Mumbai – our day experiencing the Five Senses
Saturday 29 April – Another day of wonderful experiences for us. We were picked up by Aman for our Five Senses tour. This began at the iconic Gateway of India arch-monument which is located across the road, and almost outside our hotel window. The Gateway to India was built in the early 20th Century to commemorate the landing of King-Emperor George V in December 1911. He was the first British Monarch to visit India. It is inspired by elements of 16th Century Gujarati architecture and the construction was completed in 1924. It’s made of basalt and is 25 metres high and has a resemblance to a triumphal arch. It is also the monument from where the last British troops left India in 1948 following Indian independence.
We were very fortunate because Prime Minister Narendra Modi was giving a speech in front of the Gateway later in the day and the whole area in front of it had been set out with chairs for the guests, but the security guard kindly let a few people in for photographs. This meant that we were able to get some great ones without the usual 2,000 or so people standing around, and behind us in the photos - like we have witnessed from our bedroom window – and also some good shots of The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel too.
Next stop was a chance to see and talk to the Dabbawallas – these are the gentleman who are the current day Deliveroos only with a much more complicated route to take to deliver lunches into the office blocks. They pick up from the recipient’s wife at their home, cycle to the nearest railway station to deliver the lunches, which in the olden days were packed in Tiffin boxes which kept them warm. These boxes are coded with a special code that not even PWC has been able to decipher, (something along the lines of a number for the train station destination, one for the building and for the office floor, and one for the train of origin, and are deposited in a special carriage designated for them.
At the other end, usually in the centre of the City, these are then offloaded by another Dabbawalla and delivered to the recipient in his office in time for lunch. The process is then reversed and the empty Tiffin box delivered back to the house for washing and next day’s lunch. Back in the day, before fast food, 6 million deliveries were made daily and with the delivery reversed, that was 12 million deliveries with apparently only one error. This incredible feat earned them a six sigma rating. We had a great chat to some of them, a group of very cheery men who were very happy to pose for a couple of photographs with us.
Next up was our very important appointment of the day…. our sound sense was stimulated with our session with a lovely Bollywood Dance Teacher who bravely took us on and taught us three routines. I don’t think we had the same kind of rhythm and hip swaying technique that our lovely instructor had, but we were game though and did our best, looking very awkward and clodhopping through a few of the steps, and forgetting the order of the moves along the way, but oh did we have a good laugh! Those of you lucky enough may even be shown the video sometime!
Our sense of taste was duly rewarded with lunch at Chetana’s Vegetarian Restaurant, a Mumbai institution since 1946 where exclusive Thalis are served – I opted for a Gujarati Thali which was mild(ish!), Geoff was more game and had a Rajeshahi Maharastrian Thali. All served beautifully on a tray with little dishes holding the various dhal, vegetables and sauces. Added to this were battered deep fried potatoes, chapatis, pappadoms and rice– it was all absolutely delicious and very authentic.
Our visit to the laundry! Yep, that sounds boring but it was anything but. Firstly our guide suggested we took the train there which we were very keen to do. We got dropped off at Churchgate Station and caught a very basic local train to Mahalaxmi Station to visit Dhobi Ghat, the world’s largest outdoor laundry. The train was pretty basic with metal seating, but a few things struck me, firstly it is a lot wider than trains I have been used to in London and Auckland, that there are a mass of straphangers for the many people that squeeze on, and finally, it travels with the doors wide open! Needless to say we sat well inside of the carriage! It was great to have the experience, especially as this is such a huge form of mass transport in India.
Dhobi Ghat has was built during the British Raj in 1890 - a Dhobi is a washerman or washerwoman. Each Dhobi owns a numbered concrete pen with a flogging stone slab for beating the washing and a team who wash, dry, fold and iron the laundry which they collect from their clients - mainly hotels, hospitals, spas, shops (shrink washing denim jeans) and restaurants. 7,000 dhobis wash, dry on ropes, dye, iron and fold laundry. The whole place looks very chaotic but they have a system of coding on the back of each garment which allows the correct piece of laundry to get back to its rightful owner.
Everything is hung out to dry in a way that optimizes time and space. We saw lines of sheets which were brilliantly hung using no pegs and the dhobi just slid his hand along the line to release the dry sheets into his arms. 100,000 items are washed and ironed daily and delivered back within 48 hours. It is now a UNESCO site which makes it a bit of a bummer for the apartments overlooking it, but is a huge tourist attraction and it has featured in many Bollywood movies!
Our final stop on this tour was a visit to the Mumbai Spice Market. This really was the Smell Sense of our tour. Not only can you buy spices here but you can actually take your own recipe and get it dry roasted and mixed into the Marsala, the Hindi word for spice, of your choice.
We saw chairs around the spice stalls with ladies and gentleman sitting on them, their recipe – usually one that has been handed down through the generations - all lined up in plastic bowls patiently waiting for their turn to have them mixed. The ingredients were all put in the plastic bowl, and the mix was sauteed and then left to dry, it was then put into a machine to pound it before it was placed into plastic bags for them. They normally purchase about a six month to a year’s supply each visit. There was a sort of chilli cloud in the air – and it was a very lively, colourful market with spices from all over India, including Kashmiri chillis. I thoroughly enjoyed having a go at mixing and then got to go and watch the pounding of the spices in the back of one of the shops (and I have a lovely souvenir of this with chilli powder over my white trainers, ha ha!). We finished the visit with a delicious chai containing fennel, ginger and cloves.
Back to the hotel, we changed quickly as we were keen to have a G&T at sunset and hot-footed it off to the rooftop bar of the Sea Palace hotel which was just a short walk from the Taj Mahal Palace. A lovely sunset as we watched the ferries coming in and out on the service to Elephanta Caves from Apollo Bandar by the Gateway. No dinner for us tonight, we are still full after our Thali lunch and we have an extremely early start tomorrow for yet another adventure!
It was quite the day and we feel we that, although we have only been here for just over two days, we have had a real taste and so many experiences of Mumbai