Make way for the fish sellers

I always love to head to a local market to really see how the local people live. To see what they buy, to gauge the real price of things and to experience the buzz. 

Near where I’m staying in Mumbai is Sasoon fish market. On the coast the fishing boats fill the harbour and the market pulses early morning with the frenzied activity of buying selling the catch of the day. Both men and women masterfully balance full bowls of fish on their heads as they traverse the slippery pathways. Luckily I kept my balance, as it would have been horrible to find yourself on the floor with the fish juice! However there was rightfully a lot of pushing and shoving, as I carried my camera aloft trying to capture the best image. 

Feeding the seagulls

It was fantastic to catch the firsts glimpse of both The Taj hotel and the Gateway of India. I joined a long queue of other weekend Bombay tourists to get a boat out in to harbour to see them from the sea.

 

Once the boat arrived the waiting hoard rushed to board and in true Indian style we had to pay 10 rupees more to sit up top. Once out on the open water I could understand why the birds were flocking around the boat. Then the crisp seller came round and soon they were thrown into the air, and the gulls drive bombed to catch a snack, creating a huge frenzy. 

Only take an overnight bus if you’re desperate

The last leg of my journey had been organised as my last train trip of this adventure. However the journey was too long, and I would get to Mumbai really late in the evening, and I don’t like arriving in the dark to a new place if I can help it. So I cancelled my ticket and booked myself on the coach. 

Once embarked I insisted on taking the lower berth and then spent 15 hours swaying from side to side, as the coach lurched round corners, across potholes and swerving to overtake. Sometimes travel is just hard work....

This was the second largest city on earth!

I have been wanting to go to Hampi for a long time, and it was well worth the wait. These sprawling city ruins, from palaces to temples, watchtowers, markets and elephant houses are incredible. Work is underway across the sites to preserve them, given their world heritage status but the highlight was climbing the 575 steps up to the temple marking the site where Hanuman was born. Luckily at the beginning an Indian woman gave me her stick, as she had descended. So I braved the heat and my vertigo to head up the hill, up ever increasingly steep steps to get to the temple. Well worth the climb, the views were amazing, seeing across the bolder strewn landscape littered with ruins. In the 15th century this was the second largest city, beaten by Beijing, and traders came from Europe, Persia and China to buy gold, diamonds etc. 

You’re taking the bus!

I often feel I take the hardest route on purpose, for challenge, for the greater experience and just because I can. So with my morning free, I took the government bus into Hampi. Almost always I’m the only white foreigner on the bus, or for that matter wherever I am as I do, as I love to head to places a little off the tourist trail. But I do love the social side of transport, invariably someone plucks up the courage to chat, bemused as to why I’m on the bus and not hiring an auto rickshaw or taxi. This kind of chatter never happened in my 25 years of commuting on the jubilee line - there was no chatter at all, especially once everyone had a mobile phone glued to their gaze! 

What’s your birth year?

I arrived in Kamalapur really early. The train to Hospet was on time, and by 8am I had registered at my hotel too early for an available room. So I walked into the Main Street and popped into a coin and bronze trinket shop. After a bit of browsing the owner, who had by then finished the daily blessing of the shop with incense asked me by birth year, then proceeded to search through a large pile of coins. My gift for the day from him was a 1970 coin, which was a really nice gesture.  Shame I didn’t want to buy anything in the shop!