Hot Fuss

23 November 2008
Jaipur – Bombay

So I couldn't sleep any more and I opened my eyes – and it was light. Turns out I had made it through the night without too much discomfort or problems. I arrived at the station and taxied my way to the hotel. Needless to say it wasn't paid for, so I was something like 18 GBP out of pocket. Such is life.

And I was in Bombay. On the way to the hotel I passed a slum that contains over half of Bombay's population – just a fraction less than London's entire population as Bombay contains a mere 13 million people. And I also went down Reay Road – yes, that's the actual spelling. And I saw the Arabian Sea (or as I like to call it, the north west bit of the Indian Ocean) for the first time in a while. It looked lovely, glimmering in the sunshine like a tropical sea should.

And it was hot. I was now a good few hundred kilometres further south, and while Rajasthan at about 27 degrees north was experiencing comfortable high twenties during the day and cold, jumper-requiring nights, Bombay on the other hand is back to Thailand-like temperatures. Oh boy. Well, I've been here before.

I was warned from the guidebooks that Bombay was cramped, dirty, dusty, polluted, congested, basically like all the things that Delhi was but worse. Maybe I have been spoilt by the general degradation in Rajasthan and the part of Delhi that I stayed in (which was admittedly one of the dirtiest parts), but Bombay's actually in better condition than I was expecting. It doesn't seem to be as dirty as Delhi, the traffic's not too bad and seems to be less congested than London at least. And there's less rubbish on the streets and hardly any animals. I don't think I've seen a cow and in fact all I've seen is the odd dog here and there.

Once at the hotel, I had a much needed shower and checked the internet just to make sure I had been truly ripped off. I might call Sanjay and tell him I was ripped off, and piss of Raj's career. I just need to find his number somehow.

After that it was lunch, and I was properly hungry now. So I went for comfort food – brushetta (which was very cheesy) and a straightforward pasta dish. It was nice and filling, and set me back to being tired. I went back for a lie down and a small snooze, though I didn't properly fall asleep. But it was enough to revive me.

So I did a bit of sightseeing in Bombay. There isn't loads to see, mostly colonial architecture. I saw the Gateway to India, though most of it was being renovated. Then it was a church built in memory of the First Afghan War, which was a monument to Imperial British Victorian Christianity and could have been anywhere in the Empire. Then it was the main train station which was called Victoria Terminus but was renamed in the late nineties by the local right-wing Marathi party (Shiva's Army in English) to something unmemorable (it's named after a legendary Marathi warrior).

There was also an equally awesome building next to it, but I couldn't work out what it was. But it had the colonial architecture which combined Victorian neo-gothinc and classical architecture with local Hindu and Islamic styles.

After that I walked back home and after being driven everywhere for the last twelve days the exercise was a welcome change. Though I was now back to sweating like a bitch again. Oh well. I returned to the hotel and blogged and chilled out for a bit.

I went for dinner at the local travellers' place but didn't get to meet any people I could hang out with. I talked briefly with some Aussies who had just come from Goa and could recommend a hotel for me. But they were leaving when I met them. I also shared a table with a Japanese guy who was over here on work. But his English wasn't that good (better than my Japanese naturally). We had a brief chat, and he mostly nodded and laughed which was nice.

After that I went upstairs to the bar which unfortunately was full of self-contained groups and seemingly all of the black people in Bombay. Luckily however it was airconditioned, though it still measured 33 degrees room temperature. It was here that I met Evan, though I didn't know it was him until a few days later. I started on a beer and as luck would have it they started showing the fourth One Day International between India and England, which had been delayed due to rain, and shortened to 22 overs.

But wait, rain? The match was taking place in Bangalore, south of Bombay and Goa. And it was raining? I haven't seen any weather since I've been in India, unless you count smog as weather. But no rain and hardly any clouds to speak of. How bizarre.

There were a few Indians who were watching it around me, so I had a chat with them. Needless to say we lost the match, albeit due to a rather harsh Duckworth-Lewis calculation. But India are the best team in the world at the moment – at home at least – and they had just beaten the Australians in the preceeding test series, so there's no doubt that they're going to do well against us. Bring back Duncan Fletcher, I say.

During the match you could see the smog in the stadium, and I could understand the difficulty touring teams must have on the subcontinent. Despite it approaching midnight Flintoff was sweating like a beast as well.

By the time that had finished it was more or less midnight and time for bed. I was tired, slightly drunk and in one of the nicest hotels I had stayed in so far. Comfy beds and a working bathroom, and air con as necessary in this town, whose drone managed to block out any noises from outside. Or so I thought...