Mumbai - April 28

marble inlay artisans

Mumbai trash collection

The last thing we did before we left Agra was to visit a marble inlay shop. The Taj Mahal has marble inlay flowers on much of it. On first glance it seems like the flowers are painted, but they are in fact comprised of many small pieces of marble puzzled together to make the flowers. It is amazingly detailed work that takes years and years to learn.

Victoria Station

We arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) to a city that is much cleaner and more organized than we expected. This is much more a ‘normal’ big city if an Indian city can be called normal. What I mean by normal is that there are sidewalks (the first we’ve seen of these since arriving in India), much, much less garbage in the streets (I even saw someone collecting it) and no cows (there are laws regulating cows in the streets) and buildings and other things that are the marks of big cities.


Once we arrived at the ship we ate a quick room service dinner and were out again for a ‘Bombay by Lights’ evening tour. First we saw a Bollywood movie in a typical Indian movie theatre. Indian movie theatres are similar to ones at home except that seating is assigned and that there is a person who will take food orders. Of course we couldn’t understand the words to the movie, but the story still wasn’t hard to follow. This was a very interesting experience.


Next was a visit to Mumbai’s market. This is a labyrinth of stall set up in the street selling all sorts of things – you name it you would be able to find it someplace. It is VERy crowded here. Before we get off of the bus our guide told us to take NOTHING – no camera, no bag…nothing. OK…I get that, so with nothing we take to the streets. Everywhere you turned there were people, animals and vehicles. There is no rhyme or reason to this market and when a motor cycle needs to get by you it just honks until you move. Normally when we are on tour in India there are 3 local people with us – a guide, a driver and a ‘helper’. Tonight there are an additional 5 ‘handlers’ to accompany us. These handlers usher us through the streets making sure no one gets lost or ‘in trouble’. The guide tells us that double the amount of people are here in the daytime – WOW.


Our last stop is to a bar for a drink and a snack. This is a very ‘regular’ bar by our standards. One thing that I noticed and have noticed from being on vacation in the past is how much I miss ‘regular’ music. This bar was playing regular pop music that I am so accustomed to hearing every day. On vacation unless I listen to my iPod (which I very rarely do) we never hear regular music. Sure there is plenty of music on the ship, but it is a pianist or band or singer, which is all great but I miss regular pop music every once in a while.


Alan Thicke came with us on this tour - he is a ‘celebrity’ lecturer on the cruise.