Organized chaos. The sound of beeps, honks, and bicycle bells fills the air all day long. I have grown accustomed to it at this point, even being able to sleep in a cab with the windows down on our way back from doing the Reality Tours bicycle tour. That may have been because I was so dog tired from being constantly alert for pedestrians, cars, bikes, motorcycles, dogs, cats, cows, rickshaws, small children, potholes, buses, etc. for 3.5 hours while riding a bike. The beeps, honks, bells and exhaust were like a lullaby on the way home from Colaba to Bandra.
The tour began early Sunday morning at 7:30.. It usually starts a 6:15 during the week, and now I know why... The traffic here is so nuts all day long, especially during the work week. We passed hundreds of runners completing their last runs before the Mumbai Marathon that is scheduled for the upcoming weekend, and met our guides at a local restaurant near the bike rental store. There were 3 others on the tour, a solo traveler from the Netherlands and a couple from England. Our tour guides were awesome, the chemistry and knowledge between them made for a great morning.
Our first stop was along the seaside, where we could get some nice photos as they sun rose over the water and the Gateway of India. It was nice to see it without tons of people, as we learned later when we went back for some close up photos.... Constantly avoiding beggars, scammers (people trying to clean out your ears? Yes. That happened) people trying to take your picture and sell it to you or sell you other random stuff can get tiring.
We then rode to this tiny bakery where it was warm from all the fresh bread that was about to be distributed around the city. This place was known for the traditional morning treat - a fresh buttered roll that you dip into hot chai. It was really good! A nice little breakfast before our cycling adventure.
Some of the other sights included the Victoria Terminus, the "backbone" of Bombay. Our guide explained that if this place stops, the whole city stops. More than 7 million passengers pass through daily! Thats more than the population of Croatia and Iceland combined!
We visited the Crawford Market, which holds tons of fresh produce sold at wholesale.. Some of the fruit and vegetables looked amazing. I've had a diet rich in pineapple during our stay so far and it has been verrrry tasty.
Other stops included the Hindu temple from which Mumbai was named.. It usually has a long queue of people out the door waiting to go in for worship, but we were able to get in without problem. The craziest thing was having to go through airport-style security before entering.. It's sad that the terrorist attacks that have plagued the area have made it come to this.. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside (it was common on the tour, because our guide expained that is how the attacks happened.. the terrorists took pictures of the sites and plotted from there) but it was gorgeous and so colorful. I love all the flowers and colors used in Hindi shrines.
We also visited a Jain temple. which was a white building with many intricate desgins carved into the stone. Jains believe in not killing anything.. They are strict vegetarians and do not even eat root vegetables because that would involve the act of pulling the root from the earth, therefore taking its life. So much to learn about all the religions here, its fascinating.
My FAVORITE part of the tour (which we rode down through a busy market to get to.. very stressful!) was the cow shelter!!!!! In the middle of the city, surrounded by markets and homes, is a shelter that over 400 cows! I was in heaven.. I've wanted a cow (strange but true) since I was little. We even got to feed the cows. I got to pet a calf and I think it was "special" because all it wanted was to have its neck rubbed. When I rubbed its neck it would lick the wall... When I stopped it would nuzzle me and lick my arm. Did you know cows have rough-ish tongues? Well they do. You can't really see it now due to the new color I have on my skin thanks to the hot Indian sun, but yesterday I had little scratches on me from the cow's tongue. It was so funny.. We also met some cute kids that were in the shelter who follwed us around, saying "hello hello!" and asking us our names and where we were from. When I said "America" one kid looked iike he was going to lose it.
That's another thing about this place... It must be a novelty to see people who are white. We are constantly getting asked to have our pictures taken when walking around like we are something special. I decided whenever we get asked, we should ask to get a photo of the people who asked us. So today we did. 
Anyways, back to the tour...
We rode on from the cow shelter and that's when it started getting really busy.. Walking across the street is hard enough here when everyone's out and about. Being a part of it is another story. I had some close calls with elderly men and people walking out in front of me carrying large loads on their heads. Luckily a feverish ringing of the bell translates to "I'm behind you! Get out of my way" and that seemed to work well, for the most part.
The last stop on our tour was the Fish Market, and that was a sight (and smell...yuck!). The fishermen here have to travel for 2 days to get far enough out to sea where the fish is safe to eat. As noted in my post about Dharavi, there was drainage going through the village.. Welll all that drainage from Dharavi and other slums around Bombay have to go somewhere. Hence why you can't drink the water nor swim in the sea here.
The fish market was full of women and girls, all sitting around peeling skins off of prawns. There must have been hundreds of them working.. There were also people walking around with baskets of fish on their heads, carrying the catch to be sold in markets. The smell, or "perfume" as our guide described, was pretty intense.. The smell of Bombay is "unique" in itself, and when you throw in fish smell, you really want to cover your nose.
On the way to return the bikes, we were stopped due to some weird fancy car parade.. This was not part of the tour, but was entertaining regardless. There were Porches, BMWs, Lotuses, Mercedes, etc. driving down the street and revving their engines, and the people were going nuts! I was surprised they weren't getting their toes run over because they were so close to the cars.
After waiting almost half an hour, the parade was stopped by a crossing guard and we were able to cross through to the other side. And away we sped!
We ended our tour with a meal with our guides, and we really enjoyed our time with them and the other British couple. Our guides were true characters, and we were even serenaded with some Enrique Iglesias. The other people in the restaurant probably thought we were nuts. We tried "Dal Puri" and "Puri Bahji", which are two breakfast dishes made with curry and puffy bread.
Although at times it was nervewracking riding along with the madness, I must say it was an amazing time. I realized I had never ridden on a busy road in a big city before, and now I've done it a place that has the most mental traffic/lacking of traffic rule enforcement I've ever seen! It is organized chaos, but I think that may be a common thing here in other realms as well.
Today was all about street food.. and that will be my next post. Tomorrow we head to Trivandrum, Kerala, where we will relax for 2 days before we begin our yoga ashram experience. I'll be sad to leave Bombay and our amazing hosts, but lucky for us, we will get to see them again for a couple days in Goa, as they will be there the same time we are! Funny how the world works. :)
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