We had problems with full trains from Udaipur, so we decided to fly to Mumbai. An early morning flight, but luckily we could do our check-in when we arrived. As we were hungry our first plan was to get some lunch, so we found a nearby restaurant that is famous for it's quality food. The food was delicious, and we felt this was a good start to our stay in Mumbai. After the meal we returned to the hotel to use the toilet before exploring the nearby sights, we thought.... Unfortunately we felt a little bad in our stomachs and would stay in our room for some time until we felt better. That meant that we would stay in our hotel room for 2 days with the worst diarrhea ever!
We were supposed to meet up with David's friend, Bhushan, from Mumbai. He was very understanding, and tried to help us as well as he could suggesting what to eat and drink to get better. The next night we felt a little better, and Bhushan came with his girlfriend, Tanaya, to take us for a quick tour to see the nearby attractions. As we had just been really sick we didn't want to eat anything that could risk us having to return to the hotel room. We felt good and ended up touring the whole west coast, finishing off with a malai ice-cream :) Thank you Bhushan and Tanaya!!
Bhushan and Tanaya gave us a great tour of western Mumbai
The next day we felt strong enough to go exploring, but first we wanted a quick stop by the post office to send some souvenirs back home. This turned out to be a long affair. We ended up using about 1 hour in the post office before we headed to Mani Bhavan, the house of Gandhi when he stayed in Mumbai. It was a nice way to learn more about the history of Gandhi. We took the bus back to Churchgate railway station and walked back to the hotel from there. On the way we saw some typical tourist attractions and stopped to watch some cricket in the parks.
Park full of cricket and fun! Behind is the CST
For our last day in Mumbai we finally got to go on the tour to Dharavi, one of the biggest slums in Asia, also known from the movie Slumdog Millionaire. This was a very educational tour where we learned about the different parts of the slum. Learning how they bring garbage from all of Mumbai to recycle it in the slum and sell to big companies, produce different products for mass exportation, how the entire families live in tiny rooms in labyrinth-like passages, and how kids get uniforms from the state of Maharashtra and free schooling in the slum.
As we had already checked-out from our hotel we had to find elsewhere to stay until our night train to Goa. We decided that we would go to the cinema and watch a Bollywood movie, now that we were in the home of Bollywood movies! Before the movie begun we all had to rise to the national anthem, and in the middle of the movie they had an intermission. We were having problems following the movie since it was a detective story without subtitles, so we left during intermission to grab some food before our long train ride.
Tatiana ready for a 12 hour train ride
Our destination in Goa was Palolem Beach, and it was just to relax and get some sun at the beach. Here we had some time to taste some delicious sea food, but other than that there's not much to mention. It was also difficult finding a train from Palolem to Kochi, so again we ended up flying. Our flight went via Bangalore to Kochi, but our first attempts to land in Kochi were not successful due a tiny propelled airplane, hard wind and some rain. We had to land in Coimbatore and wait for the weather to improve in Kochi. Fortunately we could land the same night, only 3 hours after planned arrival.
Enjoying a relaxed time at the beach
Kochi would be our last destination in India, and our main plan for Kochi was to see the backwaters. We had been reading about a nice little home stay in Fort Kochi, so we contacted Immanuel and arranged to stay with him and his family. They were so welcoming and helpful in planning our days in Kochi. The first day was quite relaxing, just walking around and exploring Fort Kochi. We walked along the coast and saw all the Chinese fishing nets, visited the Indo Portuguese Museum, a few churches, and by that learned a lot about the Portuguese and Dutch influence in Kochi.
A few of the many Chinese fishing nets
Later that night Immanuel's wife had arranged tickets for us to go to the local Kathakali performance. It is almost like a theater without speaking, just some body language they demonstrated before the real show. We arrived to the theater 1 hour before to see them putting on their make-up which was quite a process. The show was way too long while most of what they did was quite repetitive and noisy.
For the next day Immanuel had been so kind and arranged our tour to the backwaters. We got picked up in the morning and brought to the backwaters where we got on a house boat. It started very easy on the rivers with explanation of the islands around. Luckily for us there was a man who had been on the tour before asking about the visit to a local island, obviously the tour operator had removed the main attraction of the tour so the man called the office and got permission to go to the island. This was very good, since it was the best part of the tour! When we returned with the house boat we got a nice lunch, which Tatiana couldn't eat because of the spices, before we were brought to the smaller canoes. We thought it would be a nice and peaceful ride along the narrow rivers, but it turned out to be full of garbage and we heard music from a cricket game nearby.
Cruising the backwaters of Kerala
Our last day in Kochi, and India, we found a tuk tuk to take us to Jew Town and the oldest synagogue in the Commonwealth. On our way there we stopped at several sights, the outdoor laundries, known as Dhobi Khana, some spice market, and a Jain temple. We arrived near the synagogue and had to walk Jew Street to get there. All the shops seemed quite touristy so we just kept walking to the synagogue. There are not many Jews left in Kochi, but the synagogue seemed well preserved.
The clock tower of Paradesi Synagogue
On our way back we stopped by the Dutch Palace, a museum with all the history of the different kings that ruled in Kochi. It was a nice museum, but way too much reading for us, as we were getting hungry and wanted to return. We had lunch before we got prepared to take the bus to the airport.
It felt weird that we had already spent 1 month traveling, and were finishing off India for now, but we were looking forward to moving on to Thailand.
Thank you for this time, India!
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