After a few emotional goodbyes to everyone, the bus to London Heathrow felt as though it was taking forever; checking google maps for our whereabouts every ten minutes probably didn't help speed the process along!
Finally arrived at Terminal 4, check in was more straight forward than usual all though no windows seats left - Scott was gutted; like a little kid. haha!
The lady at check in had a proposition for us... they had filled the plane to it's full capacity and it had a little too much cargo on it (I'm guessing), as they were asking for volunteers to stay behind and fly tomorrow morning and in return we would get €600 each to do so! - no chance love.
We would have thought about it if it was €1000 each and overnight hotel paid for! The woman at check looked at us in a snooty "you tight b**tards that's a lot of money" sort of way haha! We have schedules to keep by sorry!
We went to the English dining restaurant to watch the rugby game, much to Scott's disappointment Man Utd v Arsenal wasn't playing! A few too many pre-flight pints were in order as it already felt like we had been travelling forever!
Scott made an 'airport friend', an old man from Newport (would you believe) he was travelling to Colombo (Sri Lanka) talked the talk I think, not sure if he exactly knew where he was stopping in-between flights we could have sworn he said Goa and then Qatar; bless him! He was lovely!
Lucky us, furthest gate away so off on a trek we went; waited ages to board and didn't take off for almost an hour after our original scheduled departure. By this point I was still holding the travel tablets off because I didn't want to fall asleep in my food! We had a young lad by us who obviously didn't like flying and opted for the isle seat rather than her window seat; Scott jumping for joy and had his nose pressed up against the window for take off, he's so funny! Anyone would swear he had never been on a plane before!

The film selection was cracking fair play!
The food was either curry or a chicken in leek and cheese sauce, the chicken and leek sauce for me one last taste of non-Indian food haha!
Scott had the curry and said it was spicy!
2 hours in I had to pop a pill; I thought if I only have one it won't kick in straight away, I was totally wrong, I couldn't keep both eyes open so finally I gave in. I think every time we went over turbulence I nearly broke Scott's hand though, don't know what's wrong with me lately - panic flyer! I do now believe the bigger the plane the less turbulence, I was a little apprehensive when I seen we had a small bird!
Couldn't wait to get off the other side, we hadn't stood up the whole time and couldn't get our shoes on our feet, they were like the elephant mans feet! Both hobbling through the airport to get to immigration and low and behold we had to walk miles from the gate to get there!

Always a sweaty palm moment when waiting for the bags to drop out on the belt - I hate that part!

It was surprisingly quiet at the arrivals hall, went straight to pre paid taxis to get a ticket and downstairs to taxi rank. Our taxi zone was furthest away - again!
Our Sleeping driver who we woke up had a bright orange (henna died) beard, he just pointed to the roof of the car; up the rucksacks went with a piece of string attaching them to the rack, haha!
We were only around the corner from the airport so that was pretty nice not having to travel very far.
We settled in, this ibis is luxury compared to what we will be having for the next six months haha or at least our month in India! ;)
Had a much needed shower and change of clothes and off we went, feeling a little apprehensive and nervous at first being in a different country and everywhere is crazy and loud with tuks tuks and loads of people beeping their horns all the time! The india I remember!

We headed downtown for the marine drive and went to suss out the train station for our overnight train Monday. It was about a 45 minute drive in the taxi, the fare for that plus a toll booth was 350 ruppees (£3.50) haha!!
The train station is a really beautiful building, there are people everywhere! Scott got his first encounter of being a celebrity here, he got stopped for a photo, beaming ear to ear he was! The station is loud, smelly and busy, with people everywhere walking about 100mph, hanging off trains as they roll up to the platform it's unreal! Photos and videos just can't capture all of this atmosphere!
We had a nose at some of the trains, the higher classes don't look too bad, they must have been importing fish - it stunk so bad!
Worse than walking into Morrisons and smelling the fish counter straight away! *boff*
I didn't have a clue which counter to go to for help, so we just did 'eenie meanie minee mo' as soon as I started speaking he directed us to 'stall 16, 16, 16!' Off we trotted, a bunch of train manager men just laughed at us in their booth, they got my scowl. -_-

A young lad came up to us and asked if we needed help, he was lovely! He helped us out loads, he had really good English, we just kept bombarding him with 20 questions, in case he ran away, haha! Got our info though, I think he might have been a university student wanting to improve his English, maybe?

I've spotted a lot more white people here in Mumbai than I did in Jaipur!
Don't get me wrong they are still far and few between everyone but we stick out like sore thumbs when we are spotted aha! They're all older couples though, I think they must be here as part of their trip, you wouldn't want to stay in Mumbai for more than a couple of days; it's dirty but rich, smells funny and is incredibly busy all the time!
We had a McDonald's opposite the station, we weren't ready to try local cuisine just yet! It hit the spot after the long journey that we had, had!
Staying safe along with all the other white people in town I think, there were loads of us in there, haha!
Getting a little late and didn't want to stay out passed dark so we headed back, we went passed all the slums on the way, they are incredible! Tin shacks just built on top of one another, it's like jenga! Kids playing cricket under the highways and next to massive advertising boards with iphone6 adverts on them! They have no shoes on yet there's a brand new Audi driving passed them it's a little surreal!
Back to the hotel for a chill, I had a nap and then we went downstairs in the lobby for a drink, 200 ruppees (£2) for a kingfisher, cheap for a nice hotel lobby bar but expensive for India! We weren't complaining we had a chicken burger, there was option for beef aswell, strange but Scott said it's an international hotel so maybe they have to have something like that on the menu, I expect the chefs aren't fussy on cooking it according to their religions.

Absolutely shattered again by 10pm, we were having an early night after a long two days!
It's time to get ready for our adventure!