Drowned Rats
Trip Start
Mar 30, 2010
1
72
73
Trip End
Jul 22, 2011
Where I stayed
Mumbai (Bombay), Maharashtra, India
Saturday, July 16, 2011
We arrived into Dadar train station, a scene of one of the bombs a few days earlier, and got a taxi the remaining 10km to our guest house. The driver was saying "Yes, I know it, no problem". Once we got nearer he kept on jumping in and out of the cab to ask for directions.
After not having any problems with the monsoons thus far, things were about to change. For the entire time we were here we didn't see any blue sky or sunshine and the longest the rain held off for was about 2 hours. This didn't help our sightseeing. Fortunately we had chosen quite a good area so things weren't too far away and there was always plenty of black and yellow taxis around if required.Our first excursion was down to the Colaba area to go to the Taj Palace. The 5 star hotel by the bay that the terrorists had taken over in 2008. Since then the security had been beefed up. You can't even walk on the pavements next to the hotel. When we tried we were quickly moved on. Whilst being told off though, we were approached by a scout asking us if wanted to be extras in a bollywood movie. This despite the fact that we were dripping wet in our rain coats. He obviously had a keen eye for talent. We ventured into the Taj Palace and went to the top floor restaurant for a coffee, feeling slightly embarassed about our state of dress and that we were leaving large wet patches on the seats. The hotel was beautifully done out with excellent service.
Whilst in Mumbai we thought this would be a good place to do some shopping, as we wouldn't have too much futher to carry things. The first shop we went into was very nice, full of all sorts of very nice Indian wares. And as an added bonus the shop owner had clearly learnt how to speak english from Lloyd Grossman. It was quite hard keeping a straight face as he described how "royal" the pashminas looked.Sadly, the sightseeing was cut even further short as the illness Sharon had had in Bangkok reared its ugly head once more and confined her to the room until late afternoon on our final day. We did manage to venture out around the Victoria terminus (the busiest train station in Asia and one of the grandest building built by the British Raj) and around some of the markets, but nothing too strenuous. We had also declined the bollywood scouts offer, largely due to the fact it was a 13 hour day shooting an aeroplane scene the day before we due to take a 13 hour flight to Paris. It just didn't sound like that good a build up to it.As such, we took a taxi to the airport at 1am to catch our 5am flight and prepared ourselves to say goodbye to India and to Asia. You shall be missed....
