The Initial Shock

Mad Indian Traffic
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Just after setting foot on Mumbai's airport finger attached to our plane, we felt all the heat and humidity. This first "shock" would be a preview of an even larger and more serious one...

We got a pre-paid cab, possibly more expensive but no risk of meter tampering or endless roundabouts. After a sort of a fight for these two travellers, we got a car which seemed out of World War II (possibly it was!).

It was the beginning of a long, long, long drive of just 20 Km! The trafic is unbelievable, and trust us we're from Portugal so we know... Indians love their hooter... It is constantly buzzing and first it can be amuzing but after one hour, it is really nerve wrecking. A mixture of bikes, autorickshaws, buses, cars, taxis and .... yes people in the highway! To make do, travelers ought to distract themselves from the driving, by .... looking through the window. But, alas, the sight is nothing short of horrific. Along the highway and still after entering well into the city there are shacks everywhere, garbage, litter whatever on the ground, people, animals and tepid water. Here starts the indian lesson, often we think of india as a poor country, but really not even seing it on TV prepares you for such extreme poverty. Another thing which is predictable but also much larger than our initial preception is the amount of people. Millions and millions, living side by side, correction, on top of each other... It is quite a sight!

View from the 19th floor of ITC Maratha Towers
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I got to book this amazing night at one of the best hotels in town for free! I redeemed points from my previous stays at the sheraton back in portugal (after all I lived there for 4 months while working for BCG!). So there we were, getting out the crappiest cab going in the best mumbai can offer... Everyone at the entrance was laughing but not harder than us :)

The room was everything we hoped for and more! We slept through the whole afternoon and basically watchede some TV, and then slept through the night!! The last night in Portugal was not great and the incredible 8 hour-night-flight from london was exausting (after a whole day of sighseeing in London).

Street in Mumbai
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The next day we had a flight to Chennai for the true beginning of our journey. We didn't get to see a lot from mumbai, but we both agree what we saw was enough... Maybe someday we'll return and sightsee, who knows...

We caught again a cab for the domestic airport (by the way much better than the international one!). And off we went to chennai (app 2 hour flight)