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We go out to the airpot around 3 am. The warm and
humid air brought us intense and smells new and the front of the
airport was semi.
Emerge out of nowhere a strange person who offered us a taxi. There
was another and there was so much a choice and then let us accompany
careless in a dark and hidden corners of the square where we
expected an old Fiat 1100 with driver.
After a few meters he stopped at a dealer and asked us for an
advance of the race agreed to pay for gasoline.
Him a note from Rupee 1000 and just changed them shortly after we
returned the remainder of a 100 banknote. A nothing won our efforts
and protests, they had prepared a note 100 and claimed to have
received.
Around us, and dim lamps in the middle of a hot and humid night in
India, a Bombay anything but calming was showing.
At some point notammo clearly the gesture of the crew that we had at
that aggangiato cutting off the contact by turning the key in the
center of the dashboard, and immediately warning that the car had
problems and that we would have continued with another car ... ready
to expect just where we were stopping a running engine.
Capimmo immediately the gravity of the situation and that the two
pards were determined to get us something more than the rest of the
note Misrepresentation by 1000.
Andrea responded promptly with the decision.
Immediately fell out of screaming, literally ripped from the hand
luggage of the two and threw them in the middle of the road semi, at
the edge of which a little reassuring teeming multitude of people in
an endless string of ramshackle huts and camps supported on wide
sidewalks in style Colonial.
It was just a moment.
Andrea yelled pull the two individuals and bags and now I was
preparing for the worst when suddenly out of nowhere came a rickety
car from which police took two senior agents with mustache curled
upwards and turban with long batons and immediately began to attack
with violence the three individuals, Sibilano their threats and
warnings.
While one of the agents arranged to load the handful of carefully
lestofanti self handcuffed and visibly dented, the other stopped a
taxi and explained true to a mild and friendly taxi driver the
situation, who immediately offered to take us to the hotel.
It was 1994 and the following days, with that mild to hire taxi
driver immediately, have also seen wonderful sights such as the
Gopuram.
A few days before the public of Bombay had been
shaken by violent demonstrations by the explosion of some bombs that
have caused numerous victims, and the colonial walls adjacent the
wide sidewalks was still possible to see clear and disturbing splash
of blood that we would then have better viewing during the next
week.
Welcome to Bombay.
In the following days did not
happen anything special avemmo and the
opportunity to visit the city, its markets, the
old and unusual shops in the center where it was
possible to find old and rare antiques colonial
English with expressions of the best Indian art,
walking between a multi-that indescribable
review the teeming streets full of debris, waste
of every kind and open-air sewers, and among
them advancing nearly sliding into narrow and
twisted paths, taking poor rags and things
between cows and various animals and dragging
bundles and carts satisfied.
Galle' glass vases and silverware Tiffany '800, and
antique ivory inlaid sitar.
And on the sidewalks unclean and ragged rents tents, children, women
and old among the hungry and suffering lepers told them resigned
despair.
Orientation
Mumbai is located on the center-west of India, facing the
Arabian Sea. The city has grown to 160 years in an
independent manner from its hinterland and still belongs to
a different world was the vast majority of Maharashtra
hinduista including 550 km. of coastline, some of the
Western Ghat and part of the plateau of Deccan.
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The Western Ghati (mountains whose name
means steps) rise to the north of Mumbai and run parallel to
the coast, with an average altitude of 935 m, and these
mountains are cloaked in tropical forests and temperate
evergreen and mixed forests with deciduous plants. Home to a
wealth of flora and fauna, which includes 28% of flowering
plants in India. Mumbai is an island connected to the
mainland by several bridges. |
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The area's main town is concentrated into the southern, with
the claw-shaped, on this peninsula to the south of the
village, which is called Colaba, gravita most tourists,
because the district offers a good assortment hotels and
restaurants, and two of the most important landmarks of the
city, the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Hotel.
Immediately north of Colaba is the Fort district, the strong
English that once stood there. Further west is Marine Drive,
which winds around the Back Bay and connects the skyscrapers
of the modern business center of the beach of Chowpatty. To
the north are the suburbs of Greater Mumbai, where are
located the two airports, Sahar International and Santa Cruz
(the latter used as internal flights). |
There is also a beach in Bombay
and sometimes (but curiously not always) the
people are pouring into the picturesque and
completely insane, rigorously dressed.
Leaving the city every thing
becomes more livable, even enjoyable.
The charm of palpable surface and allows
children to smile while nell'incontrastata
poverty endemic.
And Mumbai is also the panic of the kitsch of
Bollywood cinema, cricket on the Maidan (the
grassy areas) during the weekend, the bhelpuri
to Chowpatty beach and red buses with two
floors. But it is also marked by the infamous
cages of the red light district, the largest
slum of Asia, the polices and the powerful lords
of the Mafia. The clash between the aspects that
are competing for the soul of Mumbai is taking
place against the backdrop of an urban landscape
of Victorian taste, much like a prosperous
industrial city of the English nineteenth
century to what you would expect to find on the
shores of the Arabian Sea.
Mumbai is the industrial center of each kind of
production, from textiles to petrochemicals, and
has control of half of the foreign trade of
India.
But, despite its aspirations to become a second
Singapore, the city attracts irresistibly the
rural poor and the new waves of immigration
continue to transform the face, keeping it in
the balance between the deep links with its
hinterland and the international global market.
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Mumbai (मुंबई
hindi/marathi:) is
a city in India and is the state capital of
Maharashtra.
He was known
as Bombay, a name still used in the West.
Mumbai is located on Salsette to western.
And 'the largest harbor in the country
between those bordering the Western Indian
Ocean, with its large natural port.
It is the sixth city in the world, with its
13.7 million inhabitants, without counting
the metropolitan area and the satellite
cities, which represent about 21 million
people.
Mumbai
is the economic capital of India and hosts
some of the most important financial
institutions like the Reserve Bank of India,
the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Indian
National Stock Exchange and a number of
large local companies. The film industry and
television in Hindi language, popularly
known as Bollywood, has here its production
and distribution center.
Because of
the economic opportunities it offers, Mumbai
has attracted migrants and draws the entire
South Asia - by creating a strong contrast
of cultures, peoples and customs in a
remarkable extended, so that Mumbai is one
of the few cities to have a national park
The Borivali National Park, in its city
limits.
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The name Mumbai is
derived from Mumba, the name of the Hindu
goddess Mumbadevi, and aai, which means mother
in marathi. In the sixteenth century the
Portuguese called it Bom Bahia area, then Bomaím
in corrupt or Bombaìm and anglicizzato arrival
in Bombay of the British. The name of the city
was officially changed in Mumbai but the change
has not yet been well absorbed, either in the
West, where the old survives word, nor by the
local population, who still calls Bombay city.
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Repubblic of
India
Bharat Juktarashtra |
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Area: 3,166,414 km ² (3,287,263 km ² in
the territories occupied by China and Pakistan)
Population: 1,028,610,000
Density: 324 ab / Km ²
Form of government: Federal Republic
Capital: New Delhi (9920000 inh., 13,790,000 aggl.
Urbano)
Other cities:
Mumbai (Bombay) 12,915,000 ab. (17,370,000 aggl. Urbano)
Kolkata (Calcutta) 5,580,000 inhabitants. (14,215,000
aggl. Urbano)
Bangalore 4890000 ab. (6,685,000 aggl. Urbano)
Chennai (Madras) 4,915,000 inhabitants. (7,425,000 aggl.
Urbano)
Ahmadabad 4515000 ab. (5,520,000 aggl. Urbano)
Hyderabad 3950000 ab. (5,935,000 aggl. Urbano)
Pune 2940000 ab. (4,755,000 aggl. Urbano)
Kanpur 2,930,000 inhabitants. (3,590,000 aggl. Urbano)
Surat 2835000 ab. (3,210,000 aggl. Urbano)
Jaipur 2325000 ab.,
Lucknow 2265000 ab.,
Nagpur 2125000 ab.,
Patna 1,705,000 inhabitants.,
Indore 1640000 ab.,
Vadodara 1,490,000 inhabitants.,
Bhopal 1,455,000 inhabitants.,
Coimbatore 1445000 ab.,
Ludhiana 1,395,000 inhabitants.,
Kochi 1355000 ab.,
Visakhapatnam 1,330,000 inhabitants.,
Agra 1320000 ab.,
1210000 Varanasi ab.
Ethnic groups: Indoari 72%, Melanidi 25%, Mongolidi 3%
Neighboring countries: Pakistan to the west, China,
Nepal and Bhutan in the North, Myanmar (formerly Burma)
and Bangladesh in the EST
Monti main Kanchenjunga 8598 m
Major rivers: Brahmaputra 2900 Km (total, including
Chinese and stretches bangalese), Ganges 2125 Km (Indian
tract, total 2510 Km), Godavari 1465 Km, 1400 Km Yamuna,
Krishna 1400 Km, 1310 Km Narmada
Main lakes: Hirakud 1100 Km ²
Main islands: Andaman Islands 6408 km ² (Middle Andaman
1536 km ²), Nicobar Islands, 1841 km ² (Great Nicobar
1045 km ²), Laccadive 32 Km ²
Climate: Tropical - temperate
Resort: Hotel Allestimenti Computer Cooked Last minute
Mamilu
Language: Hindi (national language), Assamese, Bengali,
Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam,
Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit,
Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu (all official), English
Religion: Hindu 82%, Muslim 12%, Christian 2.5%, Sikh 2%
Currency: Indian Rupee 100
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Where to stay
Indian Recipes |
Fly AIR FRANCE:
Fly to India
Delhi and Mumbai
starting from 644 € |
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