Mumbai Madness

So here we are.... the first day of our big trip, and what better place to start than the quiet, serene city of Mumbai. After a long flight we finally arrived around 9.30pm, and were feeling ready to conquer India. We got our Indian SIM sorted, found an ATM and then headed out to face our first challenge..... Indian Uber.

We decided Uber would be the best shout for our first use of public transport, seeing as it was late by that point and we would be able to jump in without any hassle (or so we thought). We sat outside the airport with about 40 locals, dripping in sweat as our bodies went into shock at the humidity, and waited patiently for the lovely Abdul to come and pick us up. Car after car passed. Each time a new driver came round the corner we would jump up in hope, only to see someone else hop in and happily drive off to their destination.

45 minutes later..... still no Abdul. Feeling like failures at the first hurdle, we remembered you can now make a call regarding your booking on Uber and were so pleased to finally hear our drivers voice. Unfortunately, the feeling wasn't mutual, and after having to get three different locals to chat to him to arrange a new meet point, we were finally reunited with the not-very-happy Abdul. It wasn't the most comfortable atmosphere in the taxi to say the least, but it didn't matter because finally, at about 1am, we had arrived at our accommodation in Mumbai.

The guy who owned the apartment was really friendly and came out to meet us. We followed him into what can only be described as the perfect setting for a crime scene, with dark, windy alleys, about seven floors of stairs, and various male figures fast asleep, scattered along the corridor floor. We weaved our way up an endless amount of stairs to our bedroom which was a little room in a flat-share kind of set up, with lots of tiny bugs and little emphasis on cleanliness. None of this mattered though.... we had arrived safely and finally our adventure could begin!