Down inside the bowels of Dhobi Ghat

06.01.2018 - 06.01.2018

Dharavi & Sightseeing & Night Tour

Three more “back to back” tours today. It is going to be another long day. Wonder how many photos / videos that I will take today? Not as many as yesterday.

Leaving from the hotel at 9.30am / 09:30 with Reality Tours guide Jitu as my guide and Pradeep as my driver in an air con car.

This is what Reality Tours said …

Learn about Dharavi and the rest of Mumbai in one day and get a full picture of life in Mumbai.

Known to many as 'one of the largest slums in Asia', we prefer to think of Dharavi as Mumbai’s beating heart. It houses about one million of Mumbai’s inhabitants and its industries have an annual turnover of approximately US$ 665 million.

Through our educational walking tours, visitors experience a wide range of these business activities: recycling, pottery-making, embroidery, bakery, soap factory, leather tanning, poppadom-making and many more.

We’ll also visit the residential areas of Dharavi. People from all over India have come to live in Dharavi, making it a microcosm of India. This diversity is apparent in the temples, mosques, churches and pagodas that stand side by side.

Our three community centres that are funded through the profits from the tours are also located in the residential area. We will visit one of them and you will learn about the programs that our NGO, Reality Gives, offers the community.

Our 2.5 hour introduction to Dharavi aims to give visitors a much more nuanced understanding of life and work in Mumbai slums.

In the afternoon we will show you other, more traditional sights that Mumbai has to offer. For a list of what sights we generally see in the afternoon, see our Sightseeing by Car page.

This tour is individually designed for you, and you can do and see as little or as much as you please. The tour guide, who also has detailed knowledge of the more traditional sights, will be with you for the day. He can give some suggestions for what to see, but ultimately, the itinerary is completely up to you.

http://realitytoursandtravel.com/dharavi-tour-car-mumbai.php

Because it was a private tour and as I had already yesterday seen Dhobi Ghat the open air laundry and flower markets we had time up our sleeve.

Marine Drive

First stop was at the 4.5 km long ==Marine Drive== which is India’s Miami with its art deco buildings. In the evenings both locals and tourists throng here to enjoy the cooling sea breeze. Besides the coolness it is insulated and away from the horns!

Useless fact: Mumbai main employer is finance, then pharmacy and finally government.

Dhobi Ghat

Asked if I wanted to go back to the open air laundry, I said “Yes”. Then an offer was made to go on a walk through the laundry itself with a local. It was certainly taken up. Let’s just say he was an “acquaintance” of the guide.

Two hundred rupees / NZ$4.20 / US$3.00 was the tip for the short 10 minute walk through. Yes, I wish that I had more time but felt really privilege to have seen what went on below the rows and rows of clothes hanging up drying. The usual tourist view is merely looking down from the overhead bridge.

For 30 more photos inside Dhobi Ghat.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/VipulPrasadPhotography/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1006516062713274

Wholesale Flower Market

Because my time spent yesterday in the wholesale flower market by the Dadar railway station was short, decided to go back there.

However trouble with the car meant a short delay. At one stage I thought it would be into a taxi! Or perhaps Reality Tours had the helicopter on stand by for me!