3 Weeks Across Incredible India

Day 31 - 30. January 2009

The morning I enjoyed some chai teas on the train. All the time chai tea is sold for 5 rupees inside and outside trains and makes me addicted to it.

After arriving at Mumbai Bandra Terminus I took an autorikscha to my hotel very close to the airport. Because this area around the airport was very boring I decided to go to Mumbai City Center again. So I took another autorikscha to Andheri train station and a train to Mumbai Central Station and explored the surrounding.

So I visited Chor Bazaar where you can buy everythings at market stalls from iron bars, bicycles, electrical things, vegetables, meat, dishes and to ...
Later I went to Chowpatty Beach but after Kerala and Goa this beach is really not nice.

So I checked out a modern coffee bar called Coffee Day which is like Starbuck's and another restaurant close to Churchgate Station.

In the evening I took another full train back to Andheri and went to the hotel. After shower, sorting my stuff, doing some last cheap phone calls to my indian friends there was only 1.5 hours left to start to the airport. So I used the time to watch a Bollywood Music Channel on TV and decided to sleep on the aircrafts.

Day 32 - 31. January 2009

At 1:15am a taxi arranged by the hotel picked me up to the airport and after some long queues I went to the gate. It was funny to see the people rushing to the gate long before boarding started. The airline staff tried to get them seated in the departure hall until boarding starts but with less success.

At 4:15am my flight to Dubai started and after another 3 hours waiting in Dubai I had my flight back to Hamburg. In Hamburg I walked around in the city until my train back home to Rostock came with its Indian Standard Deutsche Bahn delay. So I came home on this Saturday afternoon after having 3 very good weeks in India.

Conclusion

My trip to India was very nice. Thanks to my Indian friends Saijo, Lijo and Faiz for hospitality!

Here are some suggestions for India:

Buying a simcard is a cheap and easy way to solve small problems by phone like a taxi driver not knowing the way or just to meet people. For some security laws you have to bring a passport photocopy, visa photocopy and a passport photo of you to the phone shop. I bought an Airtel prepaid GSM simcard for only 100Rs startup + credit for phone calls. Who will be the first person to find a place without network coverage in India?

Saijo suggests: "Don't take more than one coconut a day (not water) and don't eat too much as this may not be good for easy digestion."

Because trains are often sold out and queues at counters are very long I booked all my train tickets in advance on http://www.irctc.co.in. This online booking system is very efficient and saved me a lot of time. Do never believe in people who try to fool you by saying your printout ticket is not valid without a stamp or so. This is nonsence and I got this experience in New Delhi Train Station. I told him that there is everything alright with my ticket and then he stopped immediately.