MUMBAI (BOMBAY), Sunday, March 23

GATEWAY TO INDIA

An act of Parliament officially changed the name from Bombay to Mumbai in 1997. It is ideally situated to be the "Gateway to India" for all sea traffic from the west. The harbor is 7 miles wide at the base and it is the commercial capital of India. The architecture is stunning but in desperate need of cleaning & repair. There are 20,000,000 people in the city with 8 different religions. Four are originally Indian & four brought in from outside the country. There are throngs of people everywhere. We were fortunate as we arrived on Easter Sunday & the traffic was lighter than usual. We started our day by going to the Mahatma Gandhi house which is now a small museum. Along the way we got a wonderful overview of the city. It was the color festival & many people were covered in powders of various shades. Cows (not unusual to see cows on the streets) & dogs also had red powder on them. The women all wear beautiful brightly colored Sari's and against their dark skin, are really lovely. I found the people to be very friendly. Unfortunately there is a lot of poverty here resulting in a lot of begging on the streets.

We went to another museum passing the magnificent Victoria train station. We then found the Bombay Yacht Club and spent about two hours inside talking to three members. One was French, one English & the other Indian. They even gave us a burgee. From there we went to see the "Gateway to India. This is an arch much like the Arch de Triumph in Paris. It was built to commemorate the visit of King George V in 1911. Across the street is the Taj Mahal Hotel where we stopped for lunch. Had a great lunch & went shopping afterwards. The side street near the hotel had a few hundred shops carrying tons of crafts of all kinds, pashminas, sari's, shirts, cigarettes, etc. The weather was really hot & humid as, I guess, India usually is. Had a great day & got back to the ship around 6:00. In the evening there was a great party on the pool deck, "India Night" and everyone came dressed in the Indian clothes they bought. The women wore gorgeous rainbow colored sari's and jewelry purchased that day or in Cochin.