Good Morning Mumbai

Mumbai or Bombay (both names seem to be fine) is a gigantic city. It reminds me a little of New York, built on a peninsular jutting out into the Arabian Sea. The train lines run in parallel from North to South, and areas are either East or West Side. Pretty much the comparison stops here! This is the Gateway of India, Mumbai's icon.

I am living in an area called Ville Parle, which is Greater Mumbai in the suburbs. It takes about 45 minutes by local train to reach the South of the peninsula, where the Gateway of India is. The area I am living in is nice residential area with a vibrant market and tree lined streets, so I think it will become home shortly. Vile Parle is a Gujurati area and therefore vegetarian, which is great as I had the intention to turn veggie out here. The food here is fabulous, I’ve discovered a southern Indian speciality called Pav Bhaji, "pav" been a burger bun type bread with lashings of butter and "bhaji" is a purred sauce, my favourite being tomato and cheese. It’s not far off a tomato-pasta sauce but better, its very yummy. You use the bread to mop up the sauce, I am sure I will come back double the size from India!

I have also now moved into my tiny flat, which is great after two months living out of my rucksack. Its pretty small, a studio with a separate kitchen, but it’s only 10 minutes walk from work, which is fabulous. It is on the first floor and has lots of windows, so feeling a bit on display at the minute without any curtains. I have an interesting view onto the local communal well, so every morning see whole families taking showers, brushing teeth, washing clothes. Seems very social. Thankfully I don’t have to join them as I have running water into my flat.

The "Oddity of the Week", this week goes to my trip to the cinema. I saw Namesake (English Bollywood film, well worth watching) and as it has been out for a while, I was the only one in the cinema. They play the national anthem before each film. Whilst sitting merrily in my seat, suddenly heard the cinema attendant say quite sternly, “ Please stand up”, so here I was, looking pretty awkward, standing up on my own in a 1,000 seater cinema humming along to the Indian national anthem. Thankfully 4 other people turn up shortly after the film started!