We arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) at the wee hours of the morning in the dar kbut whilst strolling down the streets of Colaba looking for somewhere to stay we met Eric and Ronny, two Swedish guys who had arrived on the same train! We were escorted to Volga II Hotel for the steep price of 12 pounds a night and had a well deserved nap!

A taxi driver, Ponti, took us on a 5 hour tour of all the main sites in Mumbai (including the slums!) for a bargain price! He was a really friendly man and spoke really good English. We were surprised to hear that he sleeps in his car for 4 months of the year when working in Mumbai whilst his family are at home in Kashmir (He had an arranged marriage, only meeting his wife a few hours before the wedding - and his father has hidden his passport from him so he cant be with his French lover! Sad times!). Ponti took us to the famous Victoria station and Mumbai University which had amazing colonial British architechture. One of our favourite sights was the biggiest laundry in Asia where thousands of people work to clean all of Mumbai's dirty washing! We also were excited (but also scared) to visit the slums of Mumbai. We went to the area where Slumdog Millionaire was filmed and we recognised some of the scenes. Everyone in the slum was working hard sorting out different types of rubbish to be recycled - such as plastic toothbrush handles and copper wire. It was surprising that the slum was the only place in India where we havn't been asked for school pens or money. All the children just wanted photos with us or wanted us to join in with their cricket games.

We visited another one of Ghandi's houses and saw the signature of Obama and Michelle who visited Mumbai last year! We went back to the hotel to change into our fancy attire so that we could have a look around the world famous Taj Hotel (which was attacked in the Mumbai terrorist shootings a few years ago) We looked at the menu for High Tea and quickly left to go and found our usual cheap chai shack! From the India Gate we caught a boat to Elephanta Island (another Unesco heritage site) which was alot like Hampi. There were caves carved into the rock face and carvings of Deitis - we actually had a guide this time so we knew what all the different carvings represented! We were chased off the island by monkeys...who Deb threw water at!

We met Eric and Ronny for drinks in Cafe Leopold (which had tight security and bag checks...even a huge bomb squad waiting outside with guns!) We wanted to find a night club near by, but instead we ended up wandering the streets of Mumbai and met some colourful characters from California who wanted to buy a street childs sister for 100 ruppees! Strange!

We left Mumbai from a small dodgey looking station which was situated in the middle of the worst slum in Mumbai. As soon as we got out of the car we were surrounded...the look on Ponti's face was sheer terror! We made a bee-line for the train to Ahmedebad (only to be scared even more by a lady boy ina saree asking for money!)

Our time in Ahmedabad was short and sweet (but that was only because our breakfast consisted of fizzy drinks and Bengali sweets!) We looked at about 10 different hotels which were all disgusting and the town itself did not look very inviting especially after being thrown out of a rickshow because we wouldnt gop to the hotel he wanted us to for his commission! We decided to catch a killer 7 hour bus to Udaipur...peace at last!