Mumbai, India - Mar 10, 2013

Mumbai was formerly known as Bombay when under British rule. After the British left the name changed back to Mumbai, both names are still in use today. The city is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India and the fourth most populous in the world with a total metropolitan area population of about 20.5 million. We were here for two full days and two full hot incredible days is what we had. I will post by day. We were on our own tour for our visit here, touring with the same company as we had toured with in Goa and Cochin, so we knew we were going to be in good hands. Day one here just happened to be a festival day here in Mumbai where the local people here celebrate Lord Shiva. This celebration brings all the local worshipers to the Elephanta Caves at Elephanta Island so this is where all the action was for day one so our tour began here. The Elephanta Caves are a network of sculpted caves located on this island some 10 kilometers east of the city of Mumbai. The island can only be reached by 45 minute ferry and fortunately for us on our tour we had a big ferry to pretty much ourselves - see the pictures of the how the locals reached this island. These caves consist of two groups, the first is a large group of five Hindu Caves and the second is a smaller group of two Buddhist Caves. The Hindu caves contain rock cut stone sculptures, representing the Shiva Hindu sect, dedicated to Lord Shiva. The rock cut architecture of the caves dates back to eh 5th and 8th centuries. This island was called Gharapuri and was a Hindu place of worship until the Portuguese rule began in 1534. The Portuguese called this island Elephanta on seeing its huge gigantic statute of an Elephant at the entrance. In 1987 this site became a designated UNESCO Heritage site to help preserve the artwork of this amazing site. On the day of our visit this place was very busy and hot with many worshipers coming over in the best saras, so of course all the vendors were out in full force, crazy. We were then ferried back to the Gateway of India and whisked over to a very good seafood restaurant called Trishna - lunch was bit on the expensive side for India but was delicious. After our short lunch break we strolled over to The Prince of Wales Museum, since renamed as The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya . The museum was set up at the beginning of the 20th century to honor the visit of King George V’s to India, while he was still the Prince of Wales. This museum has three main sections, Art, Archaeology and Natural History. We toured this on our own with an audio guide, a very nice laid out museum that gave us a very introduction to India while setting us up for our more comprehensive day of touring for Monday. A very good day of touring this incredible city. We came back the ship around 5 pm and decided to stay in as there was a local cultural group coming on board and we were looking at a very full day of touring for Monday. Some pictures of our first day here in Mumbai.