Monday's outing

I just finished a small cup of Indian style tea, mm MMm. Things are going well here! Besides the usual issues that any American might find difficult to deal with while staying here(heat outside, bad smells outside, less privacy, hard bed, etc) , things are good! Much better than last year. :) Kavi has adjusted very well. He isn't crying all the time like last year, and his stomach has been good too.

We had a long and interesting day on Monday! We had a real sightseeing day, something I hadn't done in Mumbai yet even though we had been here two other times. We first stopped by one of my husband's aunt's place to drop off something and to say hi. It took probably an hour and a half to get there even though mile-wise, it's not very far. Maybe 17 miles. The last 20 minutes or more of that ride was trying to find the right road to turn on, and making a couple u-turns. We finally got there and I was ready for a break. We had a snack at her house. We had a taxi all day, the same driver stays with you, waits for you while you are doing things, and you pay for the all day outing.

It sure is exhausting getting around though. We then left our aunt's house and continued down to the Gateway of India. That drive wasn't too bad. Lots of over-passes to use to avoid narrow congested streets. I started seeing more of the old British built buildings as we got closer to the area. It was 35mins til we were there, passed by the big train station called Victoria Terminus(the British name) or Chatrapathi Shivaji Station(the Indian name since 1996).

We got dropped off by the driver and walked around Gateway of India for 20 minutes or so, took pics of the Taj(hotel). Walked right down the street from the gateway and ate at a good restaurant.

Then we left and drove in Marine drive, a coastal road near all the high rise corporate buildings. We drove through downtown Mumbai. Lots of nice cars driving around.

Then we planned to go to Juhu beach north of there. My husband realized he left his debit card at the restaurant we ate at, uggh. We kept going though and decided we would drive over a neat bridge called Sea Link, then would turn around. The bridge is like a shortcut.

The bridge takes you and curves off the side of the land and then runs parallel to land before curving back onto land at the end. All elevated over water. I couldn't take good pics while in the car.

Then we drove back to the Gateway area to get the debit card. Then we started driving home and that felt like it took forever. The last 45 mins I was nodding off to sleep in between bumps and one serious slam on the breaks, with a tiny bit of skidding to avoid a car. It took about two hours to get home. I was thoroughly exhausted, we were out for about 9 hours, but it was worth it to see more of Mumbai.