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My initially impressions of Mumbai had been gained by driving from the airport to the hotel in the dark - not a good offer of impression at all. So I had to wait right up until morning to get my initially glimpse of the Indian sub-continent. Throwing the curtains open after the sun had risen, I was greeted with a lush, green landscape, manicured front lawns and the misty mystique of the distant hills, normal of quite a few British Television time period dramas set in this ex-colony. It was time to go and examine!

Checking with the concierge about the state of the climate, he informed me that all roads had been open and that they didn't count on the climate to be as terrible as Saturday. Liar!!! But taking him on his word, I climbed into a taxi, negotiated a charge of 1300 Rupees ($30) for the complete day and proceeded to point at various pictures in my Mumbai City Guide of places I wanted to visit, as way of communication with Sant Singh, my taxi driver.

Shortly after leaving the hotel, the monsoon put on a demonstration of its power. The amount of water is unbelievable and as one wry commentator stated in the newspaper, when it rains "everything in Mumbai goes down the drain except the water". And it is so true. It doesn't take long for this city, which sits at sea level, to begin to fill up. Soon we had been driving through foot high flooded roads, huge pot-holes and, at times, no road at all - it had simply been swept away - two sections of "motorway" separated by a stretch of rubble, mud and randomly strewn boulders and rocks. It was a real obstacle course. And the most amazing thing is that no one really seems to take any notice.

The drive from my hotel to the center of Mumbai is about 25 miles and, this being a Sunday, the journey took about 45-minutes. I was lucky - on a weekday the same trip, I have been told, takes between three and four hours! So traffic was light today. Driving through the outskirts of Mumbai, one begins to feel the oppressive size of this city filled with 20 million people. And with a tremendous shortage of housing, every available space is taken up with ramshackle, improvised and, literally, thrown together dwellings. Where there are apartment buildings, they are built so close together that window mounted air conditioning units almost touch in the void between one building and the next. Piles of refuse litter the roadside, coming to life with stray dogs, scavenging birds and the odd person, seemingly looking for any reusable scrap. And then I saw my initially cow.

These are not the rather painted ones that seem magically in Boston and London just about every summer season, but real, reside, wild beasts. I have normally regarded that the cow is a sacred animal in India and have normally viewed pictures of lazy bovines sauntering through crowded streets. But practically nothing prepares you for the real sight of these huge creatures lying, standing or strolling all around the congested road procedure of a massive metropolitan city. Lots of of them seem ill, some even seem dead but most just stand there, bewildered and seemingly in a perpetual state of confusion, quite possibly wanting to know how the hell they received there in the initially area. I am not confident who feeds these animals or if they simply have to forage in the filth like everything else, but for all the deification of these poor creatures, they really do not seem at all cared for - a pretty sad spectacle.

Driving into Colaba, the money and tourist heart of Mumbai, the rain started to get even worse (if that was probable) so I cancelled my ideas to visit the initially photo I had pointed at (the ornate train station) and revised my itinerary by pointing at a further image - the Prince of Wales Museum. Climbing out of the motor vehicle I was promptly drenched in a warm, sticky and not all that unpleasant deluge of treacle like rain.

In the same manner as a Brit abroad speaks English just a very little bit louder in order to be understood by a foreigner, so the architecture in this lost British empire seems to represent a false grandeur of what the British aristocracy deemed acceptable for a conquered nation. Drawing on 17th century Arabic and Asian models, "Indian" buildings erected by people named Steven and George come to be a caricature of a previous beauty, with all influences from these less complicated eras garishly mixed into one [ http://samdonaldson1025.blogspace.fr/5184379/Fairly-Small-Liars-A-Enormous-Hit-on-American-Tv/ that video] uniquely colonial kind. The museum I was getting into was no exception. With turrets and golden domes, gothic outcrops and sophisticated Arabic arches, this museum housed some attractive sculptures and paintings from antiquity of various gods this kind of as Siva, Bhrama and the gentle, pot-bellied Ganesh. Having said that, after about an hour, hearing the rain end I curtailed my indoor tour and made a decision to head outdoors when I even now could.

Upcoming end was the Gateway of India - a huge archway finish in 1924, to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary. A large stone edifice, anachronistically positioned in the middle of positively nowhere, it almost created me feel like breaking into patriotic song with a rendition of "Rule Britannia, Britannia Principles the Waves!" But I didn't. And anyway, I was being accosted by adequate people at the time to chance drawing even extra awareness to myself. When the area was packed, I appeared to be the only non-Indian there, so I was an quick mark. I was photographed, prayed for, sold balloons to, presented every kind of useful snack imaginable and am confident at one stage, I was even worshipped - all of course in the expectant return of money. Fighting my way through this rising entourage, I took some snap shots and fled, owning been fleeced of only a number of dollars.

Strolling in direction of a handicraft market place, a community stopped me and pointed strangely at my head. Staying a sensible and professional traveler, I ignored him, quickened my pace and moved on. He shouted out some phrases to the impact that there was a little something about my person he wanted to clear away. I kept strolling. About 15 minutes later on, in a crowded street, a 2nd stranger appeared to reenact this odd conduct and, similarly, I ignored him, physically owning to drive my way onwards. Strolling through any market place like this necessitates the means to literally battle your way through the limitless stream of stall owners vying for your awareness. Having said that, it was when a 3rd person stopped me in a quiet side street a superior half-hour later on and simply stated that there was a little something in my ear, that I started to take notice of maybe what people had been trying to tell me.

I put my hand to my ear but could feel practically nothing. "Where?" I asked. He pointed in direction of my ear after again. Feeling all around I even now could not locate anything unusual and owning viewed most likely the largest cockroach in the history of the world the night prior to, I suddenly had an irrational fear containing eggs and larvae and all issues science fiction. Approaching me, this teenager said in passable English that he would clear away it for me and then proceeded to dig a little something out of my ear utilizing a little tooth pick like device. Triumphantly, he showed me the end of the toothpick, which now had a huge glob of sticky wax-like gloop on the end of it. Smearing this on his finger he proceeded to dissect the yucky substance right up until he dug out a little stone. Suddenly, the plot of every horror movie ran through my mind with aliens bursting from my belly and worms exiting every orifice. "What's it from?" I asked. "Sand," he said, prior to diving into my other ear to retrieve extra of the invasive material. I couldn't believe what was happening because I have by no means had any ear issues in my life and really make it a point, utilizing a cotton bud, to clean my ears every morning. So this incredibly rapid develop-up of gunk was, indeed, alarming.

Then my superior Samaritan opened his very little shoulder pack and took out some tissue and cotton wool and presented, when retrieving a bottle from his bag, to put some drops in my ear to clear the issue up after and for all. I instantly thought that it was incredibly fortuitous that he ought to conveniently be carrying all around a box of tissues, a packet of cotton wool and the needed medication. I declined forcefully!

Due to tiredness or whatever, I didn't really seem to put together the myriad of clues as to exactly where this was all going. Having said that, it was when he asked for 900 Rupees for the treatment that I suddenly realized that the complete thing was an elaborate, intricate and perfectly planned scam (of which all the other strangers had been similarly trying to spring on me). Via slight of hand, he had the wax prepared on the end of the toothpick and like the well-known magic trick of making a coin seem from behind your ear, had me at the reveal. I gave him 10 Rupees for a trick nicely executed (and to make him go away) and left feeling angry with myself for falling for the oldest scam in the book! The complete episode took about three minutes and was sublimely surreal. It was time for lunch.