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Published: October 29th 2008
Hello All! We made it here... things didn't start too well when our flight was not on the board at Heathrow - had images of sleeping on the airport floor - but we were assured all was well...met a lovely man in the check in que who told us we would love india and that we could retire there like kings!!
Culture shock began in departure gate with lots of indians gathered together with hand luggage bigger than themselves - Pilch enjoyed the flight with free whiskeys brought two at a time and I watched a bollywood film...
our hotel here is lovely and the bed is huge... little bit apprenhensive about leaving the hotel on the first morning - got a taxi to gateway to india where we were immediatley harrassed - had bracelets wrapped on our wrists and bindhis painted on us all for a small donation!! Meanwhile indian men were queing up to have their photo taken with Tanya - these were not to be sold to us but we think to other indian tourists!!
We took a boat to the elephanta islands (mostly for a break from the hassel!) and Tanya was mostly looking
forward to the monkeys... when we got off the boat a guide introduced himself to Pilch and we had to ask him to leave.. only then did he tell us how much money he wanted. We climbed up millions of steps in the heat and when at the top discovered how much they charge tourists to see the cave... we decided to take photos of monkeys, have some food and get the boat back again!!
Its all a bit crazy - taxi journeys are crazy and you never get charged the same for the same journey, there seems to be a lot of eggs here - we have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner in various forms! My name means something like baby here and Pilch was told by the customs man that his hair was like Cinderellas!!
We are both looking forward to getting to goa - we leave early in the morning on the train - 12hours or so journey - we brought ourselves some books to pass the time.
Also we are here during Diwali which we think is either new year, xmas or halloween (!) but know it is the festival of lights
and there are alot of fire crackers going off ALL the time right next to your face!! Very loud!!
Will write again when we get there.... love to everyone!!
Mumbai in some key words: extreme, hot, crazy, poor, rich, friendly, confusing, cheap and expensive - (work that out!! you have to see it to believe it!)
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Alex
non-member comment
Alll I can say is........
..........WOW! x