bandra or bust? both.

i want to start out by saying that the taxi drivers here in mumbai have my ultimate respect. they are a hard-working bunch of guys who probably don't get paid enough to navigate this humongous, busy city, and obviously it's not their fault that their english is less than perfect. after all, it's better than my hindi/marathi.

with that disclaimer, our excursion to bandra was a bit of a bust. bandra's in the north of mumbai (we're in the south) and we decided to venture out to see this highly advertised photo exhibition featuring the recycling sheds of dharavi. (india factoid: per our guidebook, anyway, 55% of the population of mumbai lives in slums/shantytowns - so that's like, what, 9 million people? - and the largest of these, in fact in all of asia, is dharavi, home to one million people. some of these people make a living picking rags/cardboard/whatever. think slumdog. ) so. we knew it would be a little bit of a drive but went with it. things were going well until we got into bandra, and told the address to our cabbie. he had no idea where it was. of course, neither did we. we handed him the slip with the address, but of course he couldn't read english (again, not like i can read hindi). so we've got the guidebook map out and he looks all nervous, clutching the scrap he couldn't read, and flags down a man on the side of the road, who gives us directions involving a barista (the starbucks equivalent) that we didn't see until later, when we had u-turned and were practically on top of it. long story short, we ended up stopping for directions two more times before safely arriving at our destination.

but the photos were worth it, right? meh. while they were nice photos of cute kids, there were about six of them hanging on the wall of the restaurant, and they looked like any photo i might have taken of kids anywhere. so, ok, at least we'll go shopping at this giant open-air shoe mart. (sam, you would have seized if you saw it.) well. that turned out to be totally overwhelming, with people tugging at us trying to sell pashminas, dora the explorer t-shirts, purses, belts, shoes, etc. it cleared out a little when someone yelled "police!" and all of a sudden handbags wrapped in tarps were being hoisted over the median, but we left there pretty quickly, too. i will say that we had a lovely dinner at this restaurant, a change of pace from our usual indian fare, even if the photos were a bit less that what we expected. so not a total loss.

the nadir of the trip, though, came as we were driving home. there's never actually a point in mumbai when you feel alone on the street (given the other 16 million inhabitants), but we had come to a reasonably dark/deserted stretch with a concrete wall on the one side and only a few pedestrians on the other when our cab driver pulled over and said something to us that was not in our language. of course, all we can say is "peddar road!" "yes madam, peddar road, but (something something something)." he's getting more agitated. we're yelling, "peddar road! peddar road!" hand gestures. i'm thinking, oh my god, this is it. he's leaving us here. he points to the sidewalk, says something that sounds like gun to me, and in my panic, makes a gesture that i think looks like firing a gun. and i'm like, "gun? you have a gun? you're robbing us? who has a gun?" then he jumps out and runs around the car, and we're like, oh dear god. and the poor man finds a post, squats down beside it, and relieves himself in the street. yes, he just had to pee. he delivered us home safely after that. did overcharge by 50 rupees, but we were too worn out to haggle over a dollar by then.

well, the food was good anyway, and i have some leftover mushroom risotto for dinner tonight.