Ship Hotel Mumbai (Bombay)

We booked a same day domestic flight from Delhi to Mumbai for $150 US each. The The shiny, new Indigo Air jet seemed to be meant for the upper-middle class, some of whom appeared to be fans of classism and sexism. We witnessed the following exchange between the stewardess and an exit row passenger while taxing to the runway, "Sir, would you plea...

Arrived early to Mumbai and wasn't greeted with the stink I was expecting! Caught an Auto rickshaw to the JW Marriott in Juhu... What a hotel!
Mumbai already feels like a place I will love. Checked in to the 5* hotel which Nisha had kindly booked :) and then headed out for some lunch at Shiv Sagar down the road.
Kevin arrived at the hote...

Last travelpod!! My flight back home leaves Mumbai in 9 hours.

Last I wrote I was still in Hampi. After I logged off, Pam and I surprised Mike to the best of our pitiful ability for his 30th bday. I used those crazy tacky balloons I bought back in Bangalore, and also sneakily purchased 5 more regular balloons from a random pharmacist s...

The day for leaving arrived and we were wondering how Dad was going to handle the long hours in cramped economy class. All the staff came in to say their goodbye's and the food service staff made us a special Indian dessert which I wish I had known about earlier. Yum! (thank you John) Mr Bharat took us to the airport around 8pm. I was surprised ...

We flew into Mumbai about 9.30pm: the temperature was 28°. I picked up my luggage and walked out of the airport, to be immediately offered a taxi: I accepted. The well-dressed, well-mannered guy who'd approached me then passed me on to another, rougher-looking character who motioned me to a waiting taxi. The classic Mumbai taxi is a black-and-ye...

I am beginning to feel like everybody's public property! From the minute I walk into school to the minute I leave I am constantly prodded and poked and sometimes hit by absolutely everybody! They have no idea of personal space in this country, I'm telling you! When you walk in in the morning you get grabbed by way of saying hello. Quite often th...

Had a really sad situation today. I got to Nallospara and there was a little puppy lying in the gutter, the sewage literally running over its feet and into its little nose. It looked as if it had fallen - its head lying incomfortably on a stone and its two front paws stuck beneath it. I picked it up (getting sewage all over my feet in the proces...

As we flew east towards Mumbai over the large expanse of the Arabian Sea, I was contemplating just what a country with approx. 1.2 billion people actually looked and felt liked?! Where do you put all those people? Where do they live? What do they eat? ...Where do 1.2 billion people go to the bathroom??? As we descended into Mumbai, a city of 19 ...

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 tho...

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 reall...