Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Update from Mumbai (Day 2)

Second day

Woke up at 8am ish, showered, then went to the coffee club house called 24/7 for breakfast. Breakfast was fair. Nothing fancy. Ours is better, seriously. Oh I am so Malaysian...yeap! The coffee house had this huge wine storage room/ wine cellar. It was full of wine. Temptations! Temptations!
After breakfast, around 10ish, we went to the concierge counter to get some advices on the places to see for both shopping and sightseeing. They advised us to go to Bandra (a famous street market in Mumbai) for cheap stuff shopping and to Gate of India for sightseeing. We asked about the transportation and the cost of chartering a taxi for the whole trip. They said it will only cost us RS700 which will be around RM54 after conversion. We managed to get one taxi for only RS600 paw air condition and some tour guide :)

So here we go! The traffic was hillarious. Oh God, why on earth do the put they traffic lights if they are not following the rules, why on earth do they have traffic polices trying to control the traffic if nobody cares, and why on earth do they have the road lanes if there were 3 cars on each lane. Sigh! BIG sigh! The taxis there usually take as many passengers as they can. The taxis have no doors. And over limit of passengers? Dangerous. Along the way, we saw poor people who stay at the road side, roofed by a thin plastic gunny. Dirty and pitiful. I was sadden. The taxi driver, Vijay, took us to a small shop at the road side called Asian Arts Emporium. We kept telling him "NO NO NO. WE WANT TO GO TO THE BANDRA, THE STREET MARKET. NOT HERE NOT HERE".

But the hell he cares, he dropped us there and with sulky faces, we entered the shop and I said to Chin Loo, hey, this is interesting! They sell shawls, carpets, jeweleries and handicrafts!It was not bad, so we tried our luck browsing through the shop. Women will always be women, I ended up spending almost RS2200 (RM170.00) for shawls and only shawls :) AND it was after the fight with the taxi driver of not wanting to enter the shop, haha. Apparently, the shawls are all hand made from Cashmere. They are so soft, I fell in love the minute I held them. I know, I can get that kind of shawls for cheaper price, same size and design in KL (but I can't be sure that they are original like these, and I have one that I bought at Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman for only RM15.00 per piece and the material feels different). So yes, we have bought them anyway whether or not they are original.

Then, we asked him to proceed to Bandra, but this Vijay is so f.stubborn, he dropped us at another shop called Paton! It is something like Mydin back in Malaysia only smaller and funnier with too-over friendly staffs :).

Again, we entered the shop and I spent another RS1435 (RM110.00) for Honey and Isaac's traditional suits. Heee :) They are so cheap, I tell you I cant resist.

Since we knew that this Vijay will never take us to Bandra, we just let him take us anywhere he felt like it. He took us to this shop (I can't recall the name) which selling handicrafts and some home decos. I bought some souvenirs to bring back home and that cost me RS2450 ( RM188.00 which I paid by swiping my delicious Platinum Card haha. Oppss it's actually Honey's. They didn't even bother to check the name on the card. So my name was Mr. Sebastian Lim Wan Yee for a day. Yay!! This shop was full of their prayer smokes or joysticks or something and when we took picture, it looks so greyish :), while shopping, I noticed one staff there who looks like Hrithik Roshan and of course la it was a must to take picture with him. Honey, please do not worry, he is not straight :)We ended our shopping session for day two and headed back to hotel. Happy :). Went to walk around hotel. But there was nothing much to see :(At night, got nothing to do, was too scared to go out at night, we had dinner at the Kebab House at Hotel lobby area. They have this two middle aged men playing their local musical instruments and the music was so good, relaxing, made me missing my Honey more:(... As for the food, I had The Famous Tandoori Chicken with Cheese Nan and Chin Loo had the Chicken Spicy Curry with Plain Nan. It was fair lar (again) :)
End of day two II. Off to bed. Write more later! Lazy mode!

Love!

8 comments:

  1. Ooo nice. Ive never been to India before. Sure sounds interesting. I know how it is with the taxi driver tho... for every purchase you make at the places he brings you to, the shopkeeper/owner usually gives him a certain commission for bringing more customers to his shop... that is probably why!

    Have fun babe!

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  2. Hey,
    So long never heard from you :) About the taxi drivers, really bloody hell!

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  3. india sounds fun! did u meet any film stars there? i do wonder about the country's development.

    haha.. u know, khai might give u a discount if u bring ur friends there ;) a whole bunch of them!

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  4. Haha it may sound fun but you know haha ;p. Nope apparently they were having some award thingy at the hotel that I stay when I arrived on Saturday night but I was too tired and looking like a toad so I just ignored it :) And Khai, roger that!

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  5. award thingy. sounds big!

    those dudes r cuuute. u went there with ur girl friend yan? lol if i didn't read ur blog earlier right i wouldn't know about ur baby and hubby and i might think that u actually managed to hook up during a trip to india and think.. whoA not bad WTF!

    must visit khai's shop! she works very hard :)

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  6. Hahaha you are so fast. The minute I open refresh my email, there's another comment from you :) I like!
    So yea. They ARE cute tho'. I really like to watch them on TV haha.
    Yeap, my hubby and baby didnt follow. It was supposed to be a work trip la :)

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  7. darlinggg
    i wanna drop comment
    but now am in hurryyy
    i have things to do at uni
    just wannna sayy welcome backkkkkk
    and i change my blog dyy
    hehe
    its
    http://www.thejourneyofapinkbutton.blogspot.com/

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  8. Hey lover! I miss you babeh!
    Oh we'll talk later then. By the way, yeap I have edited your URL :)

    ReplyDelete

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