What we did: flight to Mumbai, Mumbai airport, flight to Kolkata
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 5133R/$103
Today was an early morning. We woke up at 5am and quickly packed our things. A hotel worker knocked on our door at 5:45am to let us know our taxi had arrived. The ride to the airport was uneventful and we arrived around 6:30am, with plenty of time to spare. Perhaps we are turning over a new leaf?
After we checked our luggage we went to grab a coffee and a croissant for breakfast. It wasn't long before we realized that we had left the bug spray in our carry-on luggage (again!!), but thankfully we were able to put it into our checked luggage without any trouble.
Before heading through security we decided to pick up some cashews, which are produced in Kerala. They really weren't that much, if any, cheaper than home, but they do have a distinct taste… fresher, perhaps? We bought a smaller bag that had salted and roasted cashews and another larger bag that had plain cashews.
Our flight left on time and we were pleasantly surprised to discover that Spice Jet (yeah, that’s not a joke) actually fed us. And it was actually a pretty decent breakfast, too.
We arrived in Mumbai, our stopover, at around 9:30am and had about 9 hours to kill. Our light to
Kolkata didn't leave until 6:30pm and for a while we debated whether to go out into the city to do some shopping. Being extremely tired, we opted to remain in the airport. We had been told that we couldn't go through security until three hours before our flight by the information booth, but we didn't have any problems when we tried. We were mainly hoping to just find some wifi so that we could do some research and catch up on our blog while we waited.
When we got through security, we went straight for some more coffee. We sat and chatted with our coffees for an hour or so in the food court before ordering a pizza from Dominoes. It was decent, but much too small for the two of us. After another hour or so we went looking for some wifi. We found some free terminals and checked our emails and just generally wasted time on pointless stuff (i.e., Facebook).
When we pried ourselves away from the terminals we found some free wifi in a particularly noisy area of the airport. Neither of us wanted to stay there, so we left.
By this point we were getting pretty grumpy due to tiredness and bickered on and off for the next couple of hours. Finally, we were reunited by our shared hunger and I got a Subway sandwich and Patty got some Indian food. Both were OK. While we were eating though, there was a seriously cute kid flashing smiles at us from behind the booth we were sitting at. We had some fun with him until it was about time to head to our gate.
Before we left, however, Patty was determined to find a donut shop called Mad About Donuts that she assumed was in the airport because she had seen one person carrying a box of donuts earlier. This place has some pretty serious donuts and we were hoping to be able to find it again. Unfortunately, it turned out to be in another terminal and we didn't have time to get there. We satisfied ourselves with just buying a chocolate croissant. Could have been worse.
Our plane was about 20 minutes late departing, but that was the only problem we had. Each seat on the plane actually had an individual TV screen. The movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes was playing in English, so I watched that. Patty chose to watch a Bollywood movie that had English subtitles. She really seemed to enjoy it and thought it was some of the best acting she’s ever seen. I was very surprised. It’s not what I imagine from a Bollywood movie!
We were fed again on our flight and it was pretty tasty. We arrived in Mumbai around 9:30pm, grabbed our luggage, and got a pre-paid taxi to our hotel. It was an interesting experience trying to find our hotel since the taxi driver didn't know where the street was, but it happened to be off a well-known, larger street, so that helped. The taxi driver ended up spotting our hotel from the main street, so that was nice.
Our hotel turned out to have free wifi so that was a pleasant surprise. The room itself, however, wasn't anything great. It was clean enough, though, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Tomorrow we sign up for volunteering at the Missionaries of Charity, which was started by Mother Theresa. Hopefully that goes according to plan!
No comments:
Post a Comment