So the four of us set out, my wife Andrea, my son Levin (15), Andreas godchild Fiona (twentysomething) and me.
At the airport in Germany all went well except an broken connection to a Spotify account. All playlists and favourites seemed gone. The relief on Fionas face after she managed to get hold on her digital assets again was second to none. It nearly seemed, the biggest challenge of the trip has been managed and nothing can harm us any more 😉 All while we’re still not more than 20 km from our hometown.
The flight went well, Lufthansa introduced us to Indian veg food with a delishious Paneer dish, slightly hot. Please note the colors of the indian flag:
From the board entertainment, I sneaked into an audiobook 30 “Minutes of Reslilence” lasting for 62 minutes 🤔 I fell asleep before even 30 minutes were over. If sleeping over things instead of worrying is also a means of being resilient, you can say the audiobook worked.
Shifting the clock 3 1/2 hours forward the around 8 hours from Frankfurt to Mumbai went faster rhan I expected. Maybe because it was not really an overnight flight. We landed at 1:30 a.m. on the Mumbai runway. With some time for immigration procedures and finding an ATM to get some cash, and a quick 40 minutes pickup to the hotel (both booked in advance), we arrived the at 3:30 in the morning.
As we had the rooms booked on from the next night on, we had some time to spend. While we knew that in advance, it still didn’t feel too comfortable the, as the Mumbai we saw on the night ride from the airport was not the most comfortable one. Nevertheless, as we could have a room from around seven o’clock without extra charge, I was to “Swabian” to pay another complete night for only four hours.
So we set off into the moist night, looking for the way to the Marina Drive where we expected a bit of ocean breeze and a place to sit down. Around 15 to 20 minutes walk according to the receptionist. And it was, just did these minutes somehow make us very clear, that Mumbai has also its ugly side. Walking in the middle of ways was advised, in order not to overlook either a dog or cat, nor a rat, nor people sleeping on the street. And I cannot tell of which kind there were more. Rats usually flew early enough, dogs and cats mostly didon’ care but the homeless Mumbai people where in do many corners, I literally nearly stumbled across one. Taxi drivers often used the back seat of their taxis as bed, doors wide open to strech the legs out and in comparison already had a luxury residence compared to those sleeping on the pavement.
We found the Marina Drive, walked around for some time as from the only place to sit we were chased away by the police. Finaly we found some rest and enjoyed (no irony here) looking at the folks around us. Many young men and also women spend their time at the ocean front. Some joggers, some chai-vebdors on bicycles, and overall the youth of Mumbai spent theit time. Why at 4 to 6 o’clock in the morning, we couldn’t find out. That it was a public holiday (independence day) probaby was one of the reasons.
At 6 we had experienced Mumbai enough for the moment, went back to the hotel, where we waited another hour for a room to be prepared. We were really running on empty already and could fall asleep instantly. Receiving the room key for the first room was a real relief. Day one done.