Mumbai & Goa November 11th to 17th

With Goa behind us, it was time to close the mid India loop and return to where we started, Mumbai. Despite the short stay, we were able to visit one of the most memorable visits of India, the Dharavi slums via a tour organised by a local NGO Reality Tours who employs guides who are residents in the slum itself. This NGO has all my respect. The work they do is absolutely amazing.

Sadly with the end of Mumbai’s visit it also meant the end of duo travelling as my travel partner Anna had to go back home. I am so happy she was able to join me in my adventure and to be able to share some of the craziness of it. Thank you for joining me. Loved every minute!

The last weeks were exciting but pretty hectic, so I decided to cool off and go back to Goa as it is such a chilled and comfortable place. While I was back there I found out that Royal Enfield was organising an event to launch their new motorcycles so naturally, as a biker fan, I popped by to check it out 🙂

Mumbai – Streets

Trying out traditional wedding dresses and suits 🙂

The most expensive private residence in the world worth 1 billion dollars inhabited by a family of 7 persons with around 350 workers. Mumbai is a city of contrasts…

Security outside the residence. Soldiers and armored vehicles…

Mumbai – Dharavi Slums

Having done the tour, my definition of a slum completely changed, at least for the Dharavi one. Dharavi can be split into 2 areas, business and residential.

Business thrives in Dharavi and according to the guide the business generated out of it is worth millions of dollars! Examples of business are plastic and metal recycling, textile production linked to leather and other materials. Despite the high business activity the working conditions are not exactly great. People work long shifts, 12 to 14 hrs under dangerous conditions.

The residential area. The first thing you need to know is that 1 million persons live in 2 square kilometers! Having seen where they live I now understand how this is possible. The streets between the houses are extremely narrow and the access to the multi story residences are via a ladder and not stairs. Hygene is not always the best. However this is not the full story as this applies only to part of Dharavi. There are areas, where the first residences were first built, that are spacious, clean and charming with doctors and lawyers living there. Apparently some of the houses are valued at 1 million dollars! This is due to its strategic location, the airport being near and being in the center of Mumbai.

Another particularity of the slum is the way it is grouped. It is not by class/cast, religion or race but by language. The linguistic clusters are hindi, marathi and tamil. Integration takes place between the different communities so long as you speak the language. There are around 6 public schools where the residents can access freely. Part of the tour was to visit one of them.