Our first Indian sleeper bus experience: we applied the usual technique of locating where our bus was leaving from – ask as many people as possible and then go with the consensus – and found ourselves on a busy roundabout in Mapusa. We sat and watched for a bit and scratched our head and thought ‘that can’t be right’. But it was. The buses don’t actually stop, they just slow; a gaggle of ticket-waving people rush the bus, thrusting ticket in the face of the conductor who, for a lucky few at least, nods that this is the correct bus. If you get this far then you scream, run back to where you left your luggage, find your wife nonchalantly munching a corn-on-the-cob, scream again, grab the luggage, attempt to fling it on the back of the bus, run back to the front of the bus and jump on. All this time the bus is creeping along and, once it navigates through the roundabout traffic, will be gone! The bunk we were given can only be described as a padded cell, about 3′ high and about the size of a double bed, with a sliding door and an iron bar running the length of the window. Strange to say, but it wasn’t actually that bad; a couple of sleeping pills later and next thing we knew we were in Mumbai.

The University of Mumbai in the background there.

They warned us, the other travelers we met on the way, they warned us about Mumbai. It’s too crowded, too expensive, too difficult, two days is too much they said. Nary a soul had a good word to say. But what is wrong with these people? Of course its crowded, manic, chaotic, but this is India, not the outer Hebrides. We were close to cutting our time short here, such was the negativity, but so glad we didn’t.

Riding the suburban train network…not so crowded as you might think.

We stayed at the optimistically named Delight Guest House. In not so much a room as partition of a larger room, where the partition walls don’t quite reach the ceiling, and the voices of the unexplained multitudes of African tenants and inevitable Israeli travelers drift in through the gaps. But it was clean, had room service and, inexplicably even to us, we loved it.

If you have any washing done in Mumbai, it goes here – Mahalaxmi.

The Delight is in Colaba, on the southern-most tip of the city. We could see the Gateway to India and the Taj Mahal Hotel from our window. Each day we would stroll through Colaba and the Fort district, which is home to most of the architectural delights of the city. Now, what the both of us know about architecture you could fit on the back of a stamp, but here it is so prepossessing: a blend of Colonial Gothic, Islamic, Hindu, Mughal, Catholic and art-deco styles, often all in one building! Most if not all were built by the British, but with a nod towards those other styles they found already here, remnants of empires past; a fitting metaphor for the city – and the country – itself really.

Prince of Wales Museum…or should that be Wows…har har.

Almost immediately north of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (Victoria Station to you or I, and the crown jewel of those aforementioned buildings), the streets coalesce into tumultuous bazaars and markets, the people seem to multiply and the volume turns up a few notches. This is the Mumbai we imagined, and it feels like any other Indian city we’ve been to.

Just another building.

We took a guided tour of the Dharavi slum which was fascinating, a real eye-opener. The largest slum in Asia, Dharavi is home to upwards of a million people. It is shaped somewhat like a heart and by dint of that poetic Indian symbolism, is known as the heart of Mumbai. Although it is undoubtedly a slum, the people who live there don’t just mope around swatting flies all day. It’s industriousness is famous – plastic recycling, pottery, poppadoms, ironware, cardboard – the slum generates $650 million per annum; people also live in the slum and commute to the city.

Dharavi Slum. Welcome.

Although it’s a little disheartening to see kids playing in the refuse heaps or toying with dead vermin, they honestly seem like they’re having a whale of a time! No matter what they’re doing they’ll drop it the minute they see a white face to scream “HELLO-HOW-ARE-YOU?” and descend into fits of giggles. The company running the tour – Reality Travels – pump a large amount of cash back into Dharavi to provide schools, sports programmes and more.

Indian man cooking Pav Bhaji.

Finally, the Mumbai street food is delectable. Bhelpuris, pav bhajis, samosas, wadas, dosas, iddli and numerous other delicacies that we didn’t quite catch the name of; and refreshing lime juice or sugar-cane juice stalls every 50 metres or so. There was one place near our hotel where, one night, we got a thali (rice, 2 curry dishes, popadom, lime chutney), 2 wadas (like a veg-burger sandwich), about 8 onion bhajis and a bottle of water for 87 rupees (about £1). They knew us by sight in the end and we daren’t walk past without gulping down a quick snack.

Our mate – King of Street Food.

Amy chowing down on a samosa for breakfast.

And now for something completely different: we leave South India and fly out to Amritsar tomorrow, where we’ll be meeting up with my parents and embarking on a little Himalayan adventure.

Chowpatty Beach at night.

The last three weeks have been spent in Goa, the beach holiday capital of India. We took a train from Hampi to Palolem, one of the southernmost beaches in Goa.

Palolem by day.

Staying in Palolem was a little like floating through a dream. It’s a white, sandy crescent bay tossed at either end with a handful of boulders. A palm-tree grove follows the curve of the beach, part-camouflaging temporary beach-front bars and coco-huts, most of which are dismantled each year during the monsoon and re-assembled. At night the whole bay turns a deep orange and the softly lit bars softly waft music, barely audible over the rolling waves.

Palolem by night…and us.

Sometimes it felt more like a farm than a beach: beach dogs continuously comb the beach for scraps; cows sunbathe smug and unmolested while their porcine cousins trot about terrified, lest someone should order a Pork Vindaloo from one of the beach side restaurants. Chickens, roosters, crows, frogs, lizards, even the odd monkey join the fighting, howling dogs and the fighting, squealing pigs in a nighttime cacophony so loud that, were it at home, you’d be banging bleary-eyed at next door.

Holy beach cow!

So how do you sleep at night? Why, you get drunk of course.
Goa, in it’s hippy hey-dey, was a place for hippies to come, take drugs, and dance to trance music ’til the sun came up (often naked apparently?). This, it seems, was fine until the Indians started joining in, then it became anathema to Indian conservatism; a place for Indians to come and behave in a decidedly un-Indian way. Laws were passed to curb the reveler’s enthusiasm, one of which was to ban loud music after 10pm. In Palolem they get round this law – brilliantly I feel – by running Silent Discos each night, where they hand out a set of head-phones as you walk in.

Partying in Palolem. Our last night with travelling pals Olly and Mel.

The only thing of note we actually did in Palolem was to hire out a 500cc Enfield Bullet (the classic Indian ride, yaar) and set out to find a local beauty spot, Cola Beach, which was 20km outside of town. Anyway, 40km down the road the guy we rented the bike from pulled up in a jeep and shouted “Where are you going?”.
“Cola Beach,” we replied.
“Well what the bloody hell are you doing out here then!?”

What a machine! And the bike’s not bad either.

We eventually backtracked and found Cola Beach, which was nice enough. But the real treat was gliding on the Enfield along winding forested Indian roads, Amy even enjoyed riding pillion. A funny thing – blind corners are irrelevant to Indians. In fact, it seems preferable to overake on a blind corner or the crest of a hill. So it’s quite common to round a corner and find a bus overtaking a lorry and only an Enfield sized gap to squeeze through.
We came to Palolem for a few nights. Eleven nights we later we left for Panjim.
Panjim is a cute little town whose Portuguese heritage shines through the centuries in it’s pastel painted houses with white-arched window frames, streets named after Catholic saints and its alabaster Catholic churches. This, coupled with the tropical setting, makes it feel like a South American city. We wandered about for a couple of days, took a trip to Old Goa (more of the same really) and then took a ridiculously packed bus – picture school children hanging from the outside – to Arambol, a beach in the North of Goa.

Amy in Panjim.

Arambol is like a bigger, dirtier, louder Palolem with no such qualms about playing music late at night. Almost immediately we arrived we fell in with a gang who we got to know so well in the 3 days we were with them that it felt a bit empty when they all left.

Arambol Beach.

Some of our new pals in Arambol.

Our beach holiday – a holiday from a holiday – is coming to an end. We need to rouse ourselves from our sea-side indolence and get on with the serious business of travelling. We get the sleeper bus to Mumbai on Saturday.