Arrived in Mumbai by plane from the Seychelles, it was a very turbulent flight ….. Heather was not pleased but stopped short of screaming. After having concerns about a difficult airport experience, it turned out that all our fears were unfounded and from touchdown to being in the taxi was just over 1 hour.

We splashed out a bit on the hotel and stayed in the 5-star Taj Mahal Palace (the beauty of travelling in Monsoon season, discounted rates!) - A team were assigned to escort us to our room and after agreeing it was first class they disbanded and returned to their duties.

The location of the hotel was adjacent to the Gateway of India, a structure similar in design to Marble Arch, it was constructed to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to India in 1911.

The hotel restaurant was so posh, Heather's camera was given its own chair and sat beside us, as an equal. Meal excellent, wine excellent (pricey).

We spent 3 days exploring Mumbai, mainly on foot and it was a very busy and bustling city but strangely not as extreme as we expected. The people were very friendly and bizarrely many of them wanted their photographs taken with us - It was like being a celebrity.

The city was fascinating to walk, much of the architecture dated back to the days of the Raj along with a sprinkling of 1920's art deco. The main railway station Victoria Terminal (equivalent to St Pancras) was the busiest station we had ever seen, endless people pouring out the gate and heading for work - Mumbai has 22 million people and it seemed like they all came through this station. Our visit to this station was our only encounter with rain and it absolutely poured down ….. Just as we were trying to figure out what to do, a man turned up selling umbrellas - Very enterprising. As soon as we bought the umbrellas, the rain stopped and we haven't needed to use them since.

At lunchtime on our last full day we passed by Churchgate station and witnessed the Dabbawallas in operation - 200,000 lunches are prepared every day in outlying areas by women and placed into individual lunch containers, which are sent into the city by train and distributed by the dabbawallas on foot, bikes, trolleys etc to the owners of the lunch boxes - The empty lunch boxes are all collected and returned the same evening for the next day's lunch preparation…….. Difficult to see how the logistics work but apparently it does.

India had played on Heather's mind all the time we were in Madagascar ……. It would be Monsoon season, intense heat, unbearable humidity, relentless rain and in a city of 22 million people compressed into a small area - Why are we going? she would often question. In the event during our time in Mumbai none of this nightmare emerged and our time was hugely enjoyable

Each day when we returned to the hotel, we were individually greeted by every member of staff between the door and the lift and when we got to our room they had prepared a foot spa for us (those tired feet) ……. The level of detailed attention was impressive, for instance one of us left a book open and they provided a bookmark properly placed, the book closed and put in a convenient spot.

People on the street are constantly trying to sell something, generally in a friendly and engaging way - Difficult not to be drawn in sometimes. The most bizarre example was a guy who told Dan he had something in his ear and offered to remove it for him…… Heather noticed, he was about to pull the hairs out of Dan's ears with a tweezers and stopped him …… Another sale lost.

All to soon our three days of luxury were over and it was back to the airport and onto our next destination - Udaipur in Rajasthan.