From Ahmadabad I headed to Bombay to meet two friends, Kyle and Maryanne. They were flying in to spend 11 days travelling with me. I was excited to have somebody to share my experiences with: to be able to point and say, “wow, look at that!”

When I arrived at the hotel early in the morning, I didn’t know that they had already checked in, so I took a room and waited for them. I then went and wandered the area around the hotel, which is in an area of the city called ‘Colaba’.
The feel of the city here was much more American or European. Auto rickshaws are not allowed into the city, and this made traffic seem much more sane. Streets were laid out on a grid. There were actual sidewalks. A young kid selling maps latched onto me, and ended up showing me around the area. I managed to not buy a map, but instead took him to the restaurant of his choice for a meal: MacDonald’s. So, yes, the first time I’ve eaten at MacDonald’s in probably 15 years was in Bombay.
I finally discovered that Kyle and Maryanne were in the hotel late in the afternoon. We had dinner and then turned in early. The next day we walked to the India Gate, a huge Arc-de-Triumph-style monument, to commemorate the arrival of the King and Queen of England in India. From there we caught a 2 1/2 hour ferry to Elephanta Island. Bombay is on a peninsula, and between it and the mainland are numerous small islands. Elephanta is famous for the cave temples which were carved out of the rock over 1000 years ago. The caves are quite large, and it was hard to imagine people excavating them with only hand tools. There are several beautiful sculptures in the main cave. Sadly, many of the caves have been ‘restored’ using reinforced concrete, so you are not actually seeing the cave, but a recreation thereof.
I had been warned about the monkeys on the island. The were said to steal food from tourists, and lived up to their reputation. Maryanne bought an ear of corn to eat on the walk up the hill to the caves. A monkey tried to grab her corn. She managed to avoid it, but while it had her distracted, another came up from behind and grabbed the corn.