Ever since I read that Mumbai was a crummy place to visit, I’ve been being reading up on the place. Today, I found this short clip profiling the city’s dabbawalas — 5000 men who move 400,000 lunch boxes every day using only their feet, the trains, and bicycles. So efficient are the dabbawalas that Richard Branson and other business leaders have invited them to give lectures on their system!
Direct from India: Introducing the Helirickshaw
Flickr user calamur was recently in Mumbai, India where he shot this amazing photo of the latest in autorickshaw technology: THE HELIRICKSHAW! Never mind those geeks at MIT and their Transition flying car, this is the future of transportation! No more traffic jams, no more choking exhaust fumes — just raw Italian power lifting you into the clouds.
Alright, so the helicopter blades are probably for show, but this is still the coolest rickshaw I’ve ever seen. And if you’ve ever been to Mumbai — even for only a few hours — you’ve seen about 10 billion of them.
Boeing 737 Stuck on Busy Mumbai Road
Just when you thought Mumbai couldn’t get any more hectic, someone comes along and leaves a Boeing 737 sitting in the middle of a busy road. BBC reports, “The decommissioned aircraft was being driven through the city at the weekend when the driver got lost and then abandoned the plane.”
Is this for real? Seriously, how can you put one person in charge of transporting a 737? Never mind the fact that he didn’t know his way around the city very well. It’s no wonder Road Junky listed Bombay as one of the 10 worst cities to visit (even though I completely disagree, Bombay is great — even with the lost plane). Bizarre, but true.
[Via WorldHum]
Jet Airways Offers (Relatively) Cheap Luxury Cabin
India-based airline Jet Airways has introduced a 26-square-foot cabin on its London to Mumbai flight which costs £1200 less than a first-class British Airways ticket. So let’s see: £5000+ for first-class, or £4000 for my own private cabin? That’s an easy one.
As you can see from the photo above, the dual-seat configuration folds down to make a bed, and the 23″ flat TV screen offers over 200 hours of the latest movies. Well, you can see the TV (upper left-hand corner), but you’ll have to trust me on the 200 hours deal, as it’s tough to capture that feature in a photo. Other amenities include a “personal hanging wardrobe,” and “office facilities for working.” More pictures after the jump. [Via Luxist]
The World’s Most Polite and Rude Cities
I don’t know how empirical this study is, but here’s the skinny. Reader’s Digest dispatched several undercover reporters in three dozen cities across the world. In each city, the reporters:
- Walked into public buildings 20 times behind people to see if they held open the door.
- Bought small items from 20 stores and recorded whether the sales assistants thanked them.
- Dropped a folder full of papers in 20 busy locations to see if anyone would help collect the scattered contents.
The reporters awarded one point for each positive outcome and nothing for a negative one. The results of this “study” show that the top three most polite cities are New York, Zurich and Toronto. Conversely, Asia fared very poorly. Eight out of nine cities there finished in the bottom 11. Could this be a cultural thing?
The least friendly city? Mumbai, India. They may be rude in Mumbai, but they sure can cook.