Mumbai, Indian authorities & Ayurveda

I arrived in Mumbai early in the morning with only the day to spend before I took the night train for Nadiad to the Ayurveda clinic.

I was supposed to register my arrival back in India at the Indian Foreigner Registration Office, so this was the first thing I went to do. I had believed that the re-entry visa nightmare would be over on entering Indian soil - far from that. For ridiculous reasons (I needed a hotel receipt as proof of a local address, which I did not have since I was in transit, the address of the Ayurveda clinic was no good since it was in another state, etc.) they refused to confirm my re-entry.

So I spent half the day of my 1-day-visit in Mumbai with inefficient, frustrating bureaucracy. The other half of the day I rushed through the city to see some of the sights, and I have to say I quite liked the place. There is nice architecture, you can actually walk around without being hassled too much, and there are street signs indicating where you are. Colaba would be the part of town where I could imagine spending some days and Chowpatty beach promenade seems to be a real nice place to hang out - anyhow, its rather romantic :)



I would have liked to have gotten to know Mumbai better but due to the time I'd lost with this unfortunate visa business, I needed to move on. And as I said, the nightmare continued. I had a rather unwelcoming arrival at the Ayurveda clinic - the head of the clinic blamed me for not having my visa in order before my admission to the clinic (as if I had not tried) and threatened to send me away.

In the end I had to visit the local police station for 4 times (the officials there clearly had no clue, their ridiculous inefficiency in handling the simple procedure would make for another blog post of its own - but I do not want to go into this anymore, same as the choleric fits I had to endure from the clinic head every time I needed to go to the police station, since patients were not supposed to leave the clinic).

I ended up receiving 2 pieces of paper (I was made to sign that if I stayed longer than March 31 I would face 5 years of prison and a fine - pretty harsh given that my initial tourist visa ran until June...). And the very end of the story is that none of the immigration officers looked at any of these papers when I left the country.

My personal conclusion: I have no immediate desire to visit this country again, there are plenty of other places where foreigners can feel more welcome and face far less hassle.

Anyhow, the Ayurvedic treatment was the main incentive for this trip. Right now I cannot really assess its effects in the long run but it was certainly the most thorough health treatment I ever had and I learned a lot. Anyone who is interested in more information, please contact me directly!

Here you can also find a good overview (in German) of what to expect of a Panchakarma treatment with Dr. Gupta in the J.S. Ayurveda College, Nadiad.

Photo album:

India Mumbai - Ayurveda