Mumbai - November 2nd

Jet lag must still be hanging around because we wake later than expected this morning.  Our goal is to get into the centre of Mumbai, book our train tickets to Goa for Friday, get a local SIM for Dorota’s iPhone (so one of us is data connected) and take a trip to Elephanta island.  To do this we have to get a local Mumbai commuter train into Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST).  Luckily our hotel is right beside a station, but we just miss a train and have to wait another 25 minutes.  This gives us a chance to see how they operate, and it’s is all a bit worrying.  It’s a lot of hanging out of trains and jumping on and off before while the train is moving.  But luckily our train has space for us slow people to get on.

Getting the ticket to Goa was fairly straightforward, although there was a bit of queuing (queuing in itself is an experience where there are locals, but there is one foreigner only queue in CST).  The SIM is a different issue, as there are no micro SIMs for the iPhone the guy has to cut a regular one down to size (I didn’t even know that was possible).  It takes two attempts, almost an hour, which combined with the CST experience, and our late start, meant we decided to book a trip to Elephanta instead.  This still required us going down to the Gateway of India and Taj Mahal hotel, where the touts are everywhere.  It turns out we can’t book, we just have to get there earlier tomorrow.

We then wander around central Mumbai.  The shopping on the main street in the Colva district was more like what we were expecting the previous day, a mix of shops and stalls.  We had a very good lunch, before looking at some of the architectural gems (according to Lonely Planet) around town.  You can see that some were spectacular, and still are, but there is so much that could be done to make them better.  We also get to sit and watch some locals playing cricket in a park.

We finish the day with an ice cream watching the sunset (about 15 minutes before real sunset because of the smog) before an even more hairy ride back on the train, and a few beers and some nibbles in a local bar.