21st-22nd February: Arrival in Mumbai for the last leg of our Indian adventure

21st February

We woke up early for the drive to Ahmedabad airport, which took around three hours on a beautifully smooth dual carriageway. The airport was modern and clean, with a good restaurant serving tasty curries; in fact, it might have been the best meal I've ever had in an airport (that is a low bar, I concede).

The flight was short and smooth, and we landed to the sound of a saxophone version of Bryan Adams' (Everything I do) I do It For You. We bade farewell to my parents, who were heading off by themselves for a couple of days (trying to squeeze in as much as they possibly could while we relaxed a little in Mumbai), and took a prepaid taxi to our hotel. This turned out to be a tiny car, but we just about folded ourselves in for the hour-long journey south to the Grand Hotel.

We arrived at around 6pm at an attractive old stone building with a smart and clean interior. Our room was on the top floor with air con (a necessity in the heat of Mumbai) and a view of the sea (across the docks). The only downside was the wifi was extremely slow, even in the lobby, which set back our attempts to catch up on the blog.

The Grand Hotel

View of the docks (and the sea) from our room

We were exhausted, so we settled for dinner in the hotel restaurant (surprisingly good, actually) and then sat in our room working on the blog (or trying to) and watching Entrapment on TV.

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22nd February

We woke up late and trudged down to the ground floor of the hotel for breakfast, which was uninspired and uninspiring but did the job. We left the hotel and took a stroll around the Fort area (where the British fort used to stand before it was demolished to make space for the commercial centre).

First we stopped by the grand Central Post Office, a huge and imposing old building, where we deposited a few postcards. It was hot, seriously hot - about 35 degrees celsius in the sun - but thankfully there was at least a very gentle breeze. Still winter, apparently!

The very impressive Post Office

We then walked for a couple of minutes along the road to the Victoria Terminus (renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus after Independence), a magnificent 19th century edifice housing Mumbai's principal train station. I was particularly interested because my great-grandfather used to live in the building as chief-superintendent for the region, and my (maternal) grandmother grew up there. Nice perk, having a World Heritage building as your home, but he probably needed earplugs to sleep. We planned to ask to have a look around when my parents arrived two days later.

Victoria Terminus

Detail of the jungle-themed facade

Inside Victoria Terminus, near the booking office

Another grand old building opposite Victoria Terminus

From Victoria Terminus we walked down a colonnaded road to Flora Fountain, past many more attractive 19th century buildings.

Near Flora Fountain was the High Court, dark and intimidating. Over the road were the beautiful grounds of Mumbai University, dominated by a magnificent tower. What was remarkable was how little hassle we received. No subtle photos of Clem, no aggressive touts, and only a couple of beggars. I'm sure there's plenty of chaos in Mumbai too, but we didn't see it there and then.

The Flora Fountain and the High Court

We headed back east towards Horniman Circle, an attractive park surrounded by yet more grand colonial buildings. On one side of the Circle was the old town hall, a rather incongruous Graeco-Roman blancmange.

Gardens of Horniman Circle

Buildings around Horniman Circle

We had a quick stop at Hermes, mostly to enjoy their air-con

Formerly the town hall,  now a library

Inside St Thomas' Church, near to the town hall

We then stopped off for a quick bite to eat at Ideal Corner, a small place serving Parsi food that varied by the day of the week. We ordered a dish that sounded tasty, but turned out to comprise brown rice and spicy dahl. Still, it was pretty good and kept us going. We then wandered back to the hotel for what was supposed to be a short stop but ended up being rather longer. We spent several hours trying to catch up with the blog, fighting against the hotel's useless wifi connection, and writing postcards.

At around 7 pm we finally braved the streets of Mumbai again, walking past the Post Office and Victoria Terminus again and up towards Metro Big, one of Mumbai's foremost cinemas. This 20-minute walk took us alongside a large park called Azad Maidan, and as we looked through the iron fence we could see slums inside. This made us slightly nervous in the dark, but there were plenty of people around so we felt relatively secure.

At the cinema we were told that there were no Bollywood films with English subtitles, so we were left with a choice between a Bollywood film in Hindi and a Hollywood film. We decided that it would be a shame not to go for Bollywood, and reasoned that we would probably be able to follow along.

The film was a romantic comedy (of course) called Ek Deewana Tha, about the love between a Hindu guy and his Christian neighbour in Mumbai. Every so often the characters would slip in an English phrase ("Hindi hindi hindi, you have to let me go, hindi hindi hindi") and we did manage to follow the story well enough to enjoy it (even if it was exceptionally silly). The song and dance routines were of course the highlight, though I suspect we didn't see the greatest that Bollywood had to offer.

The film lasted just over two hours (including a 15 minute interval for adverts) so it was past 10 by the time we left the cinema, deposited on a backstreet. We didn't manage to retrace our steps, and found ourselves wandering through a rather unsavoury area, which was somewhat disconcerting. Again, however, there were plenty of people around so we didn't feel unsafe and we eventually made it back to the hotel without alarm.