Yesterday we had a tour of the city in a chartered taxi van. I know I keep talking about the traffic, but it's difficult to even describe unless you've actually experienced it. What we could have done in the USA in about an hour took us about five hours yesterday. There's just an alarming amount of people. To give you an example, New Jersey has the highest population density in the USA, at 467 people per square kilometer. In the most populous area of Mumbai, it's 92,000 people per square kilometer. That's about seven times greater than that of New York City, for reference.
You can imagine the kind of issues that causes, outside of traffic. For one thing, it's a major cause of the problems they have here with the water. For what municipal water does exist, all it takes is a leak in a delivery pipe to allow in whatever junk people are throwing on the ground.
Another thing that you notice immediately is the number of pedestrians walking out in traffic. The trouble here is again one of inadequate infrastructure. The sidewalks do exist, but you'll find random piles of dog shit (there are numerous stray dogs...everywhere), trash, crumbling surfaces, and random 2x2' holes that are about 10 feet deep. The sidewalks occasionally just end, sometimes with a 2' or more step down to the next surface. We wind up just walking alongside the parked cars in the street, like the locals do. At least the surface is dependable there.
As for the tour we did yesterday, a lot of it was just seen from the car, so it didn't make for any good photo opportunities, but we did stop at Dhobi Ghat. Otherwise known as the world's largest outdoor laundry:
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| Yep, they're washing clothes on rocks |
You recognize immediately how bad you stand out compared to the local populace, as you're accosted by panhandlers immediately at any place that is remotely touristy. For example, meet my new friend Silba:
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| She really wanted to sell me one of those bags |
From there we stopped at the Gateway of India, where we were enticed to purchase traditional drums, maps, books, and giant phallic balloons for some reason.
What is amazing is everyone seems to go about their life in a generally happy mood, from the guy shoveling dog crap off the street to the hotel managers. This despite overwhelming poverty everywhere you look. The driver of our taxi yesterday makes 8000 Rupees a month. That's $131 US dollars. Somehow he manages to live here on that wage, and it's far more than a lot of people here earn.
This was directly across the street from the Taj Mahal hotel, which was the site of the terrorist attacks in 2008, where a lot of people were killed.
At this point we had to turn around and head back to the hotel, as we had plans to meet the current client team for dinner. Along the way, we saw at least four different weddings underway (on Wednesday afternoon? Why not?). They really go all out for weddings here, with a lot of fancy decorations, and the women wear even more elaborate outfits in a whole rainbow of colors. I'll try to get some pictures of that when I come back for good in about a month.
The roads are packed with these 3 wheeled "auto rickshaws" that they also refer to as "tuk-tuks." They're basically a motorcycle with a covered two person seat, and a two wheeled rear axle. They're noisy, of course, but all seem to run on compressed natural gas, so they don't have a lot of smelly exhaust that you'd expect. Almost all of the drivers appear to drive while barefoot, which amuses me:
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| Shoes? Nah... |
Lastly, I had a good laugh about this sign on the side of a bus, but it feels like it adequately sums up the way a lot of people here seem to feel:
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| Life is....eh, it's all right |
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