First night in the "Maximum City"

The main event yesterday was the journey from Pune to Mumbai, which because of the Diwali holidays was a lot easier and less traffic jam-based than it would normally be.

We arrived at our accomodation in Colaba in the early evening and after checking in we made our way to Cafe Mondegar (a favourite with locals and tourists) where a lot of sweet and salted lime was drunk. Then we did our first big tourist sight - The Gateway of India. The atmosphere at the Gateway was electric as many people had gathered there to celebrate the start of the holidays and the early evening mist made it even more stunning than usual.

After negotiating our way through the massive crowds we headed to Leopold's which is a cafe made famous in the book Shantaram. Like Mondegar's it is a popular place for locals and tourists and does a great variety of Indian dishes. Despite there also being English food available the girls went straight for the Indian menu with Tatiarna declaring that "I'll eat anything as long as it's not English". Amy-Lou demolishing an entire tandoori chicken was also a high point.

Despite it being well passed all our bedtimes, there was still time for a bit of shopping on Colaba Causeway, and Ms Hogg showed off her haggling skills to great effect by securing a great deal for scarves for all the girls. Unfortunately karma came back to bite her today when she got ripped off by a rickshaw driver, but more of that in the next post.

We'll let you know about today's incredible experience at the orphanage in the next post. Below are some pictures of our first night in Mumbai...