Manchester - London - Mumbai
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2008
1
4
27
Trip End
Feb 06, 2009
Mumbai (Bombay),
Maharashtra,
India
Sunday, December 28, 2008
I arrived at Manchester Airport nice and early to find a) the airport wasn't busy and b) I'd got an upgrade due to overselling the flight. Never happens to me, but I guess that's the benefit of checking in early. Advised the Chows, who duly blagged their way into the same cabin! An uneventful flight from Manchester found me meeting up with Martin, Clare, Sally and Ben at T5 in Heathrow where we started as we meant to go on by tucking into an enormous meal and quaffing a bottle of wine or two.
In the lap of luxury, the Chows and myself kicked back and enjoyed our surroundings; Ben and Sally were not so lucky and remained in cattle class. But we all arrived in Mumbai in one piece and finally, finally, after months and months of planning - we were in India!
On leaving the plane, the first thing that hits you is the heat - a hot, humid, muggy heat that makes your clothes stick to you instantly; the second thing you notice is the smell. I've never been here before, but it's exactly how I imagined India to smell - spicy, dirty, smoggy, hot. An effiicient transfer through immigration and baggage check meant that we were in our bus and on the way to the hotel in half an hour.
The Leela is a short hop from the hotel and is an oasis in amongst dilapadated buildings, dirty roads and seemingly endless construction. A palace of luxury next to abject poverty - a theme, I'm sensing, to much of what we will see here. An afternoon spent relaxing by the pool meant that we recovered some of our lost sleep before heading to the bar for cocktail hour. A vatful of booze was consumed - would you expect anything less, given the company - before we headed to dinner and what would be our first curry of the trip.
In the meantime, I had an update from Ted that he was on his way from Zurich and sure enough, at 11.30, just as we were finishing dinner, the man himself arrived in the hotel - dishevelled and tired after 16 hours on planes, but surprisingly chipper nonetheless. A quick nightcap in the bar to introduce him to everyone, before everyone hit the hay in anticipation of the upcoming festivities.
