Mumbai (Bombay) 2nd Trip Travel Report
Not a watch hunting trip per se but the moving of the old office of my customer to a new location

Dear Watch Friends

I have prepared the 2nd Bombay Travel Report chronologically. First you will be driving with us from the Oberoi hotel to my customer's new office located in between the India Turf Club and the Willingdon Golf Course. Since our schedule was so tight, I did not have the chance to go on picture hunts during the day. So you will see what we saw, the view out of the moving car on the way to work.

A second part of the report - also mainly shot out of the car - will be my short excursion to a watch shop in Dadar, Bombay. You will see some more street impressions and of course the watches I was able to purchase.

The third and last part will show 3 selected representative hmt (Hindustan Machine Tools) watches photographed back home in Bangkok. As always, keep clicking on the pictures to proceed reading or click on any of the thumbnails below to jump to a specific page.

In May 2008 I received a nice feedback letter from Hemi who received a Tarun watch from his father for his 7th birthday in 1971. Hemi suggests that the hmt watches in this report are from the 70ies or late 60ies. Thank you very much for this additional information Hemi!

Best regards

Reto, Bangkok, December 19th, 2003

PS In September 2011 I created a hmt Table listing all the watches including their dimensions and weights.

Start the tour here or click on any of the thumbnails

Part One: Impressions from the Streets of Bombay
View from Old Office	Our Driver and Teacher Salim		Nice Facade	India is full of Contrasts		Typical Street Shops
Hajiali Crossroads	A Group of female Pedestrians		The India Turf Club ...	.. and its less glamorous Neighborhood		The Willingdon Golf Course
Part Two: The Watch Hunting Afternoon
Huge Laundry near Maha Lakshmi Station	Another View		A Laundry Worker in Action	Closer		A nice serene Scene in the middle of the bustling Streets
Saree Shops in Dadar	Preparing for a Long Haul		Dr. Ambedkar Street	My hmt Watch Shop in Dadar: Kamdar & Kamdar		The hmt Boxes
The first half of the hmt Watches	The second Batch		Traveling back home
Part Three: Rajat, Dipti and Pankaj - Three selected hmt Models in Details
Dipti, Pankaj and Rajat	The Photo Stage		Dipti Handwind	From the Side		The Back
The Movement	Pankaj Handwind		The Back with a nice Inscription	The lucky Picture of the Movement		Pankaj on the Wrist
The Tarun Cricket ball series (same movment as in Pankaj) is here
Movt removed - 2 Pics	Movement Dial Side		Dial Removed	Dial under side		The empty Case
These inside pictures of the watch have been added later in July 2004
Rajat Automatic: The Full View	From the Side		The nice Back	The 21 Jewel Movement		The signed hmt Clasp
hmt "Rajat" on the Wrist - A truly Happy Ending!
Appendix I for Adam in NYC, the Indian God Ganesh on the hmt Model "Akash"
Appendix II - I almost spilled my milk tea when the friendly hmt General Agent came back from his storage room with this one! A RADO Diastar homage "Made in India". Just shows what kind of a global winner RADO produced back then. Last but not least, I would like to thank Xerxes who gave me the directions to the General hmt Agent. Plus a heartfelt "Thank You!" goes to the staff of the hmt store. They patiently pulled out a lot of watches from their inventory upstairs and on top of that, I got to drink a nice milk tea. It's these memories that will add a lot to the joy of owning these hmt vintage mechanical watches.