Deb woke very early this morning, 3:30 I think, and I woke around 4:30, so it was a long day.
Eventually we got ourselves underway and were out on deck by about 6:45 ready for the day, and breakfast. We had breakfast looking out over the Backwaters, and watching locals canoe by us. It’s so peaceful out on the water. It rained fairly heavily overnight but neither of us knew anything about it.
We got underway at about 7:30 and docked at Appleby at 8:30am, and waited for our A&K Rep, Driver and car for a few minutes. After packing our luggage into the car we were on the road and arrived at the airport at about 10:40 (A bit longer than the 1 1/2hr drive our itinerary says). Our airline counter didn’t open until 11am so the travel time really didn’t matter in the end. At the airport we were greeted by our “Airport Guide”, yep they have professional airport guides, who “helped us” through the check-in process, including the initial 2 security checks. He then let us go by ourselves for the 3rd security check, and entrance to the waiting lounge. During all that process we learnt the Sachin Tendulkar got out for 74 in his final Test Match in Mumbai, the population here was devastated! They really are cricket mad!
Our flight, if it’s on time doesn’t leave until 2pm, so we have a long wait. Carly tried Face Timing us, but our internet connection couldn’t cope, which was unfortunate. We did manage to see Carly and Ethan, but then things went pear-shaped. 🙁
When we arrived we signed up for a mobile internet package for the month we were going to be here. It has generally worked pretty well, as long as we didn’t want to do anything too fancy, or up/down load large files. Our carrier is Vodafone, but I am wondering if we should have gone with another, possibly “Idea” or “Airtel”, Idea seems to be Telstra partner carrier over here, and so may have been better.
It hasn’t been exactly too boring waiting, we have been entertained by a group of young school girls practicing dance routines in the lounge area, watched the guards patrol around with their semiautomatic machine guns slung over their shoulders, some of them need to be introduced to the idea of personal hygiene and the use of deodorant! And there were a number of very irate passengers complaining that this is a frequent occurrence and wanting discounts/upgrades/ or whatever they could get, in the end they got an apology and told to wait. lol
Our flight has been delayed twice , initially to 3:15 and now 3:40, the time we were due to arrive! We eventually boarded at 4pm and were in the air at 4:30 for the 1 3/4 hr flight to Mumbai. Approaching Mumbai there were more delays due to congestion at the airport, so we eventually managed to land at about 6:30, we were beginning to worry that we would be up in the air all night!!!
Our hotel is about 27km from the airport, we left the airport at 7pm and check-in at the hotel at 8:30! That’s India!
We are staying at the Taj Mahal Palace, right opposite the Gateway monument. We had a very nice surprise waiting for us when we got there, our iphone, that I left in Ranthambhore was waiting for us, 🙂 , oh yes, and we got an upgrade.
After settling down and having a bit of room service food, we took a walk down to go to the club lounge for coffee, tea, and to Deb’s delight, chocolate!
As I indicated earlier, India is playing the West Indies in cricket in Mumbai, the game started yesterday. It just so happens that both teams are staying in our hotel, we jsut may get a glimpse of “the Cricket God”, Sachin. We have already seen Shoaib Akhtar (a retired Pakistani cricketer), being mobbed for photos in the foyer. And when I say that I mean it, there are huge posters all around town professing that Tendulkar is a God! Yep, they really are ciricket mad. 🙂
Tomorrow we explore. 🙂 and both of us can’t wait.
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Big day…. and no airport lounge??? 🙁