We parked at Mumbai’s answer to Marina Bay Sands and Circular Quay …

We took a ship organised tour. We lunged into the colour, noise and chaos …

… visited Crawford Market …

… where our guide had to explain a custard apple to some of our fellow travellers!

We walked past these …

… to visit a strange temple, once one of the highest landmarks in Mumbai.

We drove along Marine Drive … where, from a distance, the beach looked surprisingly clean.

We saw many of the legendary trains …

… the MCG (complete with trains going past)!!!

… a man delivering ice …

… and thousands of miles of chaotic cables.

We saw the Dhabi Whallahs in action.

We went to the Gateway of India with a huge swarm of people (the detail is interesting!)

… and looked at the many boats, and the Taj Hotel …

We had a nice lunch at a restaurant near here: a relatively nicer part of Mumbai from what we could see … but across the street was a completely derelict hotel. Apparently there is a decades old bureaucratic dispute about it’s demolition(?)

After lunch we drove past slums …

… to this interesting Museum …

… displaying, amongst other things, the faces and headgear for many different Indian sects.

Then to some old Mumbai houses …

We had afternoon tea in this one.

Then back to the busy street … where there were all kinds of users …

On the way back to the ship, past the main Railway Station …

… at peak hour (on a public holiday so only 30% of people about!)

What can I say, based on just one day in Mumbai? Some travellers love India. Some are fascinated by it’s chaos, colour, culture, history, scenery and so on. They may be perfectly justified.

I will not be joining their ranks.

I could write chapters on this, but here I’ll just say this: India could be a much better place if it had way less people, and, just for starters, they just picked up their trash.