This morning we had to pack up and leave our Airbnb because they had work and were having a party in the evening. They said that if we had originally requested two nights, we probably could’ve kept our things there, but because it was only one night they can say that they are unavailable the next night.
Mumbai in the day
We went to the R City Mall, which was about a block away, to find some Wi-Fi to figure out how we were going to get down to Goa. We had no luck, so we went back to The Address to sit by the door of our previous Airbnb for Wi-Fi, hahah. We requested an Airbnb in Goa, figured out that we should take a bus down, where to go for that, and we were on our way to the Ghatkopar West station. We took a train to the Chatkapati Shiv station. It cost us Rs.10 ($0.15) and was about 50 minutes.
Train tickets
Time lapse on the train
Working on the railroad
When we got to the station and were looking for where to purchase tickets for Goa, a guy who looked a bit like Laurence Fishburne came up to us and asked us where we were going (great English), so we told him. He said that he works for a travel company and can get us cheap tickets down there. We said okay and followed him to his shop. They told us the tickets would be Rs.2600 ($40) each; which seemed like a lot but because it was short notice, it was legit. They told us the bus would be meeting in front of the Children’s Hospital at 6:00 PM, and we could leave our bags there and they'd be safe. This meant we had about 3 hours to kill.
Inside a train
Train station
Ben
Natraj Travels..
We walked down the street and checked out all of the awesome architecture of the buildings. 'Alfred', the French guy we met in Jaipur, told us Mumbai has some great architecture so I was glad we'd made it here. We walked past a museum called the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya museum: there’s about 50,000 exhibits of ancient Indian history inside– it was Rs.550 ($8.50) for tourists, so we didn’t go in. We did kind of loiter on the lawn, before we were told to leave haha
Art?
Building
Building
Church of St. Andrew (1815)
Ben outside CSMVS
Lady outside another museum
Zac on the streets
Live photo of Zac on the streets
Reserve Bank of India
We met this guy who asked for our help depositing money into a bank..? He bought us chai and explained that the bank wouldn’t tax us because we were tourists, but if he tried to deposit the money he would have to prove where came from? At first, it seemed like an okay idea, he even said he would pay us for helping him, but then we mentioned that we were going to Goa and purchased tickets from a third-party travel company and that our tickets were Rs.2600 ($40) each. His eyes got wide and he said, “Are you kidding me? I thought you boys would be smarter than that! They totally just ripped you off, big time. Tickets to Goa should only be Rs.500 ($7.70) at most. Maybe I shouldn’t trust you with my money..” We about lost it. We told him, “good luck with finding somebody to do your dirty money work, but we’ve got to go get our money back!” We started back towards the travel company’s shop but I told Ben, “why should we trust that guy? We should go to the bus/train counter and verify what the price would be.” As we were entering the station, 'Laurence Fishburne' saw us and asked us what we were doing. We lied and said we were checking the lost and found because Ben lost a little toy. We didn’t want to tell him that we knew they were ripping us off, because we didn’t want to ruin our chances just in case it wasn’t true.? And we didn’t want to have to carry our bags the rest of the day.. haha As Ben got the counter I distracted him by asking questions: how long have you lived in Mumbai, do you help a lot of people get bus rides to Goa, what else does your company do? etc. He didn’t seem suspicious at all. He made good eye contact, kind of looked around the station for other 'victims', but happily answered my questions. Ben came back to us empty-handed and he said that the lady had not seen it. He said that we were going to go back to the café we were at; Laurence said he hopes it is there. Hahaha When we got out of sight of him, he said the lady confirmed that they are in fact only Rs.500 ($7.70); but you purchased them upstairs. We thought maybe we could purchase them for tomorrow and tell the other company that we are going to stay a night or two here but will come back. I started filling out the information for ticket, but I told Ben we should go get our money back first, because what if they wouldn’t give it back. We marched back to the building and told them that we’d like our money back because we met some friends who invited us to stay the night and we would be back tomorrow instead. They said that we could not receive our money back because the bus was leaving in one hour. We said that we had already purchased a hostel room for the night, and they said that they would keep the money so we in fact would come back tomorrow. This did not make us happy, Ben snapped at them: "are you kidding me? You just ripped us off 5 times more than you should have. We talked to a guy who told us tickets to Goa are only supposed to be Rs.500, and you charged us Rs.2600 each. We are going to write down your company’s name and give it the worst review ever gotten. We are going to warn everyone not to ever do business with you, because you are dishonest, lying, thieves. We deserve our money back and a ride down for free. This is absolutely unacceptable.” I was very surprised by this, and even more surprised when they gave us Rs.1300 ($20) back! When we asked for the rest the money, they said that they were not able to give full refunds back. We took our bags and left. We found an Internet café and connected to the Wi-Fi to confirm that we even had an Airbnb/where it would be. Once it was confirmed it was about time to meet for the bus. We waited outside of the hospital and I went off to get us some food: rice and veg. The shop owner said they had made too much, so he put it in 3 containers! As I came back to Ben, he was talking to some guy– I gave Ben his food and offered the guy the third container. He seemed like a pretty cool guy and we talked for a while. While the sun went down, we didn’t see anyone gathering that looked like they were getting on a bus and at 6:02PM we still saw no bus or people... I asked our friend if had a phone we could use and he did. I called twice with no answer. There was another travel agency “bus stop“ across the street. I asked him where our bus was, but he didn’t know. At 6:30 PM, we figured we had been bamboozled. Before we decided to call it quits and go find somewhere to stay, our homeboys phone started ringing and he handed it to me. Some random guy was on the line and knew my name. I said that we were in front of the hospital like we were told and that we did not see any bus. He said that he would be there in a minute to pick us up? A guy in a cab (not really a tuk-tuk) came to pick us up– but as we were leaving, our homeboy asked us for rupees! He said he wasted his time talking to us and he let us use his phone a few times. We told him no way and started walking away, and he said, “what’d you just say?" Ben turned and yelled, “we are not giving you any money!” Homeboy was angry. Ben thought he was going to have to fight him. We hurried to the cab we drove for about 30 minutes(!??) to where we met up with the bus and a bunch people who were riding the bus with us. We hung out around the bus for another 45 minutes or so, then got on and started our drive to Goa.
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