Back in Bombay

I arrived at a suspiciously quiet airport arrivals hall, but everything was back to normal when my prepaid taxi driver and a handful of others were unable to figure out where my destination address actually was.

Aware of how much I’d paid for the fare, I left them to it and after a series of stops and backtracks, we circled in on the destination, a backpackers hostel.

In the evening a quick walk around the area. Right outside the front door, straight away, a busy road junction, chaos of autorickshaws and cars and lorries and buses and pedestrians all jumbled together. Off we go into the chaos.

Remembering how to cross roads. Roads seem so much more chaotic, but also much more accepting of pedestrians moving in a space that in a Western country would be reserved much more for cars. The Dutch have tried to bring back that feel in some places (for bikes and for pedestrians) but they’ve ended up being very bike-centric. Pick your path. Make it clear what your path is. Stick to your path. If in doubt, find some other guy going the same way and tail him. Something I learned crossing the big road in front of the Cairo Hilton from my girlfriend of the time. Pretty much no one is going to drive into you. Though the giant buses, with comedy sounding clown horns, I’m kinda scared of.

Everyone and everthing sounds their horn the whole time — more as a “here I am — you’re about to die — notice me” rather than an aggressive “I’m deliberately aiming to kill you”. There’s no walking and texting here, though.

The beautiful old “Ambassador” taxis are nowhere to be seen, replaced by compact CNG models. I think the only Ambassador I saw all day was a white Navy one, complete with upward arrow registration plate. The same upward arrow that encloses the Tower of London, and features on stereotyped prisoner uniforms — through shared Imperial history.

Down the dirty bustling market street. Stop at a shop for a samosa — enough for my dinner that evening and only ₹10.

Since I was last here, rupees have gained their own symbol — ₹. Even with its own Unicode code point. Last time it would have been Rs 10/-.

Lakhs. Crores.

The intense experience reminding me of some advice someone gave before I first went to India: you’ll hate it for the first two weeks but stick it out. More rapidly this time I started getting back into the way things are.

The hostel is on a corner that in one direction is a bustling street market leading to the station, in another a large commercial redevelopment, in another a road of metalworkers and cafeterias with the occasional goat, business building and live chicken butcher mixed in.

The kitchen has a wall mounted UV water purifier in the kitchen. I’ve read about them but I don’t remember seeing one in real life just installed in a kitchen — perhaps hardwired into a friends house somewhere in Thailand. That saves me buying bottles at ₹20 (two samosas worth).

Next morning, breakfast in this hostel is a stove top pan of chai, and some thick veg porridge of a grain that I have tasted before but can’t name.

Down to CST (the beautiful former Victoria Terminus) on the train for a bit of a walk around the downtown South Mumbai.

A first class ticket was 10x the price of a 2nd class ticket ( ₹105 vs ₹10). In first class, there were still people hanging out the train doors. But it turns out that’s optional rather than mandatory in first class, there being a reasonable amount of room inside (and even some chance of a seat) once past the door hangers. On the way back, a change at Dadar, which is a station on two separate railways of the Indian Railways — the Central and the Western. The Central part of that station has platforms numbered 1–6, and the Western part of the station has platforms numbered… also 1–6. Oh bureacracy.

Bombay railway stations have Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) — they seem to be machines that will deduct a fare from some smartcard you already need to be in possession of and print out a paper ticket for you. I don’t have such a smartcard. I had to queue. The line was long but rapidly moving. Surrounded by sleeping dogs lazing in the shade of the station building. They do a good job being around humans but avoiding having sticks and stones thrown at them.

The train, with 22kV overhead electrical cables, has a sign “Dangerous to travel on the roof” — and other signs remind you to pay attention to your phone while trespassing on the railway tracks.

At the Gateway of India, an Indian officer of some kind (police? military?) and maybe his son and his daughter walked up to me to take selfies, positioning themselves without asking either side of me. The officer was delighted to get a picture of him shaking my hand, though. Like the Bund.

There were a bunch of immaculately uniformed Sikh soldiers around the touristy places: a load by the Gateway of India, and I passed a load more later (or perhaps the same load) arriving on army buses at the Chowpatty Beach.

After the Gateway of India, I got it in my head to try to find a branch of a western-style (and western prices too) chain coffee shop, Cafe Coffee Day that I’d been to 12 years before — in my memory it was an oasis of air-conditioning and somewhere to sit outside of the blazing midday sun.

On that meandering 10-km route, I made it over to Marine Drive, and walked its waterfront length northwards, the cafe not to be found where I thought. But at the top, by the beach, a cluster of branded shops and there it was (or at least a branch of the same chain).

That waterfront reminded me a little of the waterfront in Havana near the US Special Interests Section: faded old 5-ish storey buildings, weather-worn, years old coloured paint flaking off. A broad road, then a broad pedestrian parade. Not a huge amount of beach.

It feels like less street harrassment to buy random stuff this time. Maybe the areas I’ve been to. Maybe I’ve got a better “go away” face. Or a better “go away” attitude. Maybe it’s because this isn’t Delhi. One guy tried to get me to see his paintings, and by the Gateway of India, a load of people trying to sell me tours and photos. But that was it.

My attempt to get a second coffee and stay another hour or so failed: their coffee machine had broken sometime between the last coffee being made, and now. Bucked Starbucks-style-convention by attempting to order at the table, which confused the man clearing away my last cup. He initially wanted me to go back to the counter to order, and then came back later having figured out he could take money and carry it himself to the counter, and then came back a third time to tell me the machine was broken. I stayed another 45 minutes anyway just occupying a seat.

An hour and a half, in the conditioned air. Drinking my expensive coffee. Writing these notes. Pondering relaxation. Last time I was here I had all the time in the world — I was backpacking for a year and spending 6 weeks in India (that six weeks being almost up by the time I got this far). Since then, in several ways, I have much less time. Fewer years left, the end of that more obviously approaching; and years working on an hourly basis where I’ve found guilt in an hour “wasted” just by sitting and chilling (*unless in the pub).

Last time here I didn’t have a “home” — I had a 65 litre backpack with a years worth of stuff in it.

Walking round last time, I had a bundle of pages ripped out from my lonely planet, with internet a snatched hour or two on a public internet terminal once a day. Phones were, at the time, for making phone calls. And SMS. A more “closed” tourist experience where you got a handful of carefully chosen, usually reliable, places to work your way through, the same as everyone else. You knew the authors mindset and it usually aligned with yours.

Now it’s a more open experience: the internet gives you a bazillion things to do. As long as you can get on it. Which is a hassle in India. And a huge amount of feedback on everything, but with dubious reliability on the feedback. You can’t rip the pages out and screw them up in your pocket.

In your snatched hour of internet, before, no facebook. Gmail was the thing everyone used. Crank out a quick blog post. Write actual emails to your friends, to the people you really wanted to stay in touch with. Photosharing online wasn’t really a thing, in the way that instagram is.

Constrained by your guidebook maps, you ventured less out into the wider city. No google maps of obscure villages a couple of hours travel away.

No permanent internet is an interesting “aloneness” that I struggle to get rid of with permanent connectivity.

Last time here there weren’t backpacker hostels so much. You got cheap hotel rooms. Was frustrating when you wanted to be somewhere to meet fellow backpackers. Although Calcutta had a great street, in the style of Khao San Road, lined with cheap hotels and cheap food and travellers sitting around. Very backpacker ghetto though.

Most of the people in this hostel heading to Goa on short order, just stopping here for a couple of days. People fly to Goa now — or bus it. Train seems a third place option, when before it was pretty much the only option. No one really wants to be here — just constrained by transport options to stop here for a day or so.

Memories of a much younger, less experienced me. 12 years ago. Calcutta I liked best of the big cities I visited. Was so tired by the time I reached Bombay that time round — this time I’ll give it more of a chance.

A crumpled bag of banknotes I brought with me from my currency box in England: these must be from the last time I was in India, in 2007, to Hyderabad — like this trip, also a trip to a wedding. Only one place has rejected a note from that stash, though.

There’s more tech than last time. “Give a missed call to…” — rather than having an (0)800 number, just rely on having caller ID and do it yourself. Bombay has some government run CCTV network now. More more credit card payments. At the hostel, by me typing my card number into their laptop — not a card machine. Elsewhere, approached with the bill with card reader in hand, UK style. Loads of places take PayTM here — something QR-code based as if we were in China.

Indians have this funny joggle-head to mean something like “OK”. I find myself doing it.

That stench. It disappears after a few hours though. There’s litter everywhere, but not so much, so it took me ten minutes to find a pile big enough to throw my own litter into. (I lived through the IRA 1990s in London, and that’s how we did things) And the spitting. All over. In the road. Out the train doors. Although the train stations have buckets for you to spit into.

Such brightly coloured clothing, without brands. No brands anywhere really out on the streets, apart from some western food/drink chains (Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds — they sell McPaneer, like a chicken nugget burger but the mystery white inner substance is allegedly paneer rather than allegedly chicken) and big banks (Standard Chartered is in the retail space here, and HSBC). All the other brands (and there are many) are hidden inside the shopping malls. Oases of middle-class money and Western-ness.

I passed a Starbucks with “partnered with Tata”. Tata is everywhere. East India Company 2.0.

Mosques. Hijab. Like being in Whitechapel. Loud and copious calls to prayer, outside my dorm window.

Of course you need your own toilet paper. Or be prepared to use hose bidet, something I’ve avoided for 38 years but am about to start with.

And that’s my first day back in Bombay.