Inside the church

Oddly enough, the service inside reminded of the service inside the temple of Ganesh- the people filed forwarded and brought offerings to Mary. I was curious how much of the crowd was actually Christian, but I did not feel like taking a poll. 

Marian festival

I also went to a festival for Mother Mary. (aka the BVM, Mother of God, etc.)

Apparently, Mary is pretty big in India. About %2 of the population are Christian, which means about 20million. I don't know if that percent is higher or lower in Mumbai.

There were a lot of people at the festival- I was curious to know if Hinduism has started to assimilate her into their religion, along with Jesus, but I did not get a good answer from my driver.

(at a couple of places, I saw walls that icons of various Hindu deities- as well as one of Jesus, which I found interesting.) 

Ceiling artwork

This is the ceiling of the temple, which is done in a astrological theme. The center circle has the 7 standard celestial bodies we know from classical times, as well as rahu and ketu. 

Artwork on the wall

This appeared to be made by cutting out portions of some sort of paper. I am assuming that it depicts a Tirthankar. My knowledge of Jainism is pretty weak. Since they don't like fighting, they don't tend to show up in RPG handbooks. 

In the temple

Although I could take pictures, I did not want to use the flash. The woman seated at the front was singing a chant while I was there.


btw- posting these pictures from Picasa is a lot easier than the Blogger picture post client. (I was on a Mac in India, and there is not a Picasa client for the Mac, probably because iPhoto is always included w/ OS X.)

btw- I am very impressed w/ the Picasa client, Blogger, and in fact all products made by the good people at Google. Why don't you try some of their fine products, or at least click on the ads?!? 

The Jain temple

The Jain temple allowed photography inside, although the sign requested that I not turn my back on the idols when taking pictures.

I am glad that they allowed pictures, as the temple had some very interesting decoration. There are not much outside shots, as the entire thing was draped in canvas- I guess they were cleaning away the smog.

There is actually a Jain temple in Farmington Hills, MI- their site: http://www.jain-temple.org. I ran across it once at random while driving around the area- it is a very odd site among all the strip malls and apartment buildings. 

The Towers of Silence

Since I was in Mumbai, I wanted to see if I could see the Towers of Silence. I had first heard about them from the Robert Silverberg novella "Born with the Dead," and of course the Zorastrians were one of the first more-or-less monotheistic religions in the world. They also where the main religion of the Persians back in the day when they fought the Greeks and were a stubling block to the Roman Empire.

The modern day Zoroastrians of Mumbai don't care too much for dopey tourists going to their holy sites, though, so I did not get too far. Unfortunately, I only learned about this rule after trying to visit- if I had known, I would have respected their wishes and not gone at all.

The temple itself

The building is very impressive. As far as I can tell, the bulk of the worship takes place on the ground floor- people file in, and hand their offerings to the temple priests (which is what the vendors in the last picture where selling.) The main altar is that of Ganesh, and there was a side altar that I believe was to Hanuman, but I am not sure.


The upper levels contain adminstrative offices for the temple, and probably a library. A temple of this size would probably have about 10 priests, varying in level from 3-11th, as well as a small contigent (3-5) of Monks (7-9th level) and a temple guard (15 3-5th level Fighters).

Outside the temple

I was asked not to take pictures inside the temple. I decided that offending Lord Ganesh (or at any rate his human adherents) would be a bad idea, so I stuck to taking pictures outside the temple.

My last day in Mumbai

This was my last day in Mumbai. I will be flying out at 12:30am on Saturday the 16th. My coworker had to fly to Chennai at 3pm, so I rented another car, and did some sightseeing.

My first stop was to the Hindu temple of Ganesh, Siddi Vanayak. (I wanted to visit a temple of Hanuman, but my driver did not know where there was one.) This temple is very famous, and attracts a lot of visitors. Getting inside was more of a pain in the neck than flying, though, as I had to go through two security checkpoints, as well as take off my shoes.

Horn OK Please!

This is a phrase seen on the back of most trucks here, and I believe that it is the city's motto.

The Beer of India

This is a local brew- as is another beer called "Tiger." My coworker got pretty lit that night- he is from Milwaukee, so knows how to drink.
The Leopold Cafe is a good bar- they even had a good DJ. I know he was good because he played "Dancing Queen" by ABBA.

The place is also something of a sports bar. When we were there, there was a cricket match on - India versus the West Indies. We tried to reverse engineer the laws of cricket from watching the game, without much success. I felt like asking people in India why they still play cricket, since they kicked the English out a while back.

Back to the bar

My coworker was feeling a bit sick on Wednesday, so we did not do much of anything. (I could have gone out by myself but wandering around alone at night in Mumbai somehow does not appeal much to me.) For our last night in Bombay, we went back to a bar in the Cobala- the Leopold Cafe. This time, we sat upstairs in the airconditioned area.

Lord Hanuman Lifts a Mountain

The Hindu faith holds the distinction of being the only currently practiced religion that has a chapter in the 1st Edition AD&D guide Deities and Demigods.

Anyway, this structure depicts Lord Hanuman lifting a mountain, in order to save his friend Lakshmana.

I want to visit a temple here, although I don't think I will be able to take any pictures while inside.

The Trucks of Mumbai

A common business here seems to be owner operated trucks. There are a fair amount of them, and a lot of them are decorated pretty ornately, like this one- actually this one is one of the more elaborate ones that I have seen.

The trucks all seem to be made by Tata Motors, a part of a ginormous Indian conglomerate.

My hotel from orbit

This is my hotel, the ITC Grand Maratha Sheraton, as seen from orbit. Its a very nice hotel, and costs $270 a night. I was warned against looking for "bargain" hotels here. It has a restaurant that is famous across Bombay- the Peshawari (NW Indian cuisine).

To the SW of the hotel is a large shanty town- a large percentage of Mumbai inhabitants live in slums. I am seeing a figure of 6.7 million- %60, although I am wondering how that figure is determined.

Taxis of Mumbai

The cabs (along with the threewheel ones) are the most common sight on the road. I think the car was stopped here, but they don't leave much room between while in motion.

I am surprised I have not seen an accident yet here- I see the aftermath of accidents about once a week on 101, but nothing yet here, and the traffic is much worse. (it does run a lot slower, though.)

The Man in Black

At lunch, there were two people playing guitar in the hotel. The man in glasses asked me if there was any music I wanted to hear. I then said "Do you know any Johnny Cash?" and we were treated to "Folsom Prison Blues." Later (at another table) they played "La Bamba."

Gateway of India

This is a fairly major tourist destination in Mumbai. It was erected to commemorate the visit of George V and his consort in 1911. It was also where the last British troops left India after independence.

Gateway of India

Gateway of India

Leopold's

One of our coworkers here suggested a few places to check out- "Leopold Cafe" was one of them. It has apparently been there since 1871.

At the hotel, the food is very good, but priced about the same as in America- here, we got a lot of food for only $5 each. Another bonus was that they served Indian-style chinese food, something I have been wanting to try for a while. (The meal did make me cry, though.)

How not to haggle.

I need to bring back some presents, and I also wanted to go into a roadside shop (we were in an area near the Gateway of India).

I saw a wall hanging I liked, and asked the price- $1800RPS or $38. Despite my fondness for Jack Vance, I don't like to haggle, so I went for my wallet and started pulling out money. The saleswoman then realized her mistake- she should have asked for more initially. She then said that she misspoke, and the price was really $2800RPS (about $58). Unfortunately, I was a little tired, and misremembered the conversion rate (1000RPS ~= $22.00), and so paid without a protest.

Looking online, I think this would have cost me around $70 in the U.S., so its not like I got ripped off.

Poverty

India still has a lot of poverty. Driving around, we saw a lot of people living in tents, under underpasses, and in shantytowns. Mostly, I don't like to take pictures of that, since its a little creepy. If I was trying to raise money for them, or promote a poverty releiving project, it would be different- but since I am mostly just a tourist here, I think it would be a little exploitive.

Anyway, I am not sure if this was a house, or some sort of business - I mostly took the picture due to the "Coca Cola" image, as I am a navel-gazing American. As near as I can tell, the people who live in the shanties are relatively well off. A lot of them have electricity, and I even saw a few with televisions while driving by.

Richie Rich?

I didn't know that Richie Rich had enough mindshare to make it all the way across the world. I also am not sure how many "departments" a store of this size could hold.

Watertower, cabs

Here is a watertower, and the tops of a couple of tricycle cabs. I have been trying to get a better shot of one, but they are kind of hard to shoot, as they tend to move around a lot.

The next day

A lot of my pictures were taken from the backseat of a car. We have rented a car, with a driver. It would be impossible to get around here without a driver- I don't think any of the streets are marked (at least in English) and the traffic here is way too crazy.

Most of the streets that we passed are full of small shops, like these.

In Mumbai itself.

And here I am finally out of the airport.

I know when I think of "Georgia" I think of coffee. I gueess it could be ex-Soviet Georgia, but I don' t think they make coffee there, either.

When I took this, it was around 85 degrees out, and really humid.

In Mumbai

This was taken soon after I got off the plane. Customs was pretty simple, and I was able to leave the airport quickly.

All of China that I saw

My layover in Hong Kong was eight hours. I could have left the airport- U.S. citizens don't need a Visa- but the airport is not really connected to the city, and I did not want to risk missing my flight.

13 hours or so later, and I am in the Hong Kong airport - it looks like an airport.

SFO International terminal

Taken at the start of my 24hr trip. I got there 3 hours early- and there was no line, so I sat in the lounge for a while.

Indian Consulate

This is the Indian Consulate in San Francisco- where my trip started.

Getting the Visa was painless- I dropped off my passport/application/etc in the morning and picked up again in the afternoon. 

Visa Photo

This is the Visa- (with important numbers blaned out)