biggest barrier, perhaps, is that one person’s trash is another person’s fortune; trash-picking and dumpster-diving are accepted methods of finding stuff for those still poorer — but even here it’s a more “trashy” method than in the states, as usually everything is pulled out of any of the few recepticles and then left in a debris field surrounding it once picked over. It has to be frustrating for those interested in keeping the country (and countryside) clean, and the result is that no matter how scenic or lovely the setting is, you can expect to find litter all over the place.
24. India is a country of bright colors. Women, in general, even the most poor, wear bright saris and other garb. Men are a bit more subdued, but colorful and jewel-tone shirts (cotton, usually long-sleeved, always neatly pressed) are common until you get down to the most impoverished.
25. We traveled next to Valvan Dam, yet another product of Tata, which has pretty gardens around its base (which we were not allowed to go through) and is an early 20th Century dam (which we were not allowed to photograph) to provide water and power to the surrounding areas. The place was one of few not notably covered with litter; there were these very odd trash receptacles along the road (alas, not photographed) — open-mouthed, brightly-colored penguins with the legend across their chest, “USE ME.” Kind of kinky. The grounds were all planted with vegetation that we’d only see as house plants in the states — coleus, spider plants, poinsettia, etc.
26. We were driving in a Toyota Innova, an Indonesian-designed Toyota micro-van. Quite comfy and a good four-person (with two more fold-downs in back) that would be useful in the US but will never-ever be sold here.
27. Driving in the country is not much different from in the city, save that there’s generally much less traffic. That means that lanes serve, not to show where you should drive, but how far over you need to get if someone else appears traveling the other direction.
28. We drove a bit more around the country-side, stopping at Tiger Point and Lion Point (fending off the vendors at these two scenic turn-offs), taking pictures, driving up to (then turning around at) the Amazingly Fabulous and Exclusive Aambly Valley City (visitors not welcome), before wandering over to Kumar City and Water Resort. Or I think that’s where we were (there was a big sign on the building to that effect, though that might have been an advert — no, wait the “restaurant and bar” picture matches where we ate. Though when we arrived around 2pm and went upstairs, it was … um … empty. And the lights were turned off. And the fans and a/c. Which worried us mightily, but (a) others arrived after we were seated, and (b) the food was quite good. And, remarkably, the five of us ate a full lunch for about USD 20.
29. Afterward, we bought some chikki, which is the local sweet (basically peanuts and unrefined sugar in kind of a nougetty bar).
30. That began the long drive back into the city. More monkeys by the road (though we didn’t stop).
31. Most signs are written in Hindi, though key highway signs and a few others are in English. English is sort of the lingua franca of the country, the thing everyone has in common, the trade language. Hindi is sort of the majority local language, but most regions have their own primary regional / ethnic language as well. As a result, most people know at least three languages (their local one, Hindi, and English). Having so much of the signage in non-English (indeed, in its own lettering system) is a bit disorienting, and robs much of the meaning of probably a lot of what we saw.
32. We saw an elephant — our only one — on a side road as we were driving back to the city. We saw a fair amount of cattle, even in the city.
33. Bad traffic back to the hotel. The drivers regularly underestimated time-to-arrival by about 20%, but in this case getting back by 3:30p morphed into getting back by 5:30 — and since we had to check out by 6 to be charged just a half-day rate, that made the final rush to clean off, change clothes, and pack a bit more rushed than I’d hoped (in particular, no final shower).
34. Hung out at the hotel waiting for others to come down, then dealing with an “emergency” call from back home related to Friday morning work problems. Finally left the hotel for the airport at 7:15p or so.
35. And it’s just as well we did. My flight (with two others) was at 11p, and it was supposedly about 90 minutes to the airport … but in reality it was more like 2-1/2 hours in very crowded conditions. I slept through most of that, mostly needed but also avoiding a lot of stress. That got us to the airport at 9:45p, which was getting uncomfortably close. Tipped George the driver for his week’s work, and we’re off!
36. The airport was just crazy. Craaaazy. Crowded, but India is also more security conscious than even in the US (not necessarily any more effectively). So …
    (A) Show passport and itinerary at the door to military-looking types (folks without an itinerary at hand need to go through a checklist to find their name reserved on a flight). 
    (B) queue up for boarding pass, get handed a departure card, get grilled by a polite lady in line about my bags, get my bags x-rayed and “secure” strapped closed, get to the boarding pass line, show passport, get boarding pass, check bag. 
    (C) find the immigration service line, queue up, wait, wait, wait, get to front, show passport and boarding pass and turn in departure card.
    (D) Show stamped passport and boarding pass exiting the room.
    (E) Security line, hand over briefcase and electronics to be x-rayed, multiple personal x-ray lines, everyone gets wanded anyway, pick up briefcase, etc.; both my boarding pass and briefcase are now stamped secure. Show stamped boarding pass and briefcase on the way out of the room.
    (F) Wend through waiting areas, duty-free (nothing aside from the international standards of luggage, booze, candy and perfume), exchange my rupees back for dollars (which takes about 10 minutes and four people and photocopies of my passport), before getting to the gate.
    (G) At the gate, go through another security line, including shoes off and electronics out, get wanded, etc. Show passport and boarding pass on leaving that room …
    (H) And once again to another queue, this time to be questioned again about my baggage (and had I bought anything in the airport).
    (I) And finally onto the plane! Huzzah!
37. Alas, no triple for me. I was on the aisle (which I prefer), but with another couple in the window and middle seats. Much more crowded flight than on the way over. I decided to put my bag up so as to give myself some extra leg room.
38. And so we depart India.

Saturday 

1. So we’re leaving at 11 p.m. Time to sleep, right? Ah, but that’s 11:30 a.m. at home, and I don’t want to screw up the schedule I need to adjust to, right? Plus we get into Newark at 6 a.m., but that’s 5:30 p.m. back in India time. Hrm. Basically I watched a movie, ate a snack, then tried to sleep. Which, in crowded conditions, I only manage to do for about 2 hours. Bleah.
2. As I said, I had no open seats, was very tired, and had intentionally set my briefcase in overhead for the foot room. The outlet on my row was actually between my neighbors, and I decided against doing anything with the computer because of that. So I read a bit, but mostly watched movies: Prince Caspian (better than expected), about 15 minutes of Clerks (meh), Master & Commander (good), and the Matrix Trilogy (great trending down to just okay). I actually watched all the Trilogy except the final 5 minutes of the last, as between having neighbors who made about six 10 minute trips to stretch their legs and use the heads, and the final “Welcome to Newark and the United States” video, they cut things off before I could watch the final finale. 
3. Many kudos to Continental’s movies-on-demand system. There was enough stuff there I wanted to watch that I could take several other Mumbai flights before having problems.
4. The trip back was, according to the sign, 15h 32m, for 8,224 miles. It’s very odd being completely out of touch with the world for that long.
5. Quite tired, but happy, when we touch down in Newark. I quickly send some messages, then shut the phone back down again as I didn’t get a chance to charge it and it’s running on battery fumes.
6. Always amusing when you arrive at a gate for International travel in the US, as you end up being routed up and down and around to get to Immigration and Customs. I got there and had An Adventure. Once through with that, I checked my checked bag through to Denver.
7. I wandered about Concourse C of Newark for a while — it’s a pretty large affair, with many restaurants and shops. I wanted to eat something, but wasn’t sure what. I ended up restoking the American Artery Clogs by having chili cheese fries and a milkshake at the Garden State Diner.
8. Got on my flight to Denver at the accorded hour, was asleep (even though in the back non-reclining row, on the aisle, and immediately in front of the head) before the plane took off, and didn’t wake up until we were landing.
9. Splashed off my face at Denver International, took a breath mint, and hustled over to meet Margie and Katherine. Huzzah!
10. Let Margie drive, as I regaled them with tales of my journey.
11. Got home, took a shower, sat drousily in front of the TV all day, had a faboo home-cooked meal of Shepherd’s Pie, and crawled upstairs to bed around 8, asleep by 9, and woke up at 1 p.m., still feeling groggy.

Sunday 

1. Sat down down and tried to finish my blogging up.
2. Hit Post …