Friday 8 August 2008

8 August 2008: We're still here in Mumbai

Not having the best of times at the moment. After our scenic walk around Mumbai we laid low in the hotel whilst Jen tried to shake off a cold. Unfortunately, Jen got diarrhea two days ago, prompting us to change rooms in the hotel so that we could get an en-suite bathroom. The diarrhea didn't get any better so yesterday she was admitted to a private room in Bombay Hospital. Jen's on a drip at the moment and should hopefully be on the road to recovery soon. On the eleventh floor, the views are pretty impressive and the flat screen TV is keeping us entertained.

The ' Super-Deluxe' en-suite room that we escaped from was definitely one of the worst places we've stayed in so far. It was the only room in the left in the hotel with a bathroom. (It was at the Welcome Inn, although the other A/C room we had there was fine). It was extremely expensive and the dank smell of mothballs suggested nobody had used it for a very long time. I'm still recovering from the Naphthalene fumes and the dank air-conditioner blowing two metres from my face all night.


We'll be here for a few more days. Thanks for the get well soon messages.


Monday 4 August 2008

4 August 2008: Update from Mumbai

Not much to report here. Jen is laid low at the moment with a cold which she's had for the last few days. So we're just taking it easy.

During this quiet time, we have managed to navigate our way around the train timetable book – 'Trains at a Glance'. Using this we've managed to buy some train tickets without too much forward planning. The bureaucracy is fairly staggering though. There's over 50 different windows at the station to buy a ticket from. You have to fill in the form correctly, then hope there's some tickets left on the tourist quota. So far we've been lucky.

Over the next few days, and if Jen is well enough, we'll head to the Ajanta Caves, the historical city of Bhopal, the Gwalior Fort and then on to Agra for the Taj Mahal.

Stay tuned for updates.