I’ve been slack with blogging about personal stuff. It’s one item I’ve had to drop in priority since moving to Pune to run training. Every night we’ve been out (we do have to eat and drink!) so I haven’t had a chance to write about all the interesting stuff we’ve been doing. Now that this batch of trainees is finished, my plan is to definitely catch up on it.

For our most most recent training outing we did a (literal) one day trip to Mumbai. It started off early with a scheduled 6am bus ride that took about an hour to get going as we waited for the bus to finally arrive at our office. After which it took almost four and a half hours to finally get to Mumbai. For some people, a Bollywood movie made the journey go a little faster. For others, like myself, it ended up as a futile attempt to recover lost sleep.

After driving through lots of buildings, we made our way into the heart of Mumbai where we stuffed ourselves for lunch before heading off to the Gate of India. The Gate welcomes people as they arrive into port at Mumbai and sits just opposite from the original magnificent Taj hotel. It’s lit up at night and is buzzing with plenty of people and hawkers trying to sell items to the tourists that visit. It’s also the place of port to catch a ferry to the island holding the World Heritage Site Elephanta Caves.

The ferry ride to Elephanata Island is a very moderate pace, taking about an hour to cover apparently 20km. Tacked on the end of the four hour bus ride and some people were understandably irritated. I found the ride very calming, with the best possible view of the Mumbai horizon that slowly fades into a hazed blanket of dust and pollution. We passed shipping boats, other ferries, a number of small islands and even the nuclear power plant that feeds the city the energy it needs to survive. Oddly enough I didn’t notice much wildlife and was expecting at least many seagulls or birds flying around. I think most people found the ferry ride back extremely memorable with the haze turning the sun into a blazing sphere descending into the horizon over very still water.

Elephanta Caves, I’ll admit probably wasn’t worth the 5+ travelling time. If you’re based in Mumbai I could highly recommend them and definitely get a guide since the stories behind the broken statues are generally much more interesting than the the remains ruined by the Portuguese a while back.

With time whittled away with stops in between, we managed to also briefly visit Colaba Causeway (apparently the shopping/market street of Mumbai), the Victoria Terminus (one of the train stations) and the spectacular Marine Parade (an arc highlighted with all the buildings) at night time.

As normal, the other pictures are available here.