So, we decided to go take some photos of Marine Drive at night, and did some interesting time lapse stuff (will all be available on our return, on many media and in many locations. I am thinking of contacting a gallery to put on a major exhibition world tour!). However, we were asked to vacate our perch by the far wall of the hotel next door called the Trident Towers, which is also posh, as they locked their pool floor doors at 9pm.
We thought it was hightime we sampled the hotel bar. It seems strange to most of you who read this, however since neither steph nor myself are heavy drinkers, the bars do not hold that much in terms of attraction for either of us. But, the bar was rather pleasant, with some live music from George and his band, kinda old jazz and soul stuff. I sipped my way through a few G&T's while steph had a blue lagoon and then a rising sun. Guys, just so you know, I opted for G&T because the beer choice is not brill. Oh, who am I kidding, I just like girly drinks, or as I like to call them "sophisticated" drinks. We got popcorn with our drinks, and opted to have some bar snacks as a sort of dinner.
We retired that evening safe in the knowledge that we had nothing planned for the next day at all, and that after failing to book ourselves on a river rafting or a waterfall absailing day, we were at a loose end.
We decided to book some time in the hotels spa and get a massage. So that we did. A two and a half hour massage. It was awesome! We started off having our feet washed, and then choosing some insense, we laid back to enjoy the rubbing. I should mention that we were in totally different rooms, but as we compaired notes afterwards, it seems we had identical programmes, so I will describe it in plural.
First was a head and full body massage using herb pouches. Basically, little bags of herbs, but very hot, and then the rubbing lady hammers you all over with the hot pouch. It doesn't sound that relaxing, but it really was. Then we had an Ayurvedic Massage, which is a traditional indian massage which regulates the circulatory and nervous systems and leaves you refreshed and rejuvenated. Following this, we had a face massage. Now, in my defence I was very relaxed, and as such, am not surprised that I fell asleep twice during the face massage. However steph found this hilarious, and especially so when I said I had only noticed cos I started snoring! After the massage I had a steam and shower, and steph and I sat together drinking green tea, and comparing treatments.
We grabbed a quick bite at Tiffin, the only hotel restaurant we have eaten in so far, but very nice I is too. Steph has a mushroom udon noodle dish, but they substituted the eggy japanese noodles for some dairy free spagetti instead. Interesting, but nice so steph said. I had a chicken burger, but it was gormet style, not the sort of thing you normally get in a box or bucket from your local chicken cottage or KFC. Very yummy.
It was around 4pm by the time we had made it back to our room, and we began to pack our bags. Felt strange to be leaving this place, we're both feeling like we are going home, but of course, we have another 4 weeks to go.
In the evening, we decided to go to "The Dome" one of the top bars in mumbai, were you can usually rub shoulders with Bollywood stars, not that we would recognise any of them, but still a nice thought. The bar is on the top floor of the Intercontinental Hotel, about 600 meters down the road from our hotel. It was candle lit, and rather swanky, with good music and of course good service. I stuck to the G&T's, and Steph had cosmo's.
It was a little smokey, and the cravings were kicking in. I was enjoying the passive smoking a lot! However, I still didn't crack. I think we forgot to mention earlier in the blog that I had baught some nicotine gum (some indian brand), on day 2, ut it had the strangest effect. A slight burning and swelling in the back of my throat, and gave me hiccups, which hung around for ages, and were every few seconds. Very strange. I was a little paniced, but steph just laught at me.
So, we left The Dome eventually, after having fun with our cards trying to pay. The fraud squad had blocked them all after a few transactions in india Piece of advice, when traveling, phone your bank and tell them where you are going!
The next morning was our last in Mumbai, and we had a laid back start, as we prepared to check out. Again, we suffered som card trouble, but managed to leave eventually and got our car to the airport. Mumbai Domestic Airport is smaller and simpler than the international airport, and there are about 6 domestic airlines. Jet Airways seemed to be good which is who we were flying with. We tried to identify which airlines were the "no frills" airlines, and decided without any proof that it was Go Air due to the logo and the uniforms. Yup, we're judging books.
The check in was very swift, and while we went to get our baggage scanned we spotted a hot dog stall, selling veggie hot dogs! Awesome! We were very happy. We went through security, ladies through one channel, and gents through another of course, and waited to board.
Again, for those of you keeping tabs, attached is another beard watch photo Its not got itchy yet, so that's a plus. Talk to you all from Kochi.
1 comment:
Sounds terrific - hope the transaction has gone thro OK? xx
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