John & Mick's BIG AdventureBombay... Bombai... sorry, Mumbai...
Day 50 – 38 kms (17741 kms total)
We rode the 38 kms to Kalamboli, following Colins car. Me squirming in the seat after only a couple of minutes!
On arrival at the warehouse, I tell Mick that in my current condition, there is no way I can ride the 10,000 kilometres home!
We tell the agent the change of plans. As it turns out, we would have only had 2 days to ride the length of Iran before our visas expired.
There are posters by Airtel, an Indian Mobile Comms company, in Bombay with that wording on it.
Strange that they changed the name as it was Bombay long before the Brits arrived. Probably not Indian sounding enough for the politicians? Same goes for places like Calcutta, now Kolkatta. What a nonsense.
Colin, who works for the shipping agent took us by car into the heart of Bombay. The offices are in the Fort district and Marie, the travel agent who tied it all up for us is just round the corner from the stock exchange. Just near where the bombs were set off a few years ago.
Very busy place is Bombay, but dead easy to get round when you have a local doing the driving.
After sorting this and that, we were off to the station in the company of one of the guys that works for Marie. We had to leave our passports with the shipping agent and that caused a small problem at the station as foreigners are supposed to present their passports to get a ticket. We were also supposed to pay for the tickets in US dollars or Sterling. Our “man” saw to all this and were got our tickets from the ordinary counter, in Rupees, without any problems.
Cost was about 4.50 Euro’s each for a 2nd class air conditioned seat for the 4 hour trip on the “express” train that stopped everywhere.
We arrived in Pune (Poona) about 19:00 and then had a bit of trouble getting a tuk-tuk. No one seemed to want to go that far. Bit of extra cash offered and it was OK.
Anji welcomed us to his home again.
Again, he has taken me back to the hospital where the doctor has given me a course of physiotherapy.
Some of it is ultrasound and they use a Deep-Heat type of cream with it. Damned hot round the nether regions I can tell you!
Some of the sessions are of the electric shock variety. Not really… They slap electrodes on you and pass a small current through them in “waves”. The nurse said to tell her when I couldn’t take any more and that would be enough. She stopped turning it up before I said “enough” and left me to it for 5 minutes. When she returned, she said “you OK”. “Yup” say I. “Just watching my muscle spasm with the pulses”. “Oh no!” she says. “That’s too much” and turns it down a step or three.
It was my birthday on the 25th and we had a few drinks AND a birthday cake round at Asheesh and Tia’s place.
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