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The Gateway to India is a wonderful arched building that looks good from all directions.
It faces the harbor on one side and a large plaza on the other.
The luxurious Taj Mahal Palace Hotel is across the
plaza from the arch.
Going through the gateway arch we see all the ferries. Dean pays for our tickets, about
$3.60 each for a roundtrip. As we stepped down to the ferry, a
well-dressed woman stepped up the edge of the platform and deliberately
threw a bag of trash into the water before buying her ticket out to the
island. People are apparently blind to the trash they create.
While waiting for the ferry to depart, (They wait for enough passengers
to board.) we struck up a conversation with
this group of boys who will be entering college in the fall. They are
all 16 or 17, except for the kid in the front who's 14, and are going out
for the day and to have picnic. They asked lots of questions and
seemed to be happy to practice their English. They were delightful
company. They seemed surprised that we didn't know Barak Obama
personally.
Also, while we waited, a tour group of our fellow
shipmates trooped through our ferry onto their own separate ferry with
no one but themselves to talk to. They paid $100 each for this tour,
which also includes a guide for each group of 50 or so and a bus ride to
the ferry.
We passed a lot of small boats and this strange island, which has been built up to look like a ship,
but the most surprising sight on our ride out was the flock of
flamingos!
 
Once you get off the ferry, you can pay for a half-mile ride to the
base of the hill--as always, we walked.
A couple of goats (with dead leaves stuck on their fur) served as the greeters.
 
 
Monkeys also greeted us and the tour group from our ship. Note the baby
monkeys clinging to their mothers.
 
It's a pretty fair climb up to the caves and there are vendors under
blue tarps on either side selling all manner of merchandise. You can pay for a ride up the stairs in a sedan chair hoisted by 4
strong men--several ladies from our ship did so. Once you pass the sign, the circus fades
into the background.
This site is a Hindu temple that was carved into solid rock.
The first cave also opens on another side of the hill through this pink rock. Very beautiful.
There are four other caves as well and each is less developed than the
ones before...
This is the second cave. The tours and most of the tourists do not
explore these "lesser" caves.
The fifth cave is not much more than a hole in the side of the
hill.
But each cave contains a shrine of some type with fresh flowers
strewn over it.
Some rooms in the lesser caves have been created or refurbished with
concrete--We're pretty sure that rebar isn't found in native rock.
 
We watched the monkeys for a while. The one with the reddest face (below
left) has a
large wound on its back that another one is grooming.
 
So we headed back down through the vendors and I bought a
wonderful shawl and a cotton dress. We both bought India T-shirts. The
vendors were quite willing to bargain for a sale.
At the foot of the jetty we watched these legged fish that live in mud
holes. When the heron came a-calling, they ducked into their holes--nary
a one to be seen.
These women give Dean dubious glances as we walk to the waiting ferry.
We sit again until it fills up, they rework the lines until our boat is
free, and then we're off for the hour-long ride
back to the gateway. We walked back to the ship, had lunch, and then
headed out again. This time we'd hire a taxi.
 
Abdul is our driver and he has an elaborate ceiling in his taxi--you can see our
knees reflected in one of the mirrors.
We cruised by the elegant Victoria Station, a train depot, but we did
not stop.
Our first stop on our round of sites is the famous Chowpatty Beach. At
night it's supposed to be an amazing circus of vendors, beachgoers, and
gawkers.
 
Even in the daytime, there are some vendors at work like these guys with the ice-shaving
machine and this bead woman--all those beads are loose on the orange
cloth.
But people (and other animals) are living on the beach...
and they leave big bags of grain in a corralled area (on right) for the birds, mostly
pigeons. We didn't stay long.
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