Transportation in Mumbai

There is all sorts of transportation in Mumbai. Traffic is crazy and during rush hours you can be in a traffic jam for ages.

There are e.g. the goods carriers aka trucks. Often very festively decorated. During the night our street is lined with these trucks while their drivers sleep on top of it.

Then there are of course the 40.000 yellow and black taxis. Sort of Fiat's of the 50's; small, old and worn with outdated meters.

This is the taxi of Ali, 'our' guy. The car is 20 years old, tiny and falling apart. During one of our rides we got a flat, but he managed to fix it quite quickly.

Ali

Ali

The rules in traffic are quite simple: when there is an opening, you go in there. There are no lanes and you just hunk your horn continuously to let others know you are coming.


A tiny, old car like Ali's means: 1. you can squeeze in the tiniest spaces between other cars, 2. you can take priority over newer cars, cause they care for their car and you don't, 3. you can take priority over pedestrians, scooters and handcarts, cause you still drive a 'car' and they don't. Usually there are no accidents or collisions. Miraculous!


In Colaba, the tourist area there are horse drawn gilded carriages. They look gorgeous with all the decorations and at nite they look like xmas with all the lights. They are called Victoria's.
I can not really enjoy looking at them, cause I feel for the poor horses:-(.

Then you see some driving out of their working zone....on their way to....

...the steel workshop to patch up the rusty spots in the 'silver'.

There are mobile sound systems;-):

...hand drawn carts....

...scooters???

People use bikes and handcarts for all sorts of transportation.

Then there is the train. Every day 2.5 million people pass through Victoria Terminus; the main station. I stood there for an hour or so and the stream of people knows no end. Amazing!

The building is a beautiful Gothic building.

During rush hour there are 7.000 people in a train that is meant for 1.800 persons. Not much chance to get a seat then.

In the lower class wagons the benches have no cushioning. Some of the staff of the hotel travel daily 1 or 1,5 hours (one way) by train to work!

Although Mumbai is considered to be relatively safe for women (Delhi is called 'rape city number 1', not Mumbai), there are special trains/wagons for 'women only'. The painted female portraits tell you which ones. Between 8.30 in the evenings and 6 in the mornings there is security staff present in those trains to guarantee the safety of the women.

Tracks outside:

The pictures of trains that I took (above) were taken on a sunday, hence the empty look.

As I understood, normally, on weekdays, especially during rush hours, the trains look more like this:

How I do NOT envy the people that have to travel this way daily!!!

Ok folks, so far my report on transportation in Mumbai;-)

Slums and streetlife

Millions of people in Mumbai live in slums. There are also people who live on the streets; I have no idea of the numbers or percentages of those.

What I see and read is that in a slum, most people earn a living, one way or another. And they have some sort of roof over their head. 

I also see that even people on the street create a sort of 'home' for themselves. Washes are done and hung on fences and trees. People wash themselves and brush their teeth on the street. They cook and sleep on the street. 

Or on top of their big trucks.

I think that the homeless that are sick, handicapped, disabled and/or mentally ill are worst of and totally dependent of begging.

Taking a nap.

Living on the street with a cow by hand gives at least milk.

The slum across the hotel has streets, squares, temples and everything else that belongs to a community.

Funny enough there are a lot of TV's in slums, look at the satellite dishes.

Rooftops give possibilities too.

Community square in slum.

Chawls (apartment buildings) and some slum streets next to hotel

Business on the pavement

Begging with children on  the pavement

Somebody lives there

Looked like a poor gypsy woman to me

Looked like a homeless guy, maybe mentally ill?

Nap? Homeless?

Sleeping in a cloth in front of hotel

Laundry and brushing teeth on the street

Washing yourself on the street

"I live here"

"Here I hang my laundry"

"Here I cook"

Nap

Very busy slum street

Very busy slum street

Slum life

Slum life

'Showering' in the slum

So far my observations on this topic ....