India Awaits: Mumbai - First Impressions

Today we ventured out of Bangalore for our December adventure to Mumbai. Four days of fun discovering another part of India. We had quite high hopes, with it being the most populated city in India and also probably the most western. This is quite obvious with large offices and apartment blocks everywhere. The large slums were also visible on the flight in and we will visit them tomorrow. I suppose with a population of around 20 million, it's one BIG city and they have to live and work somewhere!

Arriving at the airport and the first familiar sight was a Starbucks !! Funny how that was exciting..... But on we went to our car collecting us for the hotel. Our first impressions of Mumbai were definitely of the roads in comparison to Bangalore. The roads were in good condition and quite wide, and not a pothole insight!! There were roadworks going on the main road in, but we managed to get to the hotel and checkin in reasonable time.

We are staying at a lovely hotel which is a sister hotel to the one we stayed at in Agra (The Oberoi). Unfortunately for Mike, he now has a 'five star wife' ----- well in India anyway. It's just not worth the risk to go lower and risk bedbugs and dirty linen. It is a gorgeous hotel overlooking the Arabian Sea with all the facilities one needs. I may even make it to the spa one afternoon - crossed fingers.

We went for a walk this afternoon along Marine Drive, otherwise known as the Queens Necklace, you can see why by the photo at night below. We then did a bit of a general walk around and were happy to have the novelty of decent footpaths and traffic lights. However, the normal Indian 'smells', the good and the bad, we're still there and lots of stray dogs and beggars.

There were a lot less motorbikes, which made for less dangerous road crossings, and the streets were generally cleaner. We have a guide taking us around for the next 2 half days to see all the top sights. I'm actually quite looking froward to tomorrow, as most things are reasonably close by so no long stints in the car. My carsickness still kicks in pretty quickly.

The boys had been horribly behaved throughout the day and my constant threats were falling on deaf ears. It was time for Mum and Dad to flex their parental muscle!! So, we, Mike and I, went swimming in the hotel pool while the boys were made to sit on the lounges and watch. Nasty, I know but hopefully it will result in better behavior tomorrow. The staff by the pool looked quite concerned and then sad for the boys- get used to it !!