Mumbai

Crowded streets, polluted skies and oppressive heat were what we expected from Mumbai, we were pleasantly surprised by the wide tree lined streets under the blue skies and the cool breeze from the sea. We spent our days exploring the city on foot, eating lots of food and drink from the streets and visiting galleries and museums. We spent a lovely evening wandering along Chowpatty beach and Marine drive eating Bhel Puri and channa masala and another having a drink in the infamous Leopolds.
On our final morning we took a tour of the Dhavi slum - the biggest in Asia - it was a fascinating experience and instead of the pity we expected to feel we were filled with admiration for the people who lived enterprise and happiness, the tour was certainly one of the highlights of India!!
Our last night was spent at 'Blue Frog' it's one if the happening joints in Mumbai for some music and dancing, Tiramasu and very expensive G&T!!
Mumbai continuously confounded our expectations and we loved it.

Captain Caveman

We visited Ellora and Ajanta, the sites of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain temples. Now we have seen many temples on our trip, but all of them to date have been built, these ones were literally carved out of the mountain!! They are all incredibly impressive and include carvings and paintings dating back to 200BC.

We took guides at both sites who regalled us with the stories of the sculptures and and the paintings on the wall - including those of six tusked elephants and monkey kings! It was well worth the visit, even in the scorching heat! (43 degrees!)

Panjim and Old Goa

We've spent a couple of days in these towns, the Portuguese influence is very strong, the streets are wide and clean and the houses are named with tile plaques. There are old English style food sellers on the streets and cashew nuts everywhere. There are hundreds of churches here, all shapes and sizes and we've even visited the wax museum where the piece de resistance was a model of the last supper - it wasn't quite madame Tussuad's but we enjoyed the air con!!

Lights, camera, action!!

We've spent most of our time here in Goa horizontal on the beach, occasionally we move for food, shade or ice-cream and our biggest decisions consist of what book to read next and what items to choose from the menu - it's fabulous. That was until yesterday when the bright lights of Bollywood were put in front of us!! we were asked to be extras in a film called Golmaal 3 (apparently 1 and 2 did very well). It's largely set on the beach so we spent the day mingling with apparently 'very famous' actors that were dressed as an Indian version of Starsky and Hutch with huge sunglasses and fake mustaches. We simply had to walk in the background carrying different inflatables, we also got to watch the filming of the stunt man doing jumps on the jet skis. We were well fed and even paid for the day's work so tonight we are heading out to eat lobster with our feet in the sand!! What a life xx