Mumbai

They say that Mumbai is the fastest growing, most affluent and industrialized city in India, and that Mumbai represents the ever-changing face of today's India - the old coupled with the dynamic new.

Well to see this for ourselves our tour took us along Marine Drive, a winding stretch of road with tall buildings on one side and the Arabian Sea on the other. Quite strangely nobody was allowed to swim on any of the beaches, I never discovered whether this was because of pollution or religious

We then took in the odd temple, garden, the city open air laundry, Gandhi's house, Prince of Wales Museum, and the Gateway of India.

Mumbai is certainly not a tourist city, the things that we were taken to, were really nothing - a Krishna Temple in a Hindu city, the open air laundry, the Hanging Gardens were really not tourist stops. And they tried to get by without stopping at the Gateway to India, where we were allowed off the bus for only a few minutes at one of the few things that was worth seeing. My impression of Mumbai was that it was dirty and crowded, the buildings were not maintained, and the roads could not cope with the traffic. Afraid Mumbai was not a city for me.


Iskcon; the temple of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Krishna devotees believe the material body is subjected to birth, old age, disease and death, whereas the spirit soul is by nature eternal, full of knowledge and bliss.

Mani Bavan, Mahatma Gandhi 's house, where he was arrested in 1932. The memorial contains a reference library with over 2,000 books, memorabilia and a feature on his life.		Prince of Wales Museum, opened 1923 to commemorate King George V's royal visit to India. Now re-named Exhibits in the museum include artifacts from Elephanta Island, Jogeshwari Caves, ivory carvings, terracotta figurines from the Indus valley

Dhobi Ghat, where thousands of pieces of clothing are sent each day to be hand-laundered, dried and ironed by Mumbai's dhobi wallahs. Apparently they are collected from apartments, brought here and then returned to the owners			The Hanging Gardens in the Malabar Hills.Laid in 1881, they provide a view of the city.

There were a number of these colourful horse drawn cabs around the Gateway.	Gateway of India built to commemorate the visit of King George V in 1911, the Gateway is considered the principal landmark of Mumbai. Standing over 85 feet high, the archway was built in the 16th-century Gujarat style, with four turrets carved into the yellow basalt stone.