After the travails and woes had pretty much wiped me out, the wonderfully comfortable, clean, crisp bed at the blissfully quiet Intercontinental promised a long night of sleep. Instead, after crashing at about 11pm, I woke bang on the nose of 05:00. Seriously? Anyway, it didn’t take much to drift back off to sleep and I ended up surfacing around 9am, conscious that the Indian Air Force was putting on a show over the bay with the hotel having a rooftop and prime viewing point with things kicking off at 11am.
Breakfast was fairly disappointing but I was cautious anyway. The air show didn’t actually start until 12 and was enjoyable to watch, although the enjoyment was tempered by a particularly rude lady who took exception to me placing a bottle of water on “her” table, where she wasn’t sat. She took greater exception when I said I wasn’t looking for a seat but just placing my water there. Shortly afterwards, she barged her way in to the middle of another group and didn’t make any fuss about who was putting what on “her” table that she hadn’t sat at once. Anyway, the show was impressive and afterwards I headed in to a limited wander around Fort district, heading for one of the famous Parsi restaurants.
I really enjoyed my visit to Mumbai last time but there was a noticeable level of calmness to the streets. Of course, it was Sunday, so it didn’t have the chaos of a working day. And hence relatively few food stalls and big queues for the restaurants that were open. Failing to get in to a Parsi restaurant, I ate at a street stand – foolishly perhaps. It was delicious, cheap and had no ill consequences.
It would’ve been nice to spend another day exploring Mumbai, especially as I knew I would be leaving 32c and trading it for 16c in Delhi, which was merely a transit point to 0c or lower.
I took the commuter train from Churchgate to Mumbai Central and boarded the Tejas Radjhani due to depart at 17:00. Alongside on the platform, the porters were busy with the loading of parcels and packages and large bundles of who knows what.
The train carriage quality was a cut above all the others and I thought I could bank on a reasonable night’s sleep ahead of my return to the UK in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The train departed on time and charged out of Mumbai on a mission. Most of the time, it seemed to keep a very healthy pace for prolonged periods of time. Just after the first stop north of the city, the warm tropical sun slipped beyond the horizon and I felt a tinge of sadness that the heat it brought would not be felt again for some time.
The carriage was quite full from the first few stations, so the sleep front was looking good but alas, no. Admittedly I was coughing a fair amount but also disturbed by some pretty gratuitous snoring the likes of which I have never heard before. I may be got 2 or 3 hours again and probably around 02:00, I realised I should rethink the plans for my final day and in particular, the fact that I hadn’t booked a hotel.
Service on the train was excellent. I particularly liked the carriage attendant who offered extras to everyone with a big smile on his face. He was determined to ensure all his passengers were well looked after. He left a smile on my face because I thought he looked like an Indian version of Stephen Merchant, with a moustache!
