If you are over 40 you can call this city Bombay and if you are under 40 you are to call it Mumbai. Most citizens prefer Bombay which means good bay in Portuguese, The city has actually been built on several islands in the bay with causeways and fills. There is only one word for this city. OVERWHELMING. The sights, sounds, and smells assault your senses nonstop.

My friend Cy wanted to know how many photos I had taken and how many I would Keep. He thought I would bolster his comments to his wife, Lena, about taking too many photos. When I told him I had taken about 1500 and would probably keep 750 I instead bolstered exactly what Lena has done. My comment was no one would understand this city without seeing the photos. How can you explain a Brahma bull in the middle of town next to a Gucci shop. Ancient carts in the middle of taxis, cars, motorcycles and bikes.

Beggars, hustlers, businessmen, housewives, clergy mixed together . Hundreds of thousand of people within a short distance. 27,000,000 people live in Bombay and I felt as though I saw everyone of them. The traffic is incredible and there really are no lanes but in spite of this I saw no accidents while we were in India and I don’t know how they do it. More importantly, the buses and taxis that I was riding in did not crash even though we came close. The near miss of a bull comes to mind on our trip to an old Hindu village in the State of Goa.

As a side note here, the ports of call starting in Namibia have all been so corrupted by the British. All the cars drive on the wrong side of the street because of this corrupting influence. I haven’t brought this to the attention of my friend Maurice (pronounced Morris because I am now referring to his English side) but I will do so when I go to his little wine social he is having. AND, my dear Lord Kay, he has become a very good friend in the same way you are a very good friend. In the same way Charlie and Michael became friends and it is very nice thing to have good male companionship of a platonic nature.

This post only covers the first day in Bombay as there is too much to cover in one post. One of the places we went to was the temple of Lord Shiva and the offering to this Lord is milk and water so the floors are always wet and must be mopped constantly. No photos were allowed inside. We also went to the Mahalakshmi Temple dedicated to the goddess of wealth. Flowers and candy seemed to be the main offering and you could buy these from the stalls on the walk to the steps. You could not take any photos from just before the steps up to it so I don’t show the temple at all. The Dhobi Ghat is a vast open-air laundry where men beat the clothes against rocks. This is probably why there are no buttons on Indian clothes.

We continued on our tour and visited the home of Mahatma Gandhi which is now a museum. Then the Gateway of India which is across from the Taj Mahal Hotel which is almost totally repaired since the bombing.

I have too many photos so some of them may show up on my next post of my second day in Bombay rather than here where I touched on some of the general sights.