Mumbai

My other trip this summer was to Mumbai. It was really just a fleeting encounter, but still made a big impression. I was only there for a matter of days, and most of that was spent in a lovely hotel, working.
Still, I managed to steal a few hours one afternoon to venture into the chaos of Mumbai.

The journey began by trying to hail a taxi that would take us to the south side of the city. A few refused, a few asked for extortionate amounts of money, so we eventually ended up taking an auto-rickshaw, which could take us as far as the edge of the city, and then we'd have to find a taxi to take us on from there.

The ride to the city limits was exciting to say the least. There was nothing to strap us in, nothing to stop us falling out, and at times it felt like we were riding with Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. Even so, the lack of windows and doors meant I had an unobstructed view into the surrounding areas, the slums, the barrows of fruit and vegetables, marshaled by children who were 6, maybe 7 years old.

We reached the limit of the auto-rickshaw's range, as they are not permitted into the city centre. Our driver found us a taxi that would take us the rest of the way to the Dhobi Ghat, our first destination. Turned out, he was a friend of the rickshaw driver, and agreed a decent price to get us to the now famous open air laundry.

'Rush' hour in Mumbai

The journey was slow, as we moved at a pedestrians pace through the city. I doubt if we topped 5 miles per hour through the whole journey. The city is chaotic, energetic, full of colour, in one sense exciting, in another, desperate. There is activity everywhere, and while it's great to see the city alive and active like this, the realisation that these people are scraping together whatever they can to create shelter in the slums, and finding what little they can to sell to make a little money brings you back down to earth. There was more of this to come at the Dhobi Ghat, in Mahalaxmi.

Dhobi Ghat is a huge open air laundry, row after row of concrete wash tubs - almost 200 in total - where dhobis (or laundrymen) will take your laundry, wash, starch and press it, and deliver it back to you. Families work together, and it's a trade that is passed down the generations.

We wandered down among the streets surrounding the laundry, and here we discovered a lively street market, selling a lot of meat (goats, and their heads for sale on blankets on the ground), fish being gutted, some you could buy live, and a few selling fruit. The lady below had only a handful of goods to sell, as she tried to make a little money to make ends meet.

We were offered a tour of the inside of the concrete wash tubs. I politely declined, mainly on the basis that I may never find my way out again, should they decide to leave us in there. I imagined other western photographers, wandering aimlessly for 3 or 4 years, having perhaps been abandoned on such a tour, given the size and apparent complexity of the maze of wash tubs.

We moved on, finding another taxi to continue our journey to the more salubrious end of the city - the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Hotel. The journey took us (slowly) past some of the areas affected by the siege and shootings of a couple of years ago. We drove past the impressive Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (Victoria Terminus), which was attacked by 2 gunmen in 2008 and 58 people were killed.

Shortly afterwards, we arrived at the Gateway of India, built in 1911 to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary. On the opposite side of the square, the Taj Mahal Hotel dominates the water's edge. Again, this was a major part of the 2008 attacks, for many becoming the symbol of that terrible event. Six explosions were reported in the hotel, and a siege began that lasted 3 days. 32 people were killed, along with the 9 attackers.

Now, the hotel is restored to it's former glory, but a constant reminder of the tragic events lies in the security operation that greets you at the front door these days. Concrete barriers prevent any vehicle getting close to the building, scanners check for weapons and all bags are screened on the way in.

Once inside, it's a beautiful hotel and must be the best in the city. We spent an hour, getting a drink in the first floor bar, looking out over the Arabian Sea, before braving the barrage of tourist hunting photographers to find a cab to take us back to our hotel. After a period of negotiation and several refusals, we found a driver who would take us back for a sensible price, via the Bandra Worli Sea Link - a 3.5 mile, 126m high, 8 lane highway.

This journey marked the end of my brief encounter with Mumbai. We had planned to visit a few bars on the south of the city at the end of our workshop sessions - we'd worked hard enough and certainly earned it - but that decision was taken out of our hands by a series of co-ordinated terrorist bombings.

They happened in the very area we had been in the previous evening and were planning to visit again that night. Our presentation ran over, and we were late getting ready, which meant that by the time we were ready to go, the events had already overtaken our plans. As I watch the drama unfold on the TV news, it became apparent that some of the businesses at the centre of the chaos remained defiantly open throughout the attacks.

This spirit, this sense of perpetual movement that stops for nothing is the reason I have to return to Mumbai.

Shanghai

This summer, I had the chance to take a trip to China for the first time. My work took me to Shanghai, and on the first evening, took our client out for a drink on the Bund, which offers a great view of the skyline.

Shanghai skyline from the Bund

It's a beautiful skyline, and was made more dramatic by the gathering clouds, eventually obscuring the tops of the tallest buildings. As the rain came in, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for 2 days of solid presentations.

I spent the following evening taking a walk away from the hotel during rush hour. The traffic was crazy, and the streets glistened with the persistent drizzle. I walked right down to the river and then, having failed to master the subway system, decided to take the long walk back to the hotel. Thankfully, I was rewarded with the discovery of a small side-street market, only perhaps a dozen stalls, but alive with colour and the Shanghai locals.

Shanghai street market

The following day, after a full day of presentations, I jumped in a taxi to the other side of the river, and took a walk up Nanjing Road. That was quite an experience. If I'd stopped to talk to everyone who tried to talk to me, I'd have come back with about 3 dozen mobile phones, 10 fake Rolex's and countless 'lady massages'. Having run the gauntlet down there, I eventually made it to the restaurant I'd been aiming for all along. The meal was good, if a little expensive, and once I'd finished eating, I made my way back to the hotel for the night.

The following day was Saturday, and after breakfast, I met up with an old family friend, who had moved to Shanghai a few years ago. He arrived with his girlfriend, a local girl, who had lived and studied in Shanghai, and was the perfect person to show me around a few more interesting aspects of the city. I'd asked to see some of the more traditional areas of the city, and we set off to a market which certainly had more of the traditional architecture, but had been converted into a tourist trap, with a German beer bar, and many a cheap souvenir shop. 

That said, the area was surrounded by locals. The market itself was walled, and venturing outside was very much discouraged. Not that I'd have know, unless I'd had this sign translated for me by my guide:

Something like "tourists don't come this way and don't take any photos"

We moved on to Xintiandi, walking through the heat and humidity to the home of the designer shops and good restaurants. We had lunch in one of those restaurants, and I sampled some things that I'd never eaten before, but the most interesting was lotus flower roots, cooked in honey - one of the sweetest things I've tasted, but good all the same.

Once we'd finished, we moved along to one of the few historical sites left in Shanghai - the site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China. I say one of the few - many historical areas have been overrun by the CPC, not allowing the people to dwell on the past or have associations with anything that is outside the Party guidelines.

For all the contradictions that I struggled with during my visit, it was still quite an experience to know that I stood in the room where Mao Zedong gathered his comrades around the table and founded the party that still rules the country today.

The site of the First National Congress of the CPC

From here, we moved back to the hotel, spending as much time underground as possible as the humidity burned away to be replaced by the searing heat of mid-afternoon. We called briefly by People's Square (more of that later), and then returned to the hotel for a drink. I turned in relatively early - it had been a long day, and I had plans for a lot more walking on Sunday.

I got up relatively early on Sunday morning, and made my way towards the old town, to see some of the more traditional architecture, and to visit a Ming Dynasty garden. Walking through some of the old town, it started to bring to life the inherent contradiction between an ideology that preaches the sharing of wealth and communal living, and the seemingly enthusiastic embracing of capitalism, embodied by the skyscrapers of the financial district, which provide the backdrop to Yuyuan.

Yuyuan, with Pudong's towers in the background

I wandered around the Yuyuan Gardens, an example of classical Chinese gardening architecture, built in 1559. It contains some examples of large naturally hollowed jade stones and pieces of traditional Chinese art. It provided a rare oasis of tranquility in a city that was seemingly always on the go. The pace slowed noticeably, and it was easy to stroll around the gardens and forget the hustle, the street hawkers and the crowds of tourists who come into the area.

Yuyuan Gardens

From here, I moved deeper into this area, and again, it brought home the crippling poverty that some people endure in Shanghai, while towards the Bund and across the river, people like me enjoyed the opulence of the hotels and the trappings of western wealth. In particular, I ventured down a small alleyway, above my head, lines full of laundry, at street level, battered bicycles, boxes and a glimpse into the tiny homes which sheltered large families, without so much as running water. Instead, large stone tanks store the water the family need, taking up most of the space in very rudimentary kitchens.

Back streets of the old town

Longines, Rolex and Mont Blanc to those few who are 'more equal than others', and the western financiers that keep the city moving.

Nanjing Road

I finally made it to the museum, and it was well worth the visit. There were great exhibitions of Chinese furniture and ceramics, which helped me while away a couple of hours, before finally heading back to the hotel to get another early night and prepare for my flight home the following morning.

I'd enjoyed Shanghai in a way. It's like no other city I've visited, and there are many beautiful things about it - the architecture old and new, the peace of the Yuyuan gardens, the food, the 'exciting' taxi journeys, cutting through the traffic. But, there are also the poorer sides to the city, which I guess many people don't venture into. The places where 'real' people live, struggling each day, while the money making areas are kept glossy and busy with tourists. I can only imagine what it must be like in the country, where the rural communities are subject to more of the oppression that you don't see in the sanitised city.

For that reason, I'm not in a hurry to return to China. I'd rather go to India again - which will be the subject of my next post.