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Following our surreal first night in Bombay we were excited to get out the next day to take some “snaps” as all the cool kids we met at Arjun and Runa’s wedding say!

We started off heading back to Victoria Terminus, the main train station in Bombay. And it’s absolutely astounding! Can you believe this is a train station?


We actually did try to book a train ticket while we were there, and some guy tried to charge us double what the price should have been. But this was not our first day in India, and we told him “No way” and walked off, and booked it much much cheaper elsewhere. Plus one for Rob and Lauren!

Now when we travel we don’t head out the door at 8AM and take photos until the sun goes down. We would be absolutely exhausted. We try to take things easy, and just go out with the purpose of taking photos for a few hours each day. So when I was planning where to go in Bombay, I thought that heading to the Oval Maidan would be a perfect, and relaxing, spot! And as I’m sure you’re wondering what on earth the Oval Maidan is, this sign might give you a clue.


It’s a huge field that’s simply for cricket! Since we’ve arrived in India it seems like all the kids play is cricket, and all that’s on the sports channels is, yep you guessed it, cricket. Being from Canada we have absolutely no clue at all how cricket is played. We’ve watched enough here to sort of get the idea, and drew on junior high school gym classes to fill in the blanks, but we’re hopeless when it comes to the scoring. Nevertheless, it was really amazing to go and watch some people actually playing, rather than just watching on TV. And I’ll tell you we both found it more exciting!







There were hundreds of people there, and dozens of games going on, but certainly not enough space for all of that! So all the games bled into each other, and outfielders from one game would be standing right in the middle of another game. It was hilarious, and we were both stumped as to how they kept it all straight! It was such a neat setting as well, with the gorgeous buildings of the university and law courts peeking over the trees.


Then we took a walk to the famous India gate, where there were TONS of people just hanging out. Unfortunately we missed sunset by like half an hour, so the light was fading fast!



One of the neat attractions around the gate are these huge carriages pulled by horses. You can see one in the left side of this shot. Crazy.



Next we hopped into a cab and made our way to Chowpatty Beach. We thought we’d find a popular little beach, with some families hanging out, and not much else. Boy, we were wrong. It was practically a full moon party (a crazy crazy all night rave that’s held one a month on Ko Phan Ngan, Thailand) but with families instead of travelers. There were rides, tons of food, vendors selling little toys, and hundreds and hundreds of families. Here’s a shot of some balloons swinging in the breeze (remember, it’s completely dark out at this point)



We were both shocked at how incredibly large Bombay is. We thought we were in the downtown area, surrounded by huge buildings, but once we got onto the beach we could see a completely separate skyline of even more sky rises.

And we couldn’t get over these rides they had there. Remember that we’re in India, and things are done quite differently…





Rob decided to get creative and do some abstract work using the lights…


There were tons of vendors selling these neat little toys that consisted of a little blue LED light on a helicopter type thing that you launched into the air, and watched float down.  As Rob was taking a shot one of the toys landed right in front of the camera, and the little boy came to pick it up. You can see the blue line going through the middle of the shot. Cool!



And one last one of a street near our hotel. Rob really like the fact that it was called “Ganesh Lane”



Unfortunately we weren’t able to spend more time in Bombay, since it was really expensive for our room! But it was definitely an enjoyable change of pace, and we both enjoyed our time immensely. I’m sure we’ll be back one day to explore some more of the huge city.

P.S. You might remember the statistics we posted regarding poverty in Bombay. And you might be a bit confused, since all the photos we posted showed nothing of that. In truth, the area that we stayed in was remarkably free of much poverty. However, as we took a cab to the bus station, we drove past countless slums along the sides of the streets, and we were both completely surprised at how different these two parts of the same city could be.

Category: Adventures

Tags: bombay, chowpatty beach, cricket, india, india gate, photography, travel, victoria terminus