A Suite and a Spare

Foot Soak in our Hotel Room

Street Coconut Vendor

If its good enough for the Duke, its good enough for me

Can you put the beard hair on my scalp? 

Street Barbers - much cheaper

Nimbu Pani at the Taj

John with Sea View and Cathy with wine

Lobster, Fried Rice, Crab

After a good nights sleep (was it the cognac or the sleeping pill or both)? We awoke to a day of relative relaxation for us -tempered by concern for John in the Breach Candy Hospital. When we finally reached John by phone, he was very tired and in pain. Because there was a Mumbai Marathon run, the normal very bad traffic was going to be even worse. We told John we would visit him in the late afternoon after traffic had returned to its normal insane flow.

After breakfast by the pool, we walked to a bookstore to buy the book Shantaram for John to read in the hospital. If you haven’t read it, we highly recommend it, you won’t want to put it down.  We walked on to Truefitt & Hill. I had always noticed the men’s barbershop, but had never availed myself of it. They are the official barber of the Royal Family in London and this is their Bombay branch. Why not give it a go? I decided to just have my beard trimmed and soon the artist went to work. I have never had a professional barber, who specializes in beards, cut my beard. Suffice to say, he was meticulous. He did one side first, then asked me how I liked it and then preceded to cut the other side to match. There is an art to everything.

We left the barbershop and continued our walk around the Fort area of Bombay. We passed several street barbers. You just walk up to them squat down and they shave you. I never have used them fearing the cleanliness of their straight razor. I am sure they are very cheap.

Upon returning to the Taj we had our traditional Nimbu Pani (a lemonade like drink) outdoors by the pool. We had scheduled a massage for me and hairdresser appointment for Cathy - then it would be off to see John. The massage was excellent (lots of oil) and Cathy’s hair looks beautiful.

The manager of the hotel called to let us know there was a party at the hotel and the sound might travel to our room affecting our sleep (little does he know the sound would be the least of my sleep depravations – Jetlag was the major concern). He said they had arranged another room for us. We would keep our suite, not move anything, but sleep in the other room – away from the party). Most considerate of him. We had a suite and a spare. We agreed that just before we went to our room to retire for the night, we would get the keys for the other room and make sure we were happy with it.

How many hotels would offer you a spare hotel accommodation? The Taj is amazing!

We had a left over half bottle of Italian wine, so we decided to pack up the wine, some glasses and cashews to make our visit to John more pleasant. We retrieved his Passport and Visa and his luggage and hired a taxi to take us to the Hospital. On the way, I asked the driver he would wait about an hour for us to visit John, and then return us to the Taj. He was more than willing.

We got to John’s room and he was dozing, but figuring we had come this far, we woke him up. He was more comfortable and in less pain. Apparently the treatment he had commenced was working. He is very satisfied with the quality of health care at the hospital. We spread out our little party of wine, glasses and cashews and had a spirited time visiting.  We didn’t let John have any of our wine or nuts, no doctor had said he couldn’t have wine or nuts (not that anyone asked) but we decided to enforce our own rules. I spent time trying to John connected to the Internet, we think we did it, we will know tomorrow if he has the correct hospital password. I also had to contact Air India to cancel his flight to Jaipur. He won’t be leaving the hospital for a few days I am sure.

We returned to the Taj through the incredible Bombay traffic just in time to change for dinner and have a Gin and Tonic (how Raj of me), and wine for Cathy before dinner in the Club Room. We had dinner in the Taj’s Chinese Restaurant. Dim Sum, Ribs, Lobster, Crab, Fried Rice. The food was all good, but I liked the first Indian Dinner at Masala Kraft better. Oh Well!

The hotel surprised us by placing 2 foot soaking tubs in our living room. They were filled with roses and they supplied various ointments and salves to add to the water to comfort our feet after all of our walking. Another of example of how they just do things for us, unasked, anticipating our needs.

We then returned to the Club Room for a couple of after dinner cognacs and chocolates. We were then ready to inspect our spare hotel room. They escorted us to the room for our inspection and acceptance. It was quite nice. I took the keys from them and explained we would return to our room and attempt to sleep, only if we were disturbed would we bother to use our spare hotel room. The sound didn’t bother us - could it have been all the wine and cognac? We never used the room. It was amazing to have it proactively put at our disposal. The Taj never disappoints. Tomorrow we leave on a 6:30pm fight to Jaipur.