The JW Marriott Mumbai
http://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/tra...-hotel-mumbai/
I was in a bit of a daze when I woke up, having been on a long haul flight, without much sleep, and then not actually getting to bed until 3am. I was up at 9, aiming to get to the office for 10am. Little did I know that this was not going to be the case.
The room that I’d been allocated was quite old and a bit tired but the bed was comfortable enough (in typical Marriott style).
I got dressed and left the hotel without having any breakfast. One of the very regally dressed Sikh gentleman arranged a ‘Coolcab’ (a blue and white Tata taxi) for me to take me to the office in Airoli, Navi (new) Mumbai. Due to the quick turnaround of this trip I had no concept whatsoever of what to expect on the roads or even how far the office was from the hotel. Having had this booked by our corporate travel agent I assumed that the office would only be a few minutes away. Err, no. What was to follow was almost 2 hours of complete madness!
Mumbai is an extremely densely populated city, unlike nothing I have ever seen before and that includes places like New York, Bangkok and Hong Kong. This was something else. Almost immediately we were confronted with the traffic, but this wasn’t just cars, no, the traffic included lorries, rickshaws, bikes, scooters, coaches, busses, cow drawn carts, hand drawn carts and literally hundreds of people. At the side of the road the slums were evident and at every turn another mass of people attempted to weave themselves in and out of the traffic to get across the road. What the hell was this place?
Driving to the office – this is light traffic
After 30 minutes of this I was beaten and feeling pretty perturbed. What kind of place have I been sent to? My company actually has offices here? My colleagues live like this? I wasn’t happy and was starting to feel very alone and isolated. This is not somewhere that I wanted to spend the next couple of weeks of my life.
I phoned my boss to warn him that I’d be late and it turns out that he was also having issues getting to the office. It looks like we’d ventured out at precisely the wrong time and hit the traffic at it’s worst. My journey included a trip to the petrol station, and about 6 stops to ask for directions. Eventually, I phoned my Indian colleague to help direct the driver which he did and after a short argument with security I was left standing outside the entrance to the office complex. My Indian colleague sent his driver to come and pick me up, which he did and I was all checked in with security and was meeting my colleagues for the first time within a few minutes.
I was pleased to see that my Indian colleague from the UK had made it too, after spending the weekend with his parents elsewhere in India. I started to feel a bit better.
The offices were frankly amazing. The office that I was visiting held approx 5000 employees and my company has 5 of these in Mumbai! I’ve never seen offices so vast. The cubicles just went on and on.
Despite all of the mod-cons one thing differentiated this office to offices that I had been in before in the UK and the US, the view. Only metres away there was a small slum area. This is not something that I had expected. It really was strange to be standing in a modern, air-conditioned office block overlooking a number of metal sheds which were homes to some of the local people. What a contrast.
The view from the office window
After a not so long day at the office we went to a local restaurant for a ‘party’. It would seem that any gathering of people where food and drink is called a party in India. Anyway, it was at this point that I really experienced Indian food. It was frankly amazing and I fail to understand why on earth I hadn’t experienced proper Indian food before despite having many a ‘curry’ at ‘authentic’ Indian restaurants before now. The food was seriously something else. I devoured the dal mahkni and murgh mahkni, washed it down with some local beer (which wasn’t that good) and followed up with gulab jamun and icecrem. Fantastic.
I returned to the hotel with my Indian colleague and I suppose because of the time difference, it didn’t feel like it was time to go to bed yet. He suggested a walk along Juhu beach. I was a bit nervous about what to expect. Walking around Mumbai at 1am carrying an expensive camera was probably not the best thing to be doing. One thing to point out is that non-Indian faces really stand out so I knew that I would attract some interest with the locals.
We walked down to the beach to find it buzzing with activity. It seems that no-one sleeps in Mumbai, even on a Monday night!
There were a huge number of stalls selling snacks and drinks. My friend insisted that he needed to try some pan (pronounced pahn) which is a leaf filled with many different ingredients and then taken whole. It sounded good but he advised me not to try it in case it had been prepared in unhygienic conditions. I certainly did not want to spend days in the bathroom so heeded his advice.
A rickshaw drives past on the road to Juhu beach
Food and drink stalls at Juhu beach
My colleague seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere but I was a little wary. Some younger lads made some comments about my camera and my friend decided that it was probably time to go. On the way back I spotted a man catching some rest in his rickshaw, it didn’t look very comfortable!
Taking a nap
Verdict on the hotel
My colleagues told me that the JW Marriott is one of the top hotels in Mumbai and is often frequented by Bollywood stars. I guess you could liken it to somewhere like the Dorchester in London although I did not find it that impressive at all. My room was dated and overall the hotel had a musty smell to it. The entrance, lobby, restaurants and the pool were certainly impressive if you prefer classic styling. The executive lounge was good, with an excellent level of service and nice views over the pool and beach.
View from the executive lounge at breakfast
Here are a couple of little anecdotes which I found interesting that I’d like to share with you. After a long day at the office we got back to the hotel and decided to have dinner. The only place open at midnight was the ‘Lotus Café’ which is largest restaurant in the hotel, overlooking the pool. My friend wasn’t feeling too well and needed to get some medicine from a pharmacy. He asked one of the staff if they had a pharmacy on site which they didn’t however, he said that he would be happy to go and get whatever was required for my friend and charge it to the bill. This amazed me but my friend didn’t bat an eye. Apparently this level of service in India is perfectly normal. Can you imagine asking the bloke on reception in a UK hotel to go and fetch you some tablets because you have a headache?
As we sat down for dinner, and shortly after the man returned with the required medicine we noticed that there was an ice cream bar next to us. As part of this there was a huge selection of sweets which could be sprinkled on top of one’s ice cream. This looked very tempting so we asked the waiter if we could have a couple of the Haribo sweets that were on offer. He obliged and without being asked fetched a plate for us and proceeded to select whichever sweets we required from the bar. Again, this level of service is something that I’m not used to but is perfectly normal in India!
Overall, it’s fair to say that my friend enjoyed the stay more than I did, but I think that he also ended up with a bigger room than me with a better view. For him, as an Indian returning to Mumbai for the first time in a few years, staying at the JW Marriott was an exceptional treat, something he could never have dreamed of, for me, it was just another hotel (albeit quite grand). I much preferred the Grand Hyatt which leads on to…..
The Grand Hyatt Mumbai
http://mumbai.grand.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp
We’d originally planned to stay here for the entire trip but due to availability, weren’t able to secure a room here until a few days into the trip hence the detour to the JW Marriott at the start.
Well, this hotel is quite different to the Marriott. It is exceptionally contemporary and always seemed to be buzzing with activity. The rooms were a good size, with a flat screen TV, large bed, work desk, chaise lounge and an amazing bathroom. I had a full size bath and walk in shower, all adorned in dusty coloured marble.
My room at the Grand Hyatt, Mumbai
Work area and TV
The bathroom, bath in front with the wet room style shower to the left
While the rooms and the décor of the hotel were fantastic I did not like the level of visible security, especially the weapons on show. It took me a few days to notice the mini bunker complete with sandbags and a high calibre mounted machine gun hidden under a cloth, pointing right at the entrance gate. I found this unnerving.
Due to the security the hotel did have a bit of a ‘compound’ feel to it however, given the hours that we were arriving back at the hotel my colleague advised me that it would be best to eat in the hotel, rather than venturing out. We therefore spent a lot of time having room service, but decided to have this together, instead of eating separately, something I’d not done before but it was actually a really good idea.
Again, for my friend, this hotel was a dream come true. There were a number of firsts for him on this trip, not least, ordering room service, which was a bit of a mystery to him. I took it all in my stride, but that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it.
After a couple more days working, including Saturday (yes, Saturday) we finally ventured out on Sunday to explore the city. We were joined by another colleague for breakfast. I was just tucking into some eggs Benedict when my friend said to me “there’s something I should tell you”. I learned then that at 7pm on the previous evening a bomb had killed 9 people at a tourist spot in Pune which was about 200km from Mumbai. He said that Mumbai was on alert and that people were advised to avoid tourist areas as much as possible. This is was bad news and I spent a little while thinking about whether we should venture out, given that what we’d planned to do that day meant visiting a lot of the tourist spots. Eventually, after re-assurances from my colleagues we decided to head out.
We’d negotiated a driver for the day at a cost of 1300Rs (about £18.5) and he picked us up from the hotel after breakfast. We headed first down to the Gateway of India which anyone would recognise from news footage during the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008 (this is not the reason that we went down there, I must add).
Women in colourful saris watching the ferries at the Gateway of India
Our plan was to head to the Elephanta caves and needed to catch a ferry to the island.
The view from the ferry looking back at the Gateway and the Taj hotel
It took about an hour to get to the island and I was glad that shade was provided on the top deck (10 rupees more) as it was a very hot and sunny day in Mumbai (33 degrees C). Upon arrival visitors have to walk quite a distance to get to the entrance of the caves. Along the way there are various people selling fruits, snacks, drinks and gifts. My friend wanted to have a certain type of fruit that looked rather disgusting!
The 'brain' fruit
A young French couple looked on with interest as the lady prepared the fruit, as did I. It looked like the mashed up brains! My friend encouraged the French lady to try it, and as suspected, she didn’t like it. I wasn’t about to go anywhere near it, despite insistence from my friend.
Elephanta Caves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephanta_Caves
The Elephanta caves are a series of caves that have been cut into the rock containing statues and carvings. Entrance to view the caves was charged at 250Rs for foreigners and only 10Rs for Indians. Not sure that kind of race based ticketing policy would be allowed in the Western world!
Inside one of the caves on Elephanta Island
I found the caves amazing. I’d never seen anything like it before. My colleagues were less impressed, apparently this kind of thing is common in India and they’d seen it all before.
After running the gauntlet back down to the ferry we instructed our driver to take us to CST (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, or the central railway station in Mumbai).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhatra...ivaji_Terminus
This was featured in Slumdog Millionaire and I wanted to get down on to the platform to take some photos. Due to the heightened security however, photography was banned. I learned later that this was because an American national had planned the Mumbai attacks by photographing locations, such as CST many months prior to the attacks.
Life goes by – a man sleeping outside CST
So no go with CST so therefore it was on to Dhobi Ghat.
Dhobi Ghat
This is where Mumbai get it’s washing done. You may have seen scenes of Mumbai’s famous outdoor laundrette before but to actually see it in real life is quite spectacular.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhobi_Ghat
Dhobi Ghat – Mumbai’s outdoor laundrette
I spent about half an hour watching the activity. Interestingly, it all seemed to be men and boys doing the work. There were clothes being washed and hung out to dry all over the place. Everything seemed to run like clock work.
A worker hanging up a bundle of washed clothes
For anyone that is into photographing people, this is the place to be. There is so much activity.
After this is was time to head back to the hotel for a little relaxation before dinner. We went to a restaurant that was recommended to us by one of the staff waiting in the bar area of the hotel. He even gave us his mobile number in case we couldn’t find it.
Verdict on Mumbai
I’d never been to India before and I wasn’t sure what to expect. From my first experiences in the taxi on the way to the office on Monday morning I was sure that I would never go back. In fact, had I been travelling on my own I’m sure that I’d have hated the place. However, once I settled into things I started to realise what a truly amazing place Mumbai is. It’s vibrant, packed full of friendly people with a real warmth and sense of humility about them. The culture is very different to the UK and I did find the level of service hard to get comfortable with. For example, it is very normal to ask my junior office colleagues to ride in to town to fetch a can of coke for me. This is something that you’d never dream of doing in the UK but in India, not only is it not rude, it is expected. Often I was challenged on why I was doing certain things for myself, “we can send one of the office wallas”. It’s almost as if, by doing it myself, I’m keeping someone out of a job. It is all part of the culture.
A word about the contrast between rich and poor. Well, it’s huge. On the way to work I watched as people washed themselves in the street and saw the huge crowds of people waiting for someone to come along and offer them work. I found this uncomfortable but felt that it was just part of life in Mumbai, in that, without it, Mumbai would not be Mumbai.
Would I go back to Mumbai and India? Definitely, without a doubt, 100% yes. I’d hope to spend more time exploring and less time working. One thing I know, I would not travel alone and would try to organise to travel with my Indian friend.
To follow - the flight back to London