From Mumbai to Jaipur

Breakfast at the Taj

The confusion at Mumbai Airport

Dinner at the Samode

I awoke before sunrise and decided to use my iPhones ability to make a time-lapse movies, and I created one of the sunrise over the Arabian Sea. The black birds flying around are the local crows.

Click to play the movie

We spoke to John who is still in the hospital. It turns out he does NOT have a Deep Vein Thrombosis, but instead has Cellulitus, which is an infection of the skin and the tissue under it. Bottom line: he stays in the hospital till he recovers. They are treating him with appropriate antibiotics. He has no idea when he will be released from the hospital. He repeated to us that he is impressed by the care he is getting at the Breach Candy Hospital. If you required hospitalization wouldn’t you like to be a hospital named: Breach Candy? Just the name makes you smile. Since John is stuck in a hospital in Mumbai, with no local friends, feel free, if you are so inclined to send him an email - he has wifi in his room. His email address is: johnNsf@gmail.com. If you know John you can also FaceTime him. Don’t forget the Time Difference is 13-1/2 hours from the PST to Indian Time. Where and why they got that extra ½ hour is a mystery to me. For example right now it is 7:39 on Tuesday morning in all of India (they only have 1 time zone for the entire country) and it is 6:10pm on Monday night in Los Angeles.

I almost wouldn’t mind trading places with him. At least he has wifi in his hospital room. We are now in Jaipur and our hotel does not have wifi in the room. It is cold here at night and the heating in this hotel runs from non-existent in the dining room to an electric radiator contraption in our room. There is a certain feel of loss, of lowered expectations, of being nuts staying at the Samode Haveli in the old part of Jaipur. This is the 5^th time that we have stayed here. It is quite a shock to go from one of the top hotels in the world; where your every need is anticipated and taken care of, to then stay in any other hotel especially the Samode. The Samode Haveli is old, charming in its way, the food is excellent we had Butter Chicken, Rice, Naan, Dal Makhani, Tandoori Roasted Mustard flavored potatoes a bottle of Jacobs Creek Chardonnay, followed by a wonderful, date-coconut ice cream and after dinner drinks. The dinner was tempered by the fact that I had to wear a tee-shirt, a sweater and keep my down filled coat on during dinner because the dining room - which has been moved far away the room we always stay in, isn’t heated. We ran into an old friend while we ate dinner. She always stays at the Samode. When we asked why we were all staying she said: Why of course you are staying here, why not? Last year she was coming from staying in a hotel in Pakistan where she required an armed bodyguard and there was the constant threat of Islamic Terrorism – she was afraid the whole time she was in Pakistan – think Kerry in Homeland. Coming from that perspective, I am sure the Samode is an improvement. Coming from the Taj, not so much. To change hotels or remain at the Samode: That is the question.

Prior to our flight northeast to Jaipur, we enjoyed our last partial day in Mumbai. Breakfast by the pool followed by another long walk in the Coloba and Fort neighborhoods. We packed our suitcases and finally used the dining room in our suite, reheating the leftover Indian Food from our fabulous dinner at Masala Kraft, as our lunch. Our extremely resourceful butler help me top off my cell phone minutes - you buy a certain amount of money on your Indian Cell phone and as you talk or use data the money goes down. You can then top it off by adding more money. When the hotel’s normal facilities couldn’t get our card topped off, the Butler called his wife, who was able to do it. He told me about an iPhone app that will allow you to directly top off a SIM card it is called: PAYNT. I downloaded it late last night but it hasn’t worked correctly yet. Good, I am faced with an IT challenge.

Our driver drove us to the Domestic Terminal in Mumbai. The scene there is like a movie of the hoards of Indians. They just opened a new Mumbai International Terminal. We love it: orderly, clean, organized - as good as it gets. Directly next to it is the chaos of the Domestic Terminal. Jammed, disorganized, lines snaking everywhere, people pushing in front of you, others sitting on the floor. If we hadn’t been to India so many times and this was our first airport, we would have been freaked. Being old India hands by now, we observed it, knowing it would sort itself out. The God of transportation would make everything ok. He did, we got to our plane and flew north. Upon arrival at the new and modern Jaipur International Terminal, our driver Vijay met us and we caught up on our respective lives as we drove to old Jaipur and the Samode Haveli. Vijay is like family to us and we were happy to be with him. Tomorrow we do some shopping at Gem Palace, pick up our delegate material for the Jaipur Literary Festival and then attend a banquet at the Rambagh Palace, the most luxurious hotel in Jaipur, owned by the Taj and the place where we should be staying.