The Journey Begins

Monday, June 19, 2006

On 18th June at 5.00 am begins the journey of a girl (Me) from Singapore to Mumbai...

I reached the airport at 5.30 am and thereafter got on the plane at 7.30 am for the 5 hour flight. After watching Failure to Launch, playing some Dr. Mario and half-watching Moonlight in Tokyo, I reached Mumbai International Airport. The Mumbai airport wasn't as bad as most people thought it was. Clean and orderly. Lots of staff directing traffic at the immigration counter. Even the toilet had someone handing out, turning on the tap for you. Of course, there's a catch...they would stretch out their hands when you are about to leave. Too bad I didn't have small change so I just walked out.

Just when I thought everything was going smoothly, I got a shock when I reached the service apartment. I was promised a 2 room apartment with internet connection but what we got was a 1 room apartment with a double bed, there was also no internet connection. We needed to use dial up (which was really expensive) or to go to a cybercafe outside our apartment. Imagine our shock! Winnie (my travel partner) smsed our boss immediately to try to change our room.

So while waiting to get our rooms changed, I explored the neighbourhood trying to find some lunch but there was not much food available as it was a Sunday. So I went back to the apartment and ordered egg fried rice from room service. I spent the rest of the afternoon between bouts of sleep and watching Star Movies. I think I have never watched so many movies or half movies in a single day before. I watched Blue Crush, Nine Months, Parenthood and some other movies while I was dreaming. At 5.30 pm, I was all ready to move to our new apartment but in typical India fashion, the room was only ready at 6.30 pm.

There wasn't even time to pack as Manas (whom we met at the airport) kindly came to bring us out for dinner and to buy some drinks and snacks to stock up. We took 1 hour to reach our dinner place in Colaba (on the other side of town). It's a nice cosy Western restaurant with a bar. Expensive but nice food. I just asked Manas as many things as I could about India and the Indians' work ethics so that I won't get too much of a culture shock. When we finished dinner, it was already 1.30 am Singapore time. I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Even on the way back, I was dozing off already.

So there goes my first day in Mumbai. Nice dinner, nice apartment, nice bed, zzz......