Crawford Market

We had about 5 hours to kill before the start of the Street Food Tour, and it seemed pointless to travel the 45 minutes back to our hotel, to then have to travel the 1hr 30 to the meeting point for the food tour, so we headed to the Crawford Market and the Chor Bazaar (thieves market). Legend has it that Queen Victoria arrived in Bombay but found her favourite violin missing from its case! Furious, she gathered her guards and demanded that her violin be found at once, the guards searched all over Bombay and found her violin hanging in a window in one of the shops, it was returned to its rightful owner and she declared that from now on, that street be known as Thieves Market.











We had a really good wander around and picked up some amazing bargains, so many infact that i had to buy a holdall to put them in :-)
We got some stainless steel grill plates, a traditional roti skillet, some stainless serving tongs and spoons, a silk pashmina, leather belt, some gorgeous little baby clothes for the newest bundle of cuteness that is Eva McKeown and some other things but i cant remember what exactly.

The market is a really authentic, street stall type of place with the hustle and bustle you get when local people are here doing their everyday shopping and i dont recall seeing any other westerners at all.

We stopped at a Thali restaurant for lunch, and it was surprisingly delicious! thali is a large round dish with lots of little dishes and chutneys, and soups. I suppose it is the Indian equivalent of Tapas, we had no idea what half of the things were, and one of the green chutney's was hotter than the fires of hell lol, but it was v tasty and at £3 each was a proper bargain.







It was getting closer to our meet time of 5:30 so we jumped into a rickshaw and headed to Castlefield station we were there about 30 minutes early so we just found a nice shaded and breezy step to sit on. Gem was causing quite a stir amongst the local men with her blonde hair and blue eyes and it does take a bit of getting used to because if another bloke was staring the same way back home i would be having words, you just have to try and remember that its a different culture : different rules, so i just stare back at them and smile when they realise im onto them.
We got some good advice from Prashant regarding the street kids and begging... Basically dont give them money as they are being forced out to beg by gangs, give them food instead. So when a 6/7 year old girl came up to us with her hand out this is exactly what i did. She looked really surprised when i stood up and made my way towards the Wimpy burger on the platform, i motioned for her to follow me, which she did very hesitantly, and i think the fact that Gem was with me made her feel a bit safer. When she met me at the counter i pointed at the food menu and she pointed at the chocolate ice cream (kids are the same around the world!) so i bought her a choc ice cream cone and a veggie burger with fries. She looked so happy as she walked away waving goodbye to us with chocolate ice cream all over her chin and a burger in hand!

Location:Mumbai