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5th Jan, 2014 - MUMBAI
At Airport:
We landed in at Mumbai’s Chatrapati Shivaji Terminal by 2:05 pm, 5 minutes early. As we had checked in all of our luggage except for 2 simple hand luggage, we were ready to go out of Mumbai and use the 6 hrs time efficiently to goto Gateway of india. This was going to be my first ever visit outside of Airport of Mumbai. We soon went to the Pre-paid taxi counter and asked the counter guy about which local train station is close to airport from where we can take a train to Churchgate station. He replied, “ Ville Parle”. We prepaid for a taxi for 100/- to drop us at Ville Parle station. We got out of the terminal and found Starbucks on the left, without much thought we got into buy a Cinnamon latte tall and took it away.
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Local train to Churchgate:
This would be my first ever EMU Mumbai journey. I soon crossed the station to the otherside to buy a return trip ticket to Churchgate. We took the immediate local to Churchgate. At Santucruz, fish vendors with stinking fish and blood stains on the cloths got int. After a 10 minutes of standing, I could get a seat to sit at Bandra. The fish vendors also got down so I could breath well. We were able to reach Churchgate station in 40 minutes.
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At Churchgate:
It was 4:45 pm. We walked out of the station on to the road and hired a taxi to gateway of India. The meter read 50/-. We got down and walked with enthusiasm towards the monument. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t reach close to the monument as there was huge live show being organized for the Sunday evening by Shankar Mahadevan and co. The place was too crowded that were atleast 100 people standing in each queue to hop onto a Boat round trip in to the see at each pier. So walked towards the Taj hotel. Again too much of crowd that we weren’t even to get space to stand a click a photo of ourselves.
We would see the decorated horse cart rides, local food, it was like a city over crowded fair. We soon clicked some photos somehow and decided to leave the place by 5:30 pm instead of 6:00 pm as earlier thought since it was over crowded and was no pleasant. So then we found a shared taxi ride to Churchgate station’s subway entrance. There was everything being sold in the subway, Jackets, food, cloths, accessories everything at very affordable rates. We didn’t buy anything though.
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Return train to Ville Parle:
We gotinto an already waiting slow local to Borivalli. We sat in to the seats easily as it was the start station.
Enroute, I could capture the pics of August Kranthi Rajadhani and At Ville parle, I captured the Flying rani. My wife bought some 10 sets of ear rings for 100/- from a local train lady vendor who was a Tamilian. We then hired an auto to the airport and it was 17/- rs to the meter. I paid 20/- is I felt Mumbai transportation is far far far cheaper and genuine than that of Bangalore.
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Departure from Mumbai:
It was 7 pm and by 8 we were in the flight as we bid farewell to Mumbai and headed to Bangalore by another jet Airways flight.
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Landed at Bangalore
We landed at the right time at 10:30 pm and collected out Checked in Baggage, which was checked in at Lucknow airport and hired a radio taxi. By 11 pm we were home and hit the bed straight as come sunrise, we would be hitting the road again to the regular life.
--------------END OF MY WINTER TOUR TO HIMALAYAN FOOT HILLS--------------
