One day stop in Mumbai, India

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India is somewhere neither of us has been to before, so are very interested to see it. We have done a fair bit of homework for this as we want to get to see as much as possible.

The ship docked at about 4.00am in the morning, and by 7.30am, we were all allowed to start leaving the ship.

The ship is docked a long way from the port entrance, so there are loads of shuttle buses to take everyone to the entrance. No need to book these though as there are so many of them. The journey to the entrance took about 10 minutes.

Once off the buses, they checked our visas again and we were in Mumbai. It was absolute chaos.

For about 20 minutes, we walked through man after man asking us if we wanted to go on this tour, all that with prices for ever going down and down. Some that were being offered sounded to be good value, but we prefer to do our own thing at our own pace.

A couple of ladies from Australia were also trying to do the same as us, but they had no idea where they were going. We took them under our wings and they walked with us towards the Gateway to India. Unfortunately, one of the ladies was having trouble walking, so we hailed a taxi for the last mile. Not bad price at 200 rupees / £1 for all of us.

Once at the Gateway, we left the ladies and they organised with one of the taxi drivers to do a tour for them.

We got some photographs of the gateway and also the nearby Taj Mahal Hotel. It was very busy with people in this area. Luckily no taxis pushing their tours so we had a little respite from them. It was very very hard sell outside the cruise terminal.

Once back on the road, we hailed a taxi to take us to Churchgate Station. Again price was 200 Rupee / £1 for the two mile journey.

We had hoped to see the Dabbawalas at Churchgate Station, but we are much too early for them. Instead we caught a train to Mahalaxmi station. Tickets cost us 100 rupees / £1 each for a 20 minute ride in first class.

George was aghast when the train pulled out of the station with the doors still open. They do not close the doors on Mumbai trains as people hang out of them if the train is very full. Luckily not full today so no hanging out of doors required.

At Mahalaxmi station, we saw the Dhobi Ghat open air laundry. This is the largest one in the world. There were literally thousands of items hanging out to dry. Apparently, they pick up the washing in the morning, wash and iron it and return it before the end of the day. A very interesting place to see but looks like very hard work out in the heat of the sun all day. Around 35 degrees today.

From there, we got another taxi to Crawford Market. This is a market used by locals and sells everything that a Mumbai local could ever need. We bought a few more spices for an excellent price. These came along with a free spice book. It was a very interesting place to wander around. Because we were not locals, they let us look at our leisure, not like some of the other markets we have been to on this trip.

Just outside Crawford Market, we found a street food vendor and decided to try samosa and onion bhaji. These cost us 20 rupees / £0.20 for one of each. They were very spicy but very delicious.

We got another taxi to Victoria Terminus. This is a very old building, but were a bit confused about which bit of it was actually the station. We had a little walk around and took some photographs. Then we found another street food seller and had another two samosa. 30 rupees / £0.30 this time and again they were spicy and very tasty.

Then, it was back to the port and back on board the Spectrum of the Seas.

We have been out for about 4 hours and it has cost us only 2000 rupees / £20 for all the taxis, food and drinks we have had during that time. We have had a really great time.

As most people were still on shore, we thought it would be a good time to go to Guest Services to ask about the behind the scenes tour of the ship and our galley brunch we have pre booked.

There were only a couple of people in the queue when we got there, but this grew to about 10 before we were seen. Just before we were seen, a lady just walked up to the front of the queue and stood in front of us all. Everyone in the queue looked at each other and were too unsure to confront the queue jumper. George informed her that there was a queue to which she said she knew but that her query was urgent. At that point she approached one of the desks that was dealing with someone else and asked a question. Not quite sure what her problem was, but she was still having it dealt with when we had finished. We all agreed that she had not gone about this right. If only she would have come to the front of the queue and asked if she could go next as hers was an emergency, we would not have had a problem, but we were all made to feel like she thought she was more important than us. On this cruise so far, we have seen so many rude unwarranted examples of queue jumping.

As a result of our meeting at Guest services, we found out that they are not running the behind the scenes tours during this sailing. Probably because everyone is new and still finding their own way around the ship. With the Galley Brunch, they confirmed that tickets and information will be sent to us after our visit to Cochin, India.

Had a splurge tonight in putting out the ducks and they all seem to be disappearing. Hope they bring some smiles.

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