Well, Mumbai was a interesting city. It was so good to be in a big city after Goa, there is something about certain cities that live and breath, it's a certain buzz. Bangkok has this energy about it and so does Mumbai. I think its something about the immense number of diverse life stories being played out simultaneously in parallel - and something different going on every second of the day.
We spent the first few days wandering round and soaking up the colonial elegance and grandeur of the old Colaba and Fort Areas. If nothing else, the British made beautiful grand old buildings in this country, including libraries, railway stations and art galleries. There is also an amazing sky blue synagogue that stands as though slightly bashful about being in India. It just doesn't seem to fit.
Another day we took the ferry accross Mumbai harbour to Elephanta island, named by the Poruguese after they saw an old stone elephant statue on the island and presumed it to be alive. In fact there are no elephants on the Island (and never have been), but instead a mighty climb to a set of old cave temples devoted to the god Shiva. There was one amazing statue of Shiva as creator, preserver and destroyer, but sadly the rest of the temples have been allowed to deteriorate and lacked any impressive features.
Finally, on our last day in Mumbai we had the ultimate experience of the town - we were extras in a Bollywood film. As glamourous as it sounds, the reality was somewhat different...
They picked us up early in the morning from the hotel in a taxi only to
drop us off at the train station and take us via train and another taxi
to the Intercontinental, one of the most flashy 5 star hotels in
India....
When
we got there we were rushed over to people who told us to "quickly
quickly" get into costume, hair and makeup. 10 minutes later, Steph and
I emerged confused and looking like bad 80's prositutes. :S lol. Not
that our clothes were particularly exposing, but they were 80's in
style, we had masses of eyeshadow to match our dresses, and our hair in
high ponytails with scrunchies. And ironically enough the movie was
called fashion. haha.
Aaron got a lovely suit, but the pants were too short by far, and
his shoes were 3 sizes too small. Plus the suit was navy, the shoes
brown and the socks were white tennis socks. So he looked as bad as we
did.
After all the rush at the start we then spent the rest of the day
sitting around waiting (including 2 costume changes). It was
excruciatingly boring, no singng or dancing, in the whole day they shot
maybe a minute or two of film, and the scene simply involved sitting in
a restaurant. And they didn't even want us in there half the time.
Still, it'd be interesting to get the movie and look out for our 2
seconds of 80's fashion shame/fame. :) The leads were incredibly
attractive, although no-one that I knew.
In the end, I'd never do it again, but it was a good experience,
and they fed us lunch, paid for our transport there and to the airport,
and paid 500 ruppees for the day.
It was the longest day though,
as we got little sleep the night before, working out train/plane drama,
got up at 6:45am to get to the shoot, and then got into our hotel in
Delhi at 2am the next morning after flight and taxis. Ugh.
