What we did: Bus ticket to Goa, shopped
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 4648R/$93
We had our usual breakfast this morning – curds (yogurt), bananas, toast, peanut butter, and coffee. I was feeling much better this morning so we were looking forward to getting out on the town and seeing more of the Bandra area of Mumbai. We rested in the room for a bit and then we set out for the day.
First on the agenda was booking transportation to Goa. We went to a travel agency just across the street from our hotel and were told they only booked flights to Goa. It crossed our minds that after so much hassle with the buses in India that maybe we should treat ourselves. But our frugal minds got the best of us so we went in search of a travel agency that would book a bus for us. Our taxi driver from several days earlier in Mumbai (the one we despised) also recommended the bus to Goa and said it was very comfortable and that he often made the trip to Goa by bus with his family. So that sealed the deal for us.
Our hotel gave us the directions to a reputable travel agency but unfortunately we weren’t able to find it. There was one that was pretty busy and located near where the other one should have been so after more than 45 minutes of looking for the one our hotel told us about, we gave up and just ended up booking with a random agency. We asked for the fanciest bus they had and we paid twice as much as previous long distance bus trips, so we were hopeful for a better experience.
After this, we came across a store that I have really come to like called Cotton World. I ended up buying a cute beach t-shirt that ties in the front for about $15. After all this it was around dinner time. We found ourselves quite near a restaurant we had previously enjoyed in Mumbai called Lemon Grass. We laughed and recalled how many times our silly taxi driver called it hotel Lemon Grass. It was a great meal. The restaurant serves Southeast Asian dishes from all over. I was still pretty concerned about what my stomach could handle so all I ended up ordering was the Hong Kong chicken soup. It was tasty. I mixed in some plain whole wheat rice and that was my unexciting meal. Jeff had the much better tasting choice of Pad Thai. It was just as good as the last time he ordered it.
After dinner we went back to this fancy looking supermarket we had passed by several times that day. It was selling all our branded favourites from home like Cadbury, Kraft, etc. We ended up buying Mortadella for our breakfast the next day. Something I was thrilled about!! More so than Jeff I think. We also bought a muesli cereal. Man, are we missing food from home! Not just food from home though, but food we can trust won’t make us sick.
We went in search for a taxi to take us home. When we found one we realized we weren’t totally sure how to get back to our hotel in the dark. Mumbai looks a bit different in the dark. We drove around for 5 minutes desperate to find a familiar landmark but we gave up and just asked the taxi guy to find Linking Road, which we had gotten to know very well. It’s also just off of our hotel’s road. We found it and then directed the taxi driver to our hotel.
We dropped off the meat in our fridge and then decided to head back to Theobroma, a super delicious café recommended by Lonely Planet that it describes as serving food of the gods. Indeed, their desserts are quite something, at least from their appearance, and they are also very affordable. So we stopped in for their Oreo cookie brownie. I think we could have done better with our selection, but it was yummy, nonetheless. For some reason, Jeff was miserable the whole time. I guess he doesn’t like eating delicious desserts. Or maybe he was just tired.
We were both pretty exhausted when we arrived home, so we pretty much went straight to bed.
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