The flight to Bombay left around 18:30, and took 4 hours or so. Due to the time change it didn't arrive in Bombay (now called Mumbai) until about 01:30 on Wednesday. I went through formalities without a problem and prepaid for a taxi into the Taj Mahal Hotel. As I exited the airport two fellows insisted on leading me to the taxi. I told them I didn't need or want their help but they insisted anyway, telling me "it's our job." Once at the taxi, of course, they insisted on being paid. I refused, citing my previous statements, and the fact that I had no change, but they merely got angry, indignant and more insistent. I stood by ground.

The middle of the night drive through Bombay was incredible . We passed modern sky-scrapers and heaps of garbage in the streets. There was shack and shanties all along the way with the poor and wretched sleeping in cardboard and the poorest and most wretched sleeping on pieces of cardboard on the sidewalks or even the edge of the streets. There were hundreds of them lining certain areas all the way into the center of the city. I arrived at the Taj about 03:00 and woke up Dave Baker in our room in the old wing of the hotel. The historic wing still has metal keys. It is usually more expensive, but Dave had been able to negotiate a room there for the cost of a room at a Holiday Inn: quite wonderful. The Taj is 100 years old and the most historic and most believe still the best hotel in Bombay. The interior was lovely; one could easily imagine one's self one hundred years back in the Raj.

We slept in until about 9:00, making it to breakfast just as the buffet line was closing. Fairly concious after coffee, we walked across the street to the Gateway to India monument, built for the occasion of the visit of the King and Queen of England in the early part of the 1900s . It was crowded with people, notably those who wanted to sell something to the tourists or acquire some money in any number of other ways. Dave and I then walked to the old Prince of Wales Museum, which is now called something else. It has interesting exhibits of weapons and work of art from the history of India. I got some interesting photos and the brief visit was worth while.

We had lunch in the hotel bar overlooking the bay and the monument. I got some very interesting video footage of the people and boats outside. After lunch we hired a car and driver for four hours and took a city tour. We went around the "necklace" beach drive, to a Jain temple, a house where Mohandas Gandhi lived for some years and where he was arrested (one of a number of times). The exhibits inside were interesting and as usual I shot photos for later use. We also stopped at a laundry washing area that's rather famous. We stopped on the side of the overpass that overlooked the "washerwalla" and shot video and photos of the men and women washing clothes in what appeared to be very dirty water. It was certainly very brown. The view into a slice of Bombay life was fascinating. After the tour we walked out in the streets to look for souvenirs, and just to take in the scene. I bought a painted-marble-covered box, a silk scarf for Marjolaine, a purse for Fiona and a keychain for Tatiana. I'll be turning in early tonight.