Arabian Sea
Arriving Salālah, Oman Tomorrow, 06:00 Local
Traffic, people in their many millions, abject poverty hard by opulence, layers of history sitting still stratified in their rich variety, strong and fervently practiced religious traditions living side by side (but perhaps not with quite the claimed level of total harmony), commerce trumping politics in a vibrant globalizing city… but with a visible military and police presence preventing geo-politics and the echoes of the terror events of not so long ago from exiting what is a very busy stage*.
Oh, and did I mention traffic?
That’s Mumbai.
My experience of this teeming city of 18 million souls was still more limited than in our prior two ports of call, as it was captured entirely from a motor coach that followed a route of, what… maybe 10 miles, over about four hours of travel time, without (intentional) stops.
Did I mention traffic?
I’ll let pictures do the rest of the work here (at least for now)… I’ll circle back with some further thoughts at a later date.
[You can view a full gallery of images from my entire journey here.]
* Our route passed immediately by all three targets of the 2008 attacks
Mumbai traffic… is everywhere
High rises, washerman village, street hawkers
Street Hawker Protest March (~20,000 men)
Miles of these hovels line even the main streets of Mumbai
…and then there was traffic