Mumbai, India

With a few hours of sleep, after returning to the ship from Nepal, I joined the group that was going to see Old Mumbai.

Mumbai has, throughout the years, used landfill to artificially attached 7 islands to form a Penisula and bring a population of 23 million people together. During the workweek, another one million people commute into and out of the city adding stress to the infrastructure. Demand exceeds the ability to provide the necessary housing and transportation requirements. Consequently, this large city has beautiful colonial buildings or high rises often next to what our guides referred to as slums. The price of housing has risen to the extent that workers are traveling 6 hours a day to get in and out of the city.

An old tradition that used tiffin lunch boxes continues to provide homemade lunches to city workers. Every day lunches are prepared at suburban homes and picked up by a courier. Several courier exchanges get the boxes to a street next to the Mumbai railroad station. From there, city couriers retrieve them and deliver them to the customer. In the afternoon, the boxes go through the reverse process to get them home and ready for the next day.

In 1904, the King of England was scheduled to visit the city. The historic Gate of Mumbai off of the bay was constructed for the occasion.

Our next stop was the Crawford Market which was built in the early 1900s and is huge. Interestingly, you can hire someone to walk with you and carry your purchases to your car or other mode of transportation.

The Babulnath Temple was built in the 1800s and is located in an upscale part of the city. Over 80% of the population in Mumbai is Hindu.

The Khotachiwadi area hosts heritage homes which have become subject to city planning demolition. We visited the home one of the homeowners who is working to keep the heritage houses.