Hi again...we needed a stiff one after Haji Ali's and popped into a Muslim eatery and i decided to try something different from the menu and got a Kashmiri Soda which was a concoction of fizzy water and salt and pepper - i'm sure it wasn't but that's what it tasted like. Caught our first local train to Churchgate and came out at the Dobi Ghats. Hopefully you'll get pictures as they speak for themselves of the viewthat unfolded beneath the bridge. Roughly 500 men use rows of open-air troughs to beat the dirt out of thousands of cloths each day, brought from all over the city. Old, men boys and lean but strong men pounded large numbers of clothing items on the slabs of rock below. We stayed for ages just watching. In this crazy factory line, one man rinses, one soaps, one dips and another pounds the dirt out of the clothes. These men were dark dark from the sun and i cant imagine what their hands and feet must have looked like living in bleached water all day long. As we looked into the distance, these workers seemed to stretch for miles we spotted two children on the roof top flying kites - it was amazing.
On we walked to Oval Park and walked through the most lovely grounds covered in cricket players of all ages - of course all men. that's the thing here, everywhere you go there's thousands of men and you only see a woman alone if she is with a child or begging or shopping. The sporting passtime is cricket and they absolutely love you if you can talk cricket - we watched a bit of news but couldn't take anything in :)
Popped into an art gallery Jehangir, then had our first Mango Lassi in Samovar. Aine then brazened Colaba Causway with us which was such a squeeze of items for sale and went on for absolutely ages.
Wrecked at this stage and decided to head for home and sample someting local so went to Chicken Local but only sampled the beers - quite a few, and munched and talked life and philosophy and nature and India and all the good things in life before bidding good night to Aine and contentedly heading for Kemps Corner.
Content...that is until we started to organise our bags for tomorrowand foud that i'd left some sweets in the zip part of our small rucksack, which had melted in the heat and attracted an ant which managed to multiply and multiply and multiply. We didn't notice until we took something out and put it on the bed and saw it move!!! Flunt that into the bin and Cathy cleared the sheet of our visitors while i took the bag to the bathroom with the intention of drowning them and keeping the bag. but of course they dug their heels in, hundreds of them but the sight of the masses made me want rid so i bagged up the rucksack for the night and left it there in the morning - sure none could excape and sure didn't they still have their treat, they could have their squatters rights. One things for sure: we will definately see that bag walking down some street in Mumbai - everything is valuable. i rememember walking past a man who fixed watches and mobile phones who went looking for a long time for a screw that fell into the dirt - everything is precious. had me thinking of our throw away lifestyle. you should see what they maintain and keep going here - everything, absolutely everything!
As i type this avery fabulous lizard is running around the wall in front of us - it moves so fast!
Namiste
