Mumbai was not part of our original itinerary for India, but since most flights to Goa from Madurai stopped in Mumbai, we decided to check it out for a couple of days. We also thought it would be a place where we would once and for all figure out some train tickets in person at the rail station due to our constant failures with the online registration system, but this was in vain, and will not be discussed further. (Breathe.)

Full disclosure: We ate at Pizza Express twice. The Pizza Express from England, for anyone familiar with this yumminess. Two dinners probably cost more than all of our Indian dinners so far, but it was beyond worth it, especially to taste flavours like goat cheese and pesto, which we have not tasted for months, and wow, there are so many foods from home we miss right now.

Mumbai does, as we had heard, look a bit like London at certain moments when you catch a glimpse of the glorious Victorian architecture and red double decker buses, but then you remember to look where you are going, and see that traffic wise, you are definitely still in India. Also striking is the haze, particularly along the promenade by the sea where we went in the evening to watch the sunset...which translated to a pale greyish pink glow. We didn't explore too far from our hotel, which was luckily in a good central tourist area, because the thought of walking long routes or taking cabs was too physically and mentally tiring, so we took some time to rest a bit as we are pretty tired, and still have over a month planned in India!