Elephanta Suite

Singapore Air Huge Seats

Bedroom in The Elephanta Suite

View of Gateway to India Monument from our Room

Shugaat Khan and Cathy at Joy's Shoes

Dining Room in our Suite 

Our Living Room

We left Los Angeles for Mumbai on Singapore Air. We were flying on an Airbus A380. Which thankfully is our favorite airplane. The seats on Singapore are enormous and fold into a very large flat bed for sleeping. We spent almost 30 hours flying to Mumbai by way of Tokyo and Singapore. I tried something different for me, I ate almost no food on the flight and drank only two glasses of wine. I took sleeping pills on two of the legs of the flight and did manage to sleep. It will be interesting to see if my Spartan travel plans help reduce Jet Lag.

We arrived in Mumbai and were met at the airport by our driver who drove us through Mumbai to the Taj Mahal Hotel where we are staying. The Taj always upgrades us to fabulous suites and this trip was no exception. We were taken to the Elephanta Suite our home for the next 3 nights. It is very large with a living room, dining room, sitting room, pantry and outdoor balcony overlooking the Gateway to India Monument. This suite is especially auspicious for us. Years ago we read the travel novel “The Elephanta Suite” by Paul Theroux. It is composed of the three stories. The title story is: “The Elephanta Suite” about a couple staying in this very suite. The irony is that after we leave the Taj we are going to The Jaipur Literary Festival, which this year is featuring Paul Theroux among other authors. If we run into him, we can relate our experience staying in the suite. Last year in India by coincidently we stayed at Ananda in The Himalayas, which we quickly recognized as a setting for another of the stories in “The Elphanta Suite”. For those of you that haven’t been to Mumbai, Elephanta Island is a short ferry ride from The Gateway of India. It has ancient cave temples that have been carved into the islands rocks.

After cleaning up we headed out to shop. Shopping for shoes at Joy’s Shoes in the Taj is another tradition for us. I was looking at some shoes and noticed a man standing next to me. I immediately recognized him as one of India’s greatest Sitar players: Shujaat Khan.  We had been to dinner with him at our friend Mira’s and have seen him perform several times in Los Angeles. Who would think we would run into him in a shoe store at the Taj? Small world. Our butler brought us a gift wrapped in Bollywood movie newspaper adds. It was waiting for us on arrival as a gift. We had no idea what it was, but it turned out to be a book of the screen play of the Indian movie Haider. Haider, is an Indian version of Hamlet, set in current days in Kashmir. It is very contemporary yet true to Shakespeare. It was generously left for us by Anil, a Bollywood fanatic, who we met on our previous visit to India. It was very nice of him and very generous.

After drinks in the Taj Club room, we had a fabulous meal of crab followed by a lamb shank that was flamed at the table. It was a perfect first day in India.