Mumbai

My first stop brings me to India, Mumbai, continuing my journey down south for about 900km to the state of Goa before going up North to the state of Gujarat and Rajasthan, Agra, Delhi and then Punjab.

If Visa administration is cleared successfully, we will be entering Pakistan via Wagah, the only border crossing between the two arch enemies. We will be travelling along the ancient Silk Road and hopefully, we wont get captured by the Taliban along the way :x

26th Jun 2010

My flight at 1155hrs brings me to Mumbai International Airport. The first time flying by myself on an international flight, it was quite an exhilarating experience. As it was a flight to India, I was praying hard way before that I wont be getting any dark skinned or some oldy cough spitting and frequent toilet goer beside me. I got everyone in my household praying hard for me and all prayers were answered magically. Not only did I not had any people from the *banned list seated beside me, I got the whole 2 seats all to myself. So overall, the flight was quite an enjoyable one.

Thanks everyone who prayed. And to my ah-gong who answered all the prayers.

*Banned list


The ultimate and legendary guide to any train, flight, or whatever land and water moving craft.

- Middle aged men who drive u mad tickling u with their sleeves, yet oblivious to it.
- People that smells.
- Female (or worse still the other gendered) travelers who tickled u crazy with their long hair, worse still if gender belongs to the latter.
- Frequent toilet goers.
- Those that takes up more than the seat they paid for.

Ok. So im getting off the track. My mind is drifting back to the Singapore commuters back home. Back to the trip. Touched down at Mumbai in the wee hours and took a cab to the backpacker hostel which is at the Colaba area at Mumbai. Too tired to even shower and drop off soon after letting off my load.

27th Jun 2010

First day in Mumbai was a chill-lax one. Or so I thought. I didn’t want to go so emerged into the Indian culture so fast as there was quite abit of getting used to do. But little did I know as soon as u step out onto the busy and bustling Mumbai city, omg there’s no turning back. Weather here’s pretty hot and humid, comparable and even more than that of Singapore. But as it’s the monsoon period now, the rain falls down pretty fast and hard here.

Of course, I’ve to be fed first before I can do anything serious. All u guys out there know.. hahaha. So off first for some authentic Indian cuisine. I was actually looking forward to it despite of the so many forewarnings to dirty food and liquid waste after having an Indian meal (in India of cuz). Hahahahaa. Ok. I must be quite mad. But it turned out not too bad. Its actually my favourite and missing it now. My first insight of Indian food? I think the host Indian Tan was quite pro, being the host he was, he brought me to one of the nicer street ‘restaurant’ to try out the food there. Main meal (as shown), consists of the famous Chicken Masala, egg curry, bryani rice and my favourite Naan!! It was really good. It got addictive and both the Tan&Tan kept going back for more.

One of the more interesting street sight in Mumbai that got me quite amused was the many number of ‘business’ people armed with a weighing machine, sitting by any random roadside or pavement, eagerly awaiting their next unsuspecting target to break their heart if you are willing to give them 2 rupees. SGD1 =approx 33 Rupees. I decided to give it a try and wanted to make sure I have not lose any weight (after battling through the India streets, toughing and roughing it out with the Indian community) its hard not to break a sweat. Unfortunately, after the Indian man scribbles down my weight on a piece of paper and handed it to me and upon receiving his 2 Rupees, he said, “very heavy’’. LOL.

After lunch, the Tan&Tan went to the Hajid Ali’s Mosque, which i then later got the real taste of what a 1.2 billion Indian population is all about. The flow of human traffic was non stop along the narrow street pavements leading to the mosque and quote from India Tan, ‘If only I could get 1cent outta every person that rubs my shoulder, I would be a millionaire now’’. Imagine that. I felt really uncomfortable at first but within 10 seconds through squeezing with the Indians, I gave up trying to avoid them and instead, allowed them to push us through. It makes one’s life easier here. It pretty goes the same way for the rest of the trip as well. Later did I discovered that visiting India is not a holiday at all.

It it an adventure.

Back to the mosque. The mosque is also known as the “Floating Mosque” as in the past when the high tide comes in, the pavement will be submerged under the water and people will have no way of reaching the mosque. Built in the 19th century on the site of a 15th century structure, it contains the tomb of the Muslim saint Haji and legend has it that he died while on a pilgrimage to Mecca and his casket miraculously floated back to this same spot.

The crowd leading up to the mosque

We ended the day by watching the England-Germany match in a sports bar. Hooray! Im not as disconnected as I thought from the world outside India afterall. There is nothing more to say, except that England was playing like a bunch of 3 years old no offence though, and India Tan was too miserable throughout the match to notice even when England scored that one miserable goal. At the time of writing, the author was given the benefit of the doubt that Germany will be lifting the cup this year. But my guess goes to Spain yo! Spain will win this year.