Mumbai (Bombay), India

I have never been interested in traveling to India. There, I said it, and at the time I said it I absolutely meant it. Mumbai is such a fascinating city though, and I've been forced to change my opinion! After passing through a million security checks to reach the cruise terminal, we boarded our bus for our tour to Elephanta Island. Along the way to the pier we passed many lovely colonial buildings whose beautiful architecture was only slightly diminished by the sooty coatings caused by the city's terrible air pollution. Out on the pier itself there is an ornate stone gate (The Gateway of India), built for the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in December 1911. To get there we walked across a wide, stone-paved square full of tourists, commuters, men selling postcards, and pitiful looking women carrying babies and begging for money. Our guide told us to ignore them because they were not begging for themselves but were working for criminals who would take most of the money away from them. She said that the babies probably weren't even their own but had been rented for the day from very poor families as props to win our sympathy. Our hour long boat ride out to Elephanta Island was most pleasant as the breeze off the water had a welcome cooling effect. Once we reached the Island we boarded a small brightly painted train for the 1 km journey to the base of the stairs leading up to the caves. We had been told we would have to climb up 120 stairs to reach the Elephanta Caves, but we really weren't prepared for the reality of the situation, having envisaged a set of evenly spaced stairs like those outside a church or a Chinese temple for example. In actual fact we climbed up the side of the mountain a few stone steps at a time with long, steep areas of stone-paved ramp in between each set of steps – so it was quite a climb and quite a distance to the top. All along both sides of the ramp the locals had set up colourful stalls from which they sold a wide range of handicrafts – stone and wooden carvings, lanterns, purses and embroidered bags, pictures, cloths, scarves, decorated mirrors, doorbells, clothing, etc. Of course they called out to us constantly trying to get us to buy, but our guide had told us to wait until the return journey, so we soldiered on through the extreme heat and humidity. The caves themselves were quite impressive, developed in the style of a temple with huge stone pillars at the entrance and throughout the interior and stone carvings of the Hindu God Shiva on the walls. The huge carvings were lovely but alas badly damaged as they had been used for target practice by the Portuguese in earlier times. We were counting on cooler temperatures inside the caves but it was not meant to be. It must have been at least 40 degrees up there! After our tour of the caves we were given an hour and a half to explore on our own and make our way down through the stalls. Mum bought three embroidered purses because every time she bought one she'd see one at another stall that she liked better! On our trek we certainly enjoyed the variety of animal life – colourful roosters, placid black cows, scrawny-looking mangy yellow dogs, a black and white goat sleeping on a bench, and monkeys in all shapes and sizes leaping around everywhere. I love monkeys, so it was a real treat! All in all we had an exhausting but interesting day in Mumbai. We both agree that we'd like to come back and explore more of the city at a future date.