January 6 - Mumbai, India

January 6 - Mumbai, India

We arrived in Mumbai (formerly Bombay at 8 pm). We immediately felt the hot and humid air that envelopes you as soon as you get off of the plane. Getting our luggage was a complete zoo. I'm very happy to say that all of our luggage arrived intact (although one package of liquids leaked and a bottle of mosquito spray must have been spraying the whole time - lessons learned how to pack on the trip home).

On the way out we saw a sign saying that we had to prepay for our taxi ride. We purchased our ticket, but when we stepped outside the airport, there were the staff from the Hyatt waiting for us. We soon found out that it was Rs. 900 for the hyatt to drive us whereas the taxi was only Rs. 120 ($26 vs. $3 CND). Sheesh. What a rip off. The taxi's are not allowed to enter the airport so we had to walk out to find our taxi using it's number. Luckily the guys from the Hyatt helped us find our way. The taxi was so tiny! We had to strap our precious luggage to the teeny tiny trunk. When we got to the hotel, we had to go through security to drive into the courtyard. There were 6-12 people out front (most of them porters). They pretty much leapt to attention and helped us with our things. Then, believe it or not, I had to walk through a metal detector before coming within 3 meters of the entrance to the hotel! It actually made me feel like I was going to a really safe place. The Hyatt is a 5 star buisness class hotel that I now realize is supremely luxurious.

We were informed that the AC was broken. It was shocking to think that we were going to spend the night roasting in our room. They gave us %25 off and put us in a room near the top floors. I was so impressed with our room! I have more pictures of the room then of anything else. It was decked out in dark wood and marble. The bathroom had an independent shower area with overhead and front facing showerhead with a full soaker tub on the side. The only thing to do at night was to go to a night club. The lonely planet book tells me that night clubs are for men to go to get drunk and that no woman would be caught dead there. I believe the book. We went to their state of the art gym instead and tried to work off some of the fat we packed on in Hong Kong.