On To INDIA !!!

Dec 7 to 10: To Mumbai and first day

Alison and I arrived in Mumbai Dec.10th about 5AM local time. We had a very nice and uneventful trip. All went as scheduled and Twyla met us at the airport with a van and driver from ABS, the school where Greg teaches.

The ironic part of the trip was the route. We flew from Vancouver to San Francisco, there we got on a flight that then flew north along the west coast close to Vancouver, south of Anchorage, over Dutch Harbor, north of Adak, over the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula, over Japan to Hong Kong. It was a 13+ hour flight. So, during the past

several days, we were close to all of you on the west coast and in Anchorage! The next leg to Bangkok was only 2 hours and then only 4 hours over the Indian Ocean and India to Mumbai.

On the trans-Pacific flight we had individual pods that could be changed through the whole range of positions from the sitting to lying flat.  VERY NICE!!  Each pod had it's own monitor with hundreds of movies.  We each watched 3 movies during the flight and were fed multiple times with gourmet style meals.  During the airport layovers we also were able to use the business class lounge.  We like Cathay Airlines!



Business Class Lounge in Hong Kong


















Twyla and Greg's apartment building

 The morning we arrived, Twyla took us on a walking tour of the Bandra West area around Twyla and Greg’s apartment.  It is only 1K to the ocean. 
















The coast is mostly lava flows and columnar basalt not much sand right here.  People were walking in the waves and others were washing their laundry.  We stopped for bagels for lunch, saw where Twyla gets her pedicures, did some shopping, and went to the bank and ATM. 



ABS School Complex



ABS swimming pool and tennis court

After a short nap we went to ABS (American School Bombay) to see the NGO displays for some Christmas shopping and meet up with Greg.  We took 2 motor rickshaws (passenger limit for 1 rickshaw is 3) back to T&G's apartment for dinner and Alison and I crashed at 6:30PM.

It's Saturday morning now and we are presently drinking coffee and will take the train (during rush hour) to tour a slum in northwestern Mumbai south of the river that is the local boundary between Mumbai and the suburbs, the first of which is Bandra (west and east) where T&G live and the school is located..  Maybe a bazaar is also on the plan today.  If we can stay awake, we'll join T&G for the ABS Christmas party tonight.  On to the future.....