Mumbai - November 1st

Our introduction to India is quite good.  Getting through immigration and customs at Mumbai airport is far easier that it would be had we been flying from there into Heathrow.  Although we are getting in at almost 4am, our hotel has sent a van to pick us up (for a fee), and so in no time at all we are flying through the streets of Mumbai.  It is slightly more deserted than I would have expected, I thought all large cities are fairly alive at night, but it looks like we managed to find the quietest hour.  Having said that our hotel is alive, and although they are reluctant to at first, they eventually allow us to check in early (5am for a fee) so we can get a couple of hours sleep.

Of course it is more than a couple of hours, and we wake about midday.  Jet lagged we sort out our first major issue, laundry.  As the place in Istanbul declined to tell us that the laundry wouldn’t be done over their holiday weekend, and instead gave it back dirty, we have arrived with a very big bag of laundry.  We give it to the hotel to do, but when they count up the pieces they come up with a price of 2,400 rupees, about £30, which in fairness they come back to us with, so we decline it.  For some items it would be cheaper to buy replacements.

When we leave the hotel it takes about 30 seconds to hit our first stereotype, the cow in the street.  It is pretty weird for us, but I guess it’s normal here.  For the afternoon we wander around our neighbourhood.  We are not staying in the centre of town, but a suburb called Khar, which is next to another one called Bandra, which we had been led to believe was one of the better suburbs in town.  But I have to say we are not overly impressed, especially with the shopping which is supposed to be great.  We do get our first glimpse of the sea, but it is next to a rubbish tip, so the smell isn’t great, but then we walk south and it improves.

At the end of the day we end up on a main street, Linking Road, where we have our first Indian meal, a nice veggie kebab selection on a rooftop restaurant.