A Great Day

While I was away from the internet, I had one of the best days of my trip so far (maybe of the year so far). It started out with a coffee date with three people from couchsurfing in Juhu. After I buried my face in a bowl-sized mug of cafe au lait (something I had sorely missed, here all of the coffee and tea comes in shot glass sized cups that are half full of sugar), we headed out in search of lunch. First we went to a cafe called candies (photo 1). It's a restaurant hidden away. Stepping inside is like teleporting to somewhere in the Mediterranean. The place is four stories, winding up with colorful glass and blue and white tile. People sit inside and outside, eating beautiful, carefully crafted confections. It was lovely to walk around in, but super crowded, so we decided to go elsewhere. Ultimately we settled on a kabob restaurant with delicious bread. From there I walked to meet Vik (at the KFC, naturally).

We continued to walk around Bandra, and then jumped into a cab to continue the culinary tour in South Bombay. We took the Worli Sealink (a huge bridge that extends over the sea, funny story about that later*) to Cafe Universal, a very old restaurant with an exposed beam ceiling and wooden benches. After a corona, salad and garlic bread, we headed to Marine Drive to take a walk. Sitting by the water we got a thimble sized coffee from a guy going by on a bike. The man had a large metal container with tea and coffee strapped behind him and was biking down the strip. We continued down Marine Drive to the Chowpatty beach, where I had my fortune told by a machine (picture 2). From there we hopped in a cab to go to the Haji Ali, a mosque built in the middle of the ocean that you have to walk down a long boardwalk to get to.  But we were interested in religion, we wanted a strawberry creme from the famous juice stand near by. I have to pause for a second to tell you how unbelievable good it was. Such fresh strawberries, and the creme: sweet and not quite whipped, but not liquid. I plan on having it at least three more times before I leave, maybe I'll even be tempted to try another flavor (peach, cashew, etc). From there, even though I was tired, we decided that we should go to Bandra for a drink, it was Saturday night after all... we thought the day was almost over, but it was just getting started. To be continued...

Love,
Violet


* Since I'm leaving you hanging I'll tell you about the Worli Sealink. I was in cab with two people from my hostel. We were headed to Crawford market (see earlier post). They had to catch a bus to Goa so were trying to head down quickly. I suggested to the cab driver that we take the bridge, the "Worli Ceiling". After I explained what ceiling meant to my fellow travelers, they asked me why it was called that, I said I had no idea, maybe because the bridge was high, and the only thing there. At that point the driver turned around to me and said, "sea-link, worli sea-link". Turns out I had been saying it wrong all that time.