Mumbai to Kolkata

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Thursday--Happy Valentine's Day

Started the day by checking out of the VITS hotel in Mumbai and arguing over the outrageous phone surcharges that we were not told about, were not posted in the room, and that I was not able to get information about earlier in the week when I asked...water (and some cash, but not so much as at the beginning) over the bridge!! It was a nice stay and we'll add comments to the RCI page too.

Went back to the Gandhi State Park to fly through the Tiger and Lion safari. It was closed for lunch the other day when we went to the Caves and we wanted to say we'd seen a tiger in India! There are two separate preserves since the two cats don't live together. Lions are not currently native to India. In each preserve, there are several cats in big cages, so you'll be sure to see at least one, and then several roaming the preserve. In the tiger area, we only saw the two in cages; in the lion area, we saw a couple just lazing around in the road (in the shade). As the guide book says, it's a whirlwind tour through the two preserves; the forest / jungle was pretty too. To get into each preserve, we went through a series of gates--open one, the bus went into the staging area, close one, open two, then on we went.

Then we returned to the Cottage Industry Enterprise, run by the government to do the rest of our Christmas shopping. I don't know that we could have picked two spots that were farther apart in Mumbai! but the driver was, as usual, very kind to us. Then, on to the airport, checked in (with our new suitcase we'd bought the day before in Santa Cruz, full of goodies), and had time for a beer before boarding the plane. The phone recharger station was just after security (I took the pic while Mike's knapsack was given a second look). We've seen them a couple of places--have a variety of charger wires labeled for the different makes of cell phones. A very nice idea, I think.

Flight to Kolkata went just fine. We managed to get a pre-paid taxi to the hotel and got to it, thanks to the directions my exchange partner had written down for me to use. Hotel The Sojourn, in Salt Lake. Business hotel, near the airport, nice place.

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Photos

VITS Suite
The room at the VITS -- an RCI exchange we traded. Very comfortable--cool lighting system. First of all, the key you use to get in the room then goes into a slot just inside the door. That activates all the electricity for the room. Then there were panels (one by the couch, one by the bed), with switches for each of the lights and the fan. The hotel we're in now, back in Kolkata, has the same setup with the key activating all the power for the room.

VITS Room
from the other direction.

Doorman
Again, they get the good outfits!

Papaya tree
with fruit!

Lioness
They were pretty ambivalent about our presence--used to the bus, I'm sure (of course, it was completely encased in heavy wire, just to be sure.

Phone charging station
at the airport; saw them in shopping centers too. Folks don't want to be without their cell phones!