Trains, Planes, and Automobiles...and walking

Namaste,
This post will contrast the transportation differences in Mumbai versus Canada. I am sure all these modes of transportation are a topic unto themselves but I will try to cover the basics concerning these modes of transportation.
Firstly the least interesting is planes. I arrived on July 10th at 01:00am via Frankfurt. I flew a Air Canada flight to Frankfurt and Lufthansa to Mumbai. Before I came I was excited to excited to be riding in a 747 from Frankfurt to Mumbai. Little did I know that 747's are way over rated. Firstly I will start with the size. There are hundreds of people on this one plane and they all seem to have one problem or another. Weather it be they can't stand having their tray table down or they can't have garbage for more than 10 seconds before calling a stewardess, everyone had something they needed. I am sure the Lufthansa flight attendants have to take loads of pills to calm their nerves and lull themselves into a trance of slavery before boarding the Frankfurt ---> Mumbai flight. The lady beside me had something to give almost every fight attendant that walked by her aisle seat, the wrapper from her in flight magazine, her headphone wrapper, another blanket request, followed a few minutes later by another pillow request, I guess I shouldn't judge people but I just found it a little different from the Air Canada flight where people were scared to recline their seat 10 degrees. Also they showed 2 Hindi movies on the flight so I just listened to music and read the whole trip. Another German exchange student said he watched the first and last 10 minutes of the Hindi movie and could grasp the entire story. I also had some difficulties that I have not revealed to anyone yet. At the Frankfurt airport, which you may know is massive, I got off the Air Canada flight without having slept at all on a 9.5 hour flight and I found my way to the gate. What I said was I found my way to the gate not my gate. It turns out I went to the gate for a Frankfurt to Delhi flight that was leaving at exactly the same time, I saw the big plane and thought that must be my plane. I waited in the boarding room for a good 1/2 hour at gate C14 my actual gate was C13. So here I am sitting in the wrong boarding gate, tired, eating my chocolate bar and listening to music and I had an epiphany. I looked up then thought I have a feeling I am in the wrong gate. So luckily I rushed off to my right gate, which was only a 2 minute walk away, right as they started boarding. So that's my little mental adventure in the Frankfurt airport. One thing that is weird about Mumbai is that they have an international and domestic airport. I spoke to a German exchange student who had trouble with this. His international flight arrived forty-five minutes late and he had to haul his luggage from the international to domestic airport for a connecting flight to Nagpur. Oh ya did I mention most flights arrive at the international airport after midnight so he arrived at 2am and had to manage all this. Everything worked out though. I think that is it for planes.
Automobiles are different here, as you can imagine, everything is different here. Most cars are very small compared to North American cars and every car I've seen has a manual transmission. Also the cars dive on the left side of the road here so crossing the road can be a little confusing. In south Mumbai every third car is a taxi, one company had 15,000 taxis on the road in Mumbai. The taxis I have been in are funny because they have a manual transmission but have a gear shifter like those old Mini Vans, the bar that you pull towards you and down into drive. It is funny. Mumbai is a city of great wealth so there are many fancy cars, like BMW's with limousine tints and lots of Mercedes, but there are also a fair number of 3 wheeled vehicles. In the part I am living in, Mahim, Rickshaws are not allowed because they are a form of efficient transportation only for the Suburbs, so I don't see many rickshaws but I see a lot of taxis. The volume of traffic is also insane; it is bumper to bumper everywhere as soon as you leave your residential area. Drivers here just look out for "Numero Uno" so you really have to be on your toes when driving and while you are a pedestrian. While driving people just use whatever lane or portion of lane they feel like, often you will have 4 cars on a two lane road and one trying to pass them all. Signal lights are not really used and when used they are improperly used. When people change lanes they just swerve over and hope the person beside them swerves too. When people do put on their signal it is often left on for a few minutes just to keep other drivers on their toes. When someone does something really idiotic to anger another driver both drivers stop in the middle of the road and argue a little while cars go around them, it rarely escalates into anything more than an argument. People in Mumbai use their horns far more than any place of been to. But I think they need to, horns are for warning here, not when someone is an idiot. So we will be driving down the road and we will honk, no car is around but that pedestrian up there may want to cross without looking so we honk. All big vehicles have a sign on the back that says: "Horn ok please". People wonder why I run across the roads here and it is just because I don't know any of the roads or traffic. I will be running across a road with no traffic because I don't know if there will be a stream of traffic coming to get me in a matter of seconds. Here there are no flashing hands as pedestrian signs, you have walk and don't walk pedestrian lights, if you are walking and the walk sign changes to don't walk you better get the hell out of there because the light just tuned green to a pack of speeding cars was just let loose and are heading your way. Like the running of the bulls urban style yo. Other automobile differences are the motor cycles and mopeds. There are so many of these around, and they all weave their way through traffic like maniacs. At Red lights they all go to the front of the intersection, so you need to wait for a big pack of bikes to clear before going. I am sure there is more to write concerning the roads but I will save that for later.
Trains, this is my personal favorite. The trains are not just transportation in Mumbai they are a way of life. People live by train times, a 5:22 vs. 5:26 train time makes a world of difference. I will not be able to explain everything that goes on in the trains but I will try my best. First you get to the station and see all the eccentric personalities to be nice. You will have the beggars, trying to...well beg, the shoe shiners trying to get your attention even though I wear sandals, and the garbage sweepers just sweeping everything onto the tracks. There are the weirdest things on the tracks, there are many single sandals, or shoes, combs, rubber balls and then lots of rubbish. I think the weirdest thing I saw was at the Grant Road station, I wasn't getting off but there was a lady and she was walking with a monkey on leash. Also people just go to the washroom anywhere on the tracks, at least once a day you see someone urinating near the station on the tracks, I saw one fellow squatting and taking a poop on the tracks. I don't want to make this seem like something negative but it is definitely different. So the trains have 9 or 12 cars and most are second class but one is for ladies only and one for first class. So when the train rolls up you have your backpack on the front of your body and you must to allow people off first then everyone just squeezes their way in pushing and shuffling like nothing else. I stole this saying from someone else but you are “packed in there like sardines in a can.” So if you take the smell of sardines that is the smell, the way they stick to each other that is what happens because of the humidity, and the sights are some of the most memorable yet gruesome moments. I have seen so many people with one leg, or none (on a piece of wood dragging themselves along), or one arm, I saw a kid with one arm picking up garbage, there are so many blind people it’s insane and I saw a burn victim whose face is tattooed into my mind. I was behind a blind person trying to get off at Dadar station (the busiest station I’ve experienced) and he was dog paddling the air in front of him and taking hundreds of tiny steps, he had his feeling stick hanging off a sting on one of his arms and hustled off there fairly quickly. He did run into the pole in the middle of the door kinda hard but it was mostly with his hands, I was very impressed with his effort. Naturally being the only white person on the train everyone looks at me for most of the ride. I’m pretty much used to it now. So once you get on you gotta get away from the open door, otherwise you will get pushed out with the rest of the crowd at the next stop. Oh ya by the way there aren’t any fancy buttons to press to get on the train there are just open doors that people hang out of. The first time I got on the train I didn’t see what the big fuss was but then I got on a rush-hour train and all those 70 handles hanging from the ceiling are being used plus all the seats and those who hang out the door. I saw one guy sitting on the top of the train the other day, it looked more comfortable than the sardine can underneath but I wouldn’t want to be electrocuted. Getting off the train you just go reasonably close to the door without risking falling out and get pushed out with the rest of the crowd. Sometime people clog the exit even if they are not getting out and you have to push a little but I haven’t had any beefs with anyone. So that is Mumbai urban trains in nutshell but there are probably many things I forgot. I may address some of those later in my blog.
Walking I touched on a little my last topic so I will just summarize. Most people walk on the road not the sidewalk, you must look down when you are walking (I have stepped in poop twice and vegetable once), you cross when you want but you will get honked at, do not get distracted by what is going on around you concentrate on a point in front of you, and lastly driving on the left side of the road changes a lot, it means you walk on the left side of the sidewalk and on the left side of staircases this is confusing for a Canadian boy to learn.
I have not taken a bus yet but you just jump onto the bus’s open door before it speeds off, if I had a rupee for every person I saw run and jump onto a moving bus I would be set for the rest of the year.

This picture is of a train in transit, the movement of the train blurs it a little but you can see the people hanging out the door, sitting down in the train and all the stuff around the tracks.

The Mumbai system of transportation is complicated but public transit is very efficient and interesting. I hope you understand transportation in Mumbai better now but I have only scratched the surface of the endless web that is ways of transportation in Mumbai.

PS I love comments, and now they are open to anyone.