Mumbai

Well I made it to Mumbai after quite a long day and a half of traveling.

Taipei was cool, overcast and quite unremarkable but it was a chance to stretch the legs and have the bags x-rayed one more time. I was only there for a couple of hours.

Kuala Lumpur was hot and sticky and perhaps the most notable thing about it was the airport itself - quite a modern wonder - spacious, clean, well laid out, a real contrast to the chaos of LAX. Apparently it was voted the best airport in the world in 2005 and 2006. Certainly one of the nicest I have seen.

I had about 6 hrs to kill in KL so I took the express train into the city to take a look around. However, when I got there the train station was not quite in the city center and things didn't appear that enticing. The Petronas Towers were still a ways off, and I was just too weary to do anything strenuous like walking, so I simply returned back to the airport. It passed the time.

Mumbai was quite the contrast- a scruffy airport terminal, throngs of people, streets busy with traffic (even at midnight when I arrived). The sights, sounds and smells were were an assault on the senses - ramshackle housing, poorly maintained roads, people sleeping on the side of the street, little black taxis, everywhere (literally hundreds and hundreds of them - all of the Fiats) and then as we approached the center signs of the colonial past with wonderful old Victorian era buildings and then lots of signs of the new Indian wealth with many modern tower blocks.

I had arranged for a pick up from the airport to my hotel so I didn't have to deal with too much. I just met the driver and he delivered one weary traveler to the hotel.