It was a 4.30 a.m. alarm call this morning, to get up and finish the packing. A small breakfast had been arranged for us early in the café. I just had coffee in the room and we put the baggage out at 6 a.m. for collection and loading on the bus. After bidding our hosts at the Leela farewell the bus took off for the airport at 6.25 a.m.
The trip to Trivandrum, real name, Thiruvananthapuram, airport was uneventful by Indian traffic standards!! At check in we managed to keep our baggage weight below the allowable limit. Security at the airport seemed a little more strict, perhaps due to the recent terrorist incident in Kashmir involving the deaths of a number of Indian troops.
We soon boarded our Jet Airways Boeing 737-800 and took off right on schedule at 8.20 a.m. Our flight to Mumbai was scheduled for 1 hour20 minutes. We were served a vegetarian breakfast on board and apart from rather a rough landing, the flight was smooth. Sitting in front of us were a mother and daughter who had been in Trivandrum for the Pongala festival.
After landing we soon got our bags and loaded up a couple of cars for the trip to the hotel. There was awful traffic and we spent quite a bit of the trip stopped dead and much of it crawling. The whole trip must have taken over an hour.
On arriving at the hotel, we checked in and found our rooms, had our baggage delivered and them it was off to lunch to a restaurant within 10 minutes walking distance called Swati’s Snacks which serves a version of a street food in a restaurant environment. The place was very crowded and we had to wait for 20 minutes or so for tables. When we got tables, we enjoyed some very interesting dishes, some local and some from other States. They were all very tasty and mostly vegetarian, bean or chickpea based with yogurt and breads to accompany them.
From here we took a cab to the area around the old Regal Cinema And walked around the area looking at the wonderful old Colonial and Art Deco buildings before joining the ladies who were in a jewelry shop. The architecture in central Mumbai is stunning and makes walking around the streets an absolute pleasure. Then we walked to the Taj Hotel. There is an old part and a new part and we had a brief tour of both including the magnificent main staircase in the old part of the building, before returning to the hotel to freshen up ready for the hour long drive to the restaurant for dinner.
MAC, Denise, Cathi and Darshana had set out earlier to go to a shopping mall located nearby to the restaurant we would go to for dinner.
Dinner was to be at the Bombay Canteen in an area called Kamala Mills which is an are of re-purposed textile mills with a number of new restaurants, Bombay Kitchen’s culinary director is Floyd Cardoz who well-known in New York for the Restaurant’s he has cooked at or partnered in including Tabla, Paowalla and most recently, the Bombay Bread Bar. He has also won many awards on TV cooking shows.
The restaurant is lively and was fairly full when we arrived. The ‘shopping ladies’ joined us soon after we arrived. We were able to select the vegetarian or non-vegetarian options from the ‘Bombay Canteen Experience’ on the menu. The dishes came fast and furious, although it was not always so easy to tell which was which as the descriptions were not easy to hear above the music and general hubbub. All the ones I tasted were delicious and although I had selected the vegetarian menu, I did try some of the non-vegetarian options too. Many were quite spicy and others less so. At the end, I think everyone, including me was absolutely full.
Two of Hament’s relatives joined us for the meal and sat with us and were very interesting to talk to. The younger one, a nephew, Shreyas Shah, lives in Chicago and is the creative director for a food and liquor company whose new project is to market the new whiskey which carries Bob Dylan’s name. They also have some restaurants and other brands in their portfolio. He is here on vacation and as a relief from the brutal cold of this winter’s Chicago. Hament’s cousin, (he has many of them!!), Ruchir Bareekh, lives in Mumbai.
During the meal we were able to celebrate Steve’s birthday with cake and a melodious rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’.
We arrived back at the hotel just before midnight and as we had started the day at 4.30 a.m., most of us were pretty tired and went straight up to bed. We will have a later start tomorrow which will be much relief.
The trip to Trivandrum, real name, Thiruvananthapuram, airport was uneventful by Indian traffic standards!! At check in we managed to keep our baggage weight below the allowable limit. Security at the airport seemed a little more strict, perhaps due to the recent terrorist incident in Kashmir involving the deaths of a number of Indian troops.
We soon boarded our Jet Airways Boeing 737-800 and took off right on schedule at 8.20 a.m. Our flight to Mumbai was scheduled for 1 hour20 minutes. We were served a vegetarian breakfast on board and apart from rather a rough landing, the flight was smooth. Sitting in front of us were a mother and daughter who had been in Trivandrum for the Pongala festival.
After landing we soon got our bags and loaded up a couple of cars for the trip to the hotel. There was awful traffic and we spent quite a bit of the trip stopped dead and much of it crawling. The whole trip must have taken over an hour.
On arriving at the hotel, we checked in and found our rooms, had our baggage delivered and them it was off to lunch to a restaurant within 10 minutes walking distance called Swati’s Snacks which serves a version of a street food in a restaurant environment. The place was very crowded and we had to wait for 20 minutes or so for tables. When we got tables, we enjoyed some very interesting dishes, some local and some from other States. They were all very tasty and mostly vegetarian, bean or chickpea based with yogurt and breads to accompany them.
From here we took a cab to the area around the old Regal Cinema And walked around the area looking at the wonderful old Colonial and Art Deco buildings before joining the ladies who were in a jewelry shop. The architecture in central Mumbai is stunning and makes walking around the streets an absolute pleasure. Then we walked to the Taj Hotel. There is an old part and a new part and we had a brief tour of both including the magnificent main staircase in the old part of the building, before returning to the hotel to freshen up ready for the hour long drive to the restaurant for dinner.
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| The 'new' Taj Hotel |
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| The 'old' Taj Hotel, next door and adjoining the new. |
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| The staircase in the 'old' Taj with Denise adding glamour to it. |
MAC, Denise, Cathi and Darshana had set out earlier to go to a shopping mall located nearby to the restaurant we would go to for dinner.
Dinner was to be at the Bombay Canteen in an area called Kamala Mills which is an are of re-purposed textile mills with a number of new restaurants, Bombay Kitchen’s culinary director is Floyd Cardoz who well-known in New York for the Restaurant’s he has cooked at or partnered in including Tabla, Paowalla and most recently, the Bombay Bread Bar. He has also won many awards on TV cooking shows.
The restaurant is lively and was fairly full when we arrived. The ‘shopping ladies’ joined us soon after we arrived. We were able to select the vegetarian or non-vegetarian options from the ‘Bombay Canteen Experience’ on the menu. The dishes came fast and furious, although it was not always so easy to tell which was which as the descriptions were not easy to hear above the music and general hubbub. All the ones I tasted were delicious and although I had selected the vegetarian menu, I did try some of the non-vegetarian options too. Many were quite spicy and others less so. At the end, I think everyone, including me was absolutely full.
Two of Hament’s relatives joined us for the meal and sat with us and were very interesting to talk to. The younger one, a nephew, Shreyas Shah, lives in Chicago and is the creative director for a food and liquor company whose new project is to market the new whiskey which carries Bob Dylan’s name. They also have some restaurants and other brands in their portfolio. He is here on vacation and as a relief from the brutal cold of this winter’s Chicago. Hament’s cousin, (he has many of them!!), Ruchir Bareekh, lives in Mumbai.
During the meal we were able to celebrate Steve’s birthday with cake and a melodious rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’.
We arrived back at the hotel just before midnight and as we had started the day at 4.30 a.m., most of us were pretty tired and went straight up to bed. We will have a later start tomorrow which will be much relief.
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