from the ridiculous to the sublime!

I had to write tonight - our last night of nights - but due to our expensive last night hotel treat the costs for internet are extortionate and I am about to run out of time!!!

We cannot believe our adventure is nearly over. We spent our first night in Mumbai in a windowless cockroach filled room above the famous Leopolds Bar (famous as one of the oldest bars in Mumbai and also as a key location in the amazing book Shantaram)- I insisted we do this as a condition to matty who then wanted to move to an expensive hotel!

Now we are in a weird but very comfortable and very pricy - it hurts - bubble of the Leela hotel - which sadly we failed to realise was on the edge of town. It is lovely but it is not India.

We have come to really love India and understand it just a little - I plan to bore this blog with details of this later - but needless to say it is not an easy country! But it has given us some of the biggest adventures of our lives - and we are so proud to have done this - to quote M earlier - with me the workaholic, him the homeaholic and above all with the energetic Tobes! - T promised earlier to stop being a rascal - I asked instead if I could have lots of good t but still a bit of rascal T - he also then said he wanted to stay forever and ever here.

Anyhow - back to loving India. It is the most honest place I have been to. Here you see the poverty - you see the rubbish - you see people's emotions - I think you see more than anywhere else I have been

Neither of us like this bubble - we like the bath and the swimming pool and being clean - my god you should have seen us after we got here.

I said to the porter - by way of some excuse - "we have been travelling for a long time" and he looked at me and said "i can see madam!"

The other night on the safari a Korean lady said the same thing - she said youlook like you have been in India a while... so goodness knows what we must look like

We were very excited about coming to Mumbai - the home of Ahaan's mummy Poornima, key location in the book we both loved - Shantaram, a buzzy city we had heard so much about! Our first night we leave our luggage in left luggage and so make it 8 days for our dusty set of Rajastan clothes ... but thank gxd as our room is tiny and yukky. After Leopolds we wander down to the deco Marine Drive and walk for 2 hours in the dark to Chowpatty beach - Toby pretending to be a car running madly - us musing and marvelling at the Mumbai skyline. It is a great last-ish night. Chowpatty beach is like a mad small funfare and Toby zooms around in a mini jeep - they looked like they were battery powered but the battery turned out to be a young guy who ran behind pushing him. We sleep badly 3 in the tiny bed - and leap out early - step over the staff sleeping in the corridor and head for the gateway to India. It seems apt that one of our last 'sites' is this symbol of Europe's arrival in India... Tobes is more impressed by the cement mixer next to it!

Then we head out of the centre of Mumbai to our 5 star bubble - reluctantly leaving behind the more real india and stopping to marvel at the Laundry Matty's Mum had told us to visit - an amazing place where most of the city's hotels have their laundry is done - a walled city of stone outdoor wash tubs with men thrashing wet sheets, shirts, skirts and then hanging them in colour order like pencils in a box, different shades of white, green, blue ....

Our last full day is spent on a shopping mission looking for last minute pressies in a fairtrade shop then looking for Anokhi - which we finally find and is closed... hot and dusty we gratefully return to the ice cold hotel pool and bath tub.

anyhow - I hope you will all see soon. Must dash as my most expensive internet experience is about to run out. We love you all and can't wait to see you - thank you for all your encouragement, help, M&D having buzz , etc etc and onwards for more adventures