Day 18 - 20/01/20
Dear Friends,
On the 14th, the last time I updated you, I was hoping we would go to Bandra in the evening. I only managed to persuade Tom so we took the slow train to the end of the line as it was the last stop. I had seen that a French cafe called Kitchen Garden by Suzette was highly recommended so we wondered down there first. It was lovely and sold organic foods but I could only justify splashing out on a smoothie! We wanted to make the sunset so we briskly walked to the shore and made it just in time!
The area seemed very different to Colaba, and when we spoke to Sue yesterday she was saying that the city hub has moved there. We followed the promenade down to Carter road, an area of restaurants, and then got a Rickshaw ride down to the opposite end by the Fort. We wanted to go and visit it but it was closed at night but instead we saw the outside of the Taj Lands End Hotel which looked beautiful with all its lights. We were amused by a stray dog that had been following us but it had got distracted by a shining Bentley parked on the side, so much so that it ended up relieving itself on it, marking its territory I guess!
We left the office with Sonita on Friday and headed off to the community at Ambedkar Nagar to collect 90 OSCAR kids and take them to the Mumbai City FC vs Bengalaru FC match at the Mumbai home ground city stadium. Despite the fact that it took us over 2 and a half hours to get there when it should have taken 45 minutes and us arriving halfway through the first half, everyone was super hyped, OSCAR even got a little shoutout at half time! The match resulted in a 2-0 victory to Mumbai so the kids were in high spirits on the journey home.
We all have been wanting to visit the Elephanta caves for a while now so we decided to take the plunge on Saturday and caught one of the ferries over at about 11 on Saturday. It cost us about 200 rupees and was roughly a 40 minute journey. Someone had given Tom a guide book at the hostel so we used that to explore the caves which cost us 600 to enter as tourists, as opposed to 40 if you are local! The caves had supposedly been built in around 600 A.D and were well worth visiting, we especially enjoyed seeing all the monkeys that inhabited the island. We saw one tucking into some extra hot crisps and another downing somebody's bottle of coke and when it had finished it was followed with a round of applause from the tourists watching?? We hiked up to the top of the hill where there were two old cannons and found some partially hidden underground tunnels beneath it. The view was stunning.
The night before the half marathon I wanted non-spicy meal to reduce the chances of anything prohibiting me from running in the morning.. I treated myself to some pasta and got an early night. In my room there were two Nepali women who were running the full marathon which was super impressive but neither of them could speak a work of English so we were sort of miming to each other to communicate. I woke up at 3am and we got a taxi to the start at Worli Dairy. We arrived pretty early for a 5:15am set off but it soon got busy and on the start line there was a band playing and everyone was chatting to people around them. During the run I think I probably drank around 10 bottles of water and 10 energy drinks which is probably why I felt relatively sick soon after the finish. At around 5k there were these orange slices, I smothered mine in what I thought was sugar only to find out that I had just consumed a mouth full of salt instead - I had to drink a lot of water after that! The crowd started to get bigger the closer we got to marine drive and the later in the morning it got. I did struggle a lot even after the 12th kilometre because that was about as far as I had trained! There was a woman that was handing out small Cadbury bars which was my saving grace so thank you! However, we pushed through and felt such a high after passing through the finish line. As well as a medal we got a little goodie bag with a marathon towel in it and some Indian snacks. What a morning! The rest of the morning we spent resting and we might have got a recovery Mcdonalds for lunch... no shame. We met up with Sue for tea in the late afternoon which was lovely and she showed us round the Taj Hotel afterwards and we also visited a Hindu temple, although the steps up to it were a struggle but worth it at the top!
On the 14th, the last time I updated you, I was hoping we would go to Bandra in the evening. I only managed to persuade Tom so we took the slow train to the end of the line as it was the last stop. I had seen that a French cafe called Kitchen Garden by Suzette was highly recommended so we wondered down there first. It was lovely and sold organic foods but I could only justify splashing out on a smoothie! We wanted to make the sunset so we briskly walked to the shore and made it just in time!
The area seemed very different to Colaba, and when we spoke to Sue yesterday she was saying that the city hub has moved there. We followed the promenade down to Carter road, an area of restaurants, and then got a Rickshaw ride down to the opposite end by the Fort. We wanted to go and visit it but it was closed at night but instead we saw the outside of the Taj Lands End Hotel which looked beautiful with all its lights. We were amused by a stray dog that had been following us but it had got distracted by a shining Bentley parked on the side, so much so that it ended up relieving itself on it, marking its territory I guess!
We left the office with Sonita on Friday and headed off to the community at Ambedkar Nagar to collect 90 OSCAR kids and take them to the Mumbai City FC vs Bengalaru FC match at the Mumbai home ground city stadium. Despite the fact that it took us over 2 and a half hours to get there when it should have taken 45 minutes and us arriving halfway through the first half, everyone was super hyped, OSCAR even got a little shoutout at half time! The match resulted in a 2-0 victory to Mumbai so the kids were in high spirits on the journey home.
We all have been wanting to visit the Elephanta caves for a while now so we decided to take the plunge on Saturday and caught one of the ferries over at about 11 on Saturday. It cost us about 200 rupees and was roughly a 40 minute journey. Someone had given Tom a guide book at the hostel so we used that to explore the caves which cost us 600 to enter as tourists, as opposed to 40 if you are local! The caves had supposedly been built in around 600 A.D and were well worth visiting, we especially enjoyed seeing all the monkeys that inhabited the island. We saw one tucking into some extra hot crisps and another downing somebody's bottle of coke and when it had finished it was followed with a round of applause from the tourists watching?? We hiked up to the top of the hill where there were two old cannons and found some partially hidden underground tunnels beneath it. The view was stunning.
The night before the half marathon I wanted non-spicy meal to reduce the chances of anything prohibiting me from running in the morning.. I treated myself to some pasta and got an early night. In my room there were two Nepali women who were running the full marathon which was super impressive but neither of them could speak a work of English so we were sort of miming to each other to communicate. I woke up at 3am and we got a taxi to the start at Worli Dairy. We arrived pretty early for a 5:15am set off but it soon got busy and on the start line there was a band playing and everyone was chatting to people around them. During the run I think I probably drank around 10 bottles of water and 10 energy drinks which is probably why I felt relatively sick soon after the finish. At around 5k there were these orange slices, I smothered mine in what I thought was sugar only to find out that I had just consumed a mouth full of salt instead - I had to drink a lot of water after that! The crowd started to get bigger the closer we got to marine drive and the later in the morning it got. I did struggle a lot even after the 12th kilometre because that was about as far as I had trained! There was a woman that was handing out small Cadbury bars which was my saving grace so thank you! However, we pushed through and felt such a high after passing through the finish line. As well as a medal we got a little goodie bag with a marathon towel in it and some Indian snacks. What a morning! The rest of the morning we spent resting and we might have got a recovery Mcdonalds for lunch... no shame. We met up with Sue for tea in the late afternoon which was lovely and she showed us round the Taj Hotel afterwards and we also visited a Hindu temple, although the steps up to it were a struggle but worth it at the top!
bye for now,
Phoebe
Phoebe
Comments
Post a Comment