Mumbai

---

---

Arrived in Mumbai early after 12 hours on the train, not a lot of sleep this time, too many people moving about all night, and a few cockroaches scuttling about. Slept for a few hours when we checked into the hotel, then spent the rest of the day exploring the city, or at least the parts of it we could easily walk to. Went to a stir fry restaurant in the evening which was great. 300 Rupees for all you can eat, we chose the ingredients we wanted and picked a sauce, then watched it cooked in front of us.

The next day we took a boat to Elephanta, an island nearby with unfortunately no elephants. The island was named after a huge Elephant statue on it, which is now somewhere else in Mumbai, so we didn't even see that elephant. Its famous for its caves, and carvings within, it also has some cannons on top of a hill. After stopping for a drink, and whilst walking back down to the boat, Neil was visciously attacked and our first mugging of the trip occured. Neil's bottle of Fanta was stolen by a monkey, which then climbed a tree, undid the lid and drank from said bottle, watching and laughing at us all the while. After enduring this attack we sailed on a less than calm sea back to the mainland, by the end of the trip almost everyone was pretty much drenched.

Third day, and our final one in India was spent on a sightseeing bus. The tour took in some of the main sights, and some of the less interesting ones (although thankfully no shops this time). We were on a very tight schedule and were told off for being 5 minutes late back to the bus after the first stop. The Prince of Wales museum was probably the main stop and was really interesting, but we only had 40 minutes to see it all. It was three floors with an audio guide which lasted an hour and didn't even cover all of the exhibits, so 40 minutes definitely wasn't enough. After this we raced around the city, with things being pointed out as we went, although most were far away, or just glimpsed between other buildings. We made a short stop at the hanging gardens, although nothing actually hung there, but there was a big shoe so it wasn't all bad. After this we played in the science museum, which was good but not really the sort of thing you'd come to Mumbai specially to see. We left the tour after this at around 4pm, after a 10am start, but the bus carried on and was expecting to end at 8.30pm. We thought this was a bit much and didn't really know where we would have been taken anyway.

Early night tonight for our flight to Singapore in the morning

more soon

Neil and Rosie
xx

---

Photos

Monkeys
At Elephanta island