Mumbai

mum

The Gateway of India

Dosas for breakfast

Racing home in a 60s era taxi on the Sea Link

Jetty near Bandra Fort in Bandra West

Dahi Batata Puri from Mumbai's famed Swati Snacks

Preparing sugar cane juice. Delicious!

Onion pakoda sandwich from a street vendor

Some street scenes feel uniquely Indian: a pig rooting through a flaming pile of garbage, raw sewage bubbling on the pavement, a government employee sweeping trash out of a bin and back onto the ground, rickshaws swerving around cows in the road. But despite its size and strangeness, Mumbai is less chaotic and less charismatic than the mega-cities of Southeast Asia. Mumbai's charms, most of which were edible, easily reshaped my view of Indian food (which I loved to begin with). Though when the food makes you as ill as I was, these pleasures quickly become regrets. ("Immodium: When that lassi blows straight out your ass-ey," was our favorite of about one hundred Immodium ad campaigns we came up with while trying not to get sick on a bus.) Buy a sugar cane juice if you can manage to find one. But avoid anything called a Bombay Breeze - it is a better name for a cocktail when you don't know what the city actually smells like.