There are few sights you will see similar to that of flying into Mumbai airport. The slums reach to the very borders of the runway and the scale of which is incomprehendable. The drive to the hotel at the other side of the city took little over an hour and we went through the central slums areas with the overwhelming stench only bareable because we were too busy fearing for our lives in the back of a taxi that, like everyone else it now seems, fails to abide by any rules of the road whatsoever! Weirdly, it sort of works though...

Anywho, got to the hotel and spent the next few days pottering around the city seeing the Gates of India, a few churches and temples as well as sampling some of the local street food. One afternoon we set off to the beach and saw a little girl with some horrific wound on her legs so we came to the mutual agreement that we couldn't stand by and do nothing. We trekked back to the hotel, packed up the the medical kit and cleaned her up the best we could. By the end a huge crowd had gathered with some even filming us on their phones! I was shaking like a s***ting dog wrapping the last bandage on. We got her some antibiotics but neither the girl nor her mother spoke English so we had to get one of the local kids to translate. We were hoping to see her again later in the trip to see if she was getting better and change her bandages but unfortunately we didn't see her or her mother again. Later that day and after getting back to the hotel somewhat inebriated from our favorite little whiskey joint (under 2 quid for a x6 measure!!!) we heard the huge submarine explosion (you may have seen it on the news) at the dockyards behind the hotel.

The next day we went to see if we could have a nosy at the destruction but instead found hoardes of children playing cricket and football in the streets to celebrate Indias Independance day. We had a quick bat and bowl but realising that these 6 and 7 year olds were far more skilled in every way we retreated to instead play barefoot football with another group further down the road...and yes running barefoot on dusty tarmac does hurt!