Mumbai

Mumbai is hot.   Really really hot.  And very humid.  It was also expensive (well compared the rest of India!) but we managed to find a little hostel with a sea view - if you stood right next to the wall, poked your head out a bit and squinted...  It was a funny place where the walls didnt reach the ceiling so it was more like a dorm with partitions.  The area we were staying in was touristy and a bit strange.  Having passed expensive greasy un-appetising diners we ended up eating at McDonalds... the McChicken Maharaja was a bit of a fail but McVeg with cheese hit the spot.

One night we went to the cinema - with no bollywood available we watched Tower Heist with Ben Stiller.  Wasn't a bad film, quite funny, but the whole experience was a lovely break into suspended reality.  To be in an air-con space doing something familiar and engrossing made us relax and we both realise how long it'd been since leaving England. 

We took a boat ride to the island of Elephanta.  Expecting a bit of a tropical island day trip we were quite surprised to find that most viewpoints from the hilltops involved more oil refineries and gas works than palmtrees.  Oh well not long till thailand for that....

 The boat returned to Mumbai at the Gateway to India so after five and a half weeks we had officialy entered the country!