7th and 8th March 2016 - Sightseeing Mumbai

The majority of our Tauck friends have all departed after breakfast.  It is a time to reflect and Ken does want to visit several of the tourist and important municipal sites around Southern Bombay.  Following breakfast he catches a blue cab ( air conditioned) cab from the Oberoi to the Taj Palace and takes photos and then walks to Colada Causeway which is a shopping market area of hundreds of stalls and small stores. 

From here he the catches a cab to the Bustling precinct near the High Courts with the aim of taking photos of this spectacular architecture and also the cricket fields called "Oval Maidan" which is a large rectangular plying field area in the middle of South Bombay, used exclusively for 5 playing fields.

Ken then walks passed the High Court and to RAJABAI Tower for photos and then crosses Veer Nariman Road and the Central Telegraph Office building and then quite a long walk down Maharashi Karve Road a major thoroughfare.  He takes photos of a variety of buildings as well as the sacred cow grazing on the footpaths at several corners.  Then he begins the long walk back to the Oberoi via Madam Carna Drive and it winds its way through the Government District and also passed several areas which are residential locations for government, military and railway personnel. 

Eventually his walk brings him back to Marine Drive, where he walks some 1500 metres to the Brabourne Stadium and Cricket Club of India, it I was denied access even to take photos because with the preliminary rounds of the World Cup commencing tomorrow security was very tight.  Also I didn't have my MCC membership card.   Then walk back to the air conditioned joy of our Oberoi Hotel.

This has been a terrific second last morning and following lunch decide to have a swim in the beautiful pool.  Ken spends 45 minutes then showers and changes and we relax.

8th March 2016 Shopping at Colaba Shops and Lunch at famed Leopold Cafe .

We sleep very well and again awake a little later before breakfast.  It is our last day here and we really have had a wonderful nearly 3 weeks in India with many highlights and a great tour. 

This morning we plan to get a cab late morning early afternoon to visit Colaba Road and Jeanette wishes to complete her shopping activities.  Then we aim to have a late lunch at the famous Leopold Cafe Bar and Restaurant before returning to the hotel, finalise our packing and await pick up at 7.00pm.

We pack and our cases are collected at 12.00pm then we leave. We are dropped off by our blue cab, after talking cricket, then we walk and visit several small stores all willing to sell you anything.  We do make some purchases and eventually get to Leopold Cafe at 1.45pm and enjoy a scrumptious meal and 2 Kingfisher beers and soft drinks.  We then walk back to the beautiful Taj Palaces Hotel and catch a blue cab back to the Oberoi at approximately 3.30pm.  We now have approximately 2 hours 15 minutes before Wahid our guide and Tauck rep will pick us up and we make the trip to the beautiful new BOMBAY Airport (International).  Wahid from Garha Travel (09871844501) calls and requests that we depart for the Airport at 6.15pm. He advises traffic is very heavy.  He is prove. Correct with our trip to the Airport taking almost 2 hours, but we arrive at 8.30pm and he the. escorts us through booking check in and to security, where we pass through very quickly.  We are on the lounge by 8.50pm with our flight confirmed at leaving at 11.20pm.  We subsequently find that we are upgraded to First Class on the Thai flight and both Jeanette and I sleep almost 4 hours on the flight, missing meals and everything else.

To go back to our trip to the airport, we were amazed how 5 lanes of marked freeway can manage to handle 6 lanes of vehicles as well as two wide of motor vehicles, thus 8 lanes are somehow made from the marked 5 lanes.  Everyone continuously honks and toots their horns.  This is definitely another place whereI would not drive. 

We enjoy the flight from Mumbai to Bangkok, we have previously enjoyed Thai Airways and this is the same.  At Bangkok we are required to pass through Immigration and Customs before going back through Transit and then to the Thai Silk lounge to await our flight to Phuket.