Fariyas Mumbai (Bombay)

We arrive in Mumbai at about 2230h. The two-person wide steps from the airplane were quite wobbly and the Indian people seemed to give me a taste of being in your space by crowding me and pushing. The line-ups to check our head temperature and our passports were a bit chaotic and unorganized. We waited about 1 hour for our luggage and then exited to find our Mumbai tour guide and driver. We were definitely not in Europe or North America. It was a refreshing change because when I was in Brusse...

The staff at the Raheem Residency have been extraordinarily kind and thoughtful and we were particularly touched when one of the managers, Parvati, lent Cameron a lovely book of Indian Folk Tale. It has hugely expanded his - and our - knowledge of traditional tales and cautionary fables and he was rather sorry to have to return it. We have really enjoyed our time in Alleppey feel suitably refreshed to tackle the busy schedule to come. At this point in the season the Raheem was far from full a...

Even though the car honking has returned with a vengeance the police are claiming yesterday was a success - nice to see that a positive spirit isn't restricted to British politicians. Our day started with an hour long boat ride to Elephanta island. From the sea we could look back on the Gateway of India and the famous Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel which is worth a digressive anecdote. The millionaire Parsi industrialist J.N. Tata is said to have build the Taj hotel as an act of revenge aft...

Cameron slept well and seemed better in the morning. We were glad, however, that the car wasn't due until 1.30pm to take us on a tour of Basra Studios in Bollywood. This allowed us to have a quiet morning that seemed to disappear without us doing very much - so much so that in the end we had a mad rush to be ready on time. Perhaps we're reverting to type as we approach the end of our trip? We had been advised to allow 90 minutes to ensure we arrived at the studio by 3pm. The traffic gods were...

Today we had to move hotel from the West End to the one that was the beginning of our West Indian Tour organised by Intrepid. We had checked with Intrepid before leaving Sydney about the tour hotel and they said they had triple checked and it was the Gordon Hotel - so off we went with bags packed in the taxi from the West End. Before leaving thought I changed $US100 and received 39,000+ rupees. They paid it to me in R1,000 notes and so there were 39 of them. Counted it the first time and then...

Had a very restless night, with all the new noises of a different hotel. Kaye's cold a bit better this morning. After breakfast we met the driver who was to take us to the Bollywood Film area where we were to pick up our guide. It took us 2 hours to get there. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper for a lot of the way and some of the roads were breaking up under the monsoon rain. We went a new way though and saw some things we hadn't seen before. The Bollywood Film area was pretty close to the Nat...

Last day in Mumbai for two weeks. Today was Indian Independence Day. Have been independent from Great Britain for 61 years. We did expect celebrations as we have for Australia Day, but the travel agent had told us that there was nothing. It wasn't quite true as we discovered. Cleared the bags out of the room and left them in the baggage area. Our city tour of Mumbai started at 9.30am and the driver and guide were there waiting for us by 9.15am. We had already seen quite a few of the sites lis...