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Beth and I just came back from four days in the Maldives, burning up all our hotel points. We stayed on an incredible private island the size of a city block, lounged on the beach all day, drank white wine and pina coladas, petted stingrays, went scuba diving, read a lot, and drank some more pina coladas. It was great.
Where exactly are the Maldives, you ask?
And what does it look like there?
Throughout the week-long Ganpati (Ganesh) Festival in Mumbai, neighborhoods display Ganesh idols in temporary temples built on the street -- some of these plaster of paris Ganeshes can reach ten feet tall. On the final day of the festival, families and big groups carry their Ganesh idols to the ocean and immerse them in the water. I think the tradition comes from when the idols were made from clay -- by returning them to their original element, one ensures that next year Ganesh will return (don't quote me though).
Anyway, on the last day of the festival, the whole city basically shuts down and massive crowds march through the streets with their Ganeshes to immerse them in the ocean. It's quite a spectacle -- especially on Chowpatty Beach, where we were.
We had a great trip going with some friends to see the action, and were lucky enough to know someone who had wrangled a boat to go out and see the immersions up close. Kudos to him, since by all accounts this is simply not done. It's not illegal, but there are just no boats to rent anywhere and if you asked you'd be turned down. Increasingly, we find that the art of living in Mumbai is knowing when and how to circumvent these sometimes baffling limitations that everyone, foreigner and local alike, finds in their way.
See the rest of our pictures on Flickr.
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