Pre-XMAS in Bombay

Bombay: 27 November - 11 December 2013

High on life and Indian Champagne - what could be better than an unexpected trip to Mumbai (Bombay as they call it locally) for Astrid for work and for Ian to stop by over the weekend. Having learned the weekend before via Astrid's work-colleagues who kindly took her around she managed to pass on all the knowledge to Ian when he arrived. Saturday was spend walking the streets of South Mumbai around the Taj Hotel and the Gateway of India, the Haji Ali Dargah and the train station that was modelled on King's Cross and is featured in the film Slumdog Millionaire. Sunday was spent going to Elephanta island/caves - a UNESCO world heritage site from ~5th - 8th century AD with magnificent stone carvings  (dedicated to Shiva in the main cave) which unfortunately were used by the Portuguese as target practice ~1600 (which together with neglect severely damaged the structures). Elephanta is a small island ~1hr boattrip away and afterwards we went for our annual pre-XMAS champagne brunch Mumbai style :). Mumbai is an amazing/wicked place - full of life, colour, crazy traffic, millions of people (you've got to watch the National Geographic documentary on Mumbai Megacity to get an idea of the scale/challenges) and nice Indian food. It is quite full on and pretty incredible to think that next weekend we both will be in Austria & England respectively for our xmas vacation :)