India - Day 1

We just finished with Day 1 here in India and we're having fun! I thought I would give everyone an update...

It was a long trip over - it felt more like 2 days, which I guess it kind of was.

Getting ready to take off from Atlanta (and try to get some sleep)...

We were happy to be in India when our plan landed just before midnight last night. Our passports actually got stamped on December 24th by the time we got to customs :) And it was about 2 am by the time we got our luggage, got to the hotel (so nice by the way!), met up with Chris' dad, and got settled. It felt so good to not be in a plane!

After about 4 to 5 hours of sleep for everyone, we started off at 8:30 to see some of the sights in Mumbai (after a yummy breakfast in the hotel).

We stopped at the world's largest laundry location first...they wash about 8,000 pieces of clothing each day. It looked like quite the process. Sorry no pics right now.

Elephanta Island was up next...This was a gift from Craig's boss. The caves on this island were hand-carved with chisels and similar tools. It was so beautiful and we heard many stories about the meaning behind all of the "panels" which involved the Hindu religion. It was quite interesting to compare what our tour guide was explaining compared to our Christian beliefs. Here's one shot of how amazing these caves are:

Oh and I should mention that we took an hour-long boat ride (each way) to go out to the island. This way our view on the way back. The Taj Hotel is the largest hotel that you see on the left - this is where President Obama stayed while he was here and where the bombings occurred in Mumbai a couple years ago.

After we came back from the island and headed to lunch to meet back up with Craig. (He had an important meeting come up to attend this morning.) He took us to Kebab Korner in the Intercontinental Hotel and it was absolutely delicious! It was our first Indian food since being here. There was so much food...appetizers, starters, the main course, and dessert. I'm glad it was about 2:30 to 3:00 when we ate because there was so much food! We all left with our bellies stuffed with yummy Indian food (with the spices toned-down a bit) :) Here's a picture of our starters...

This afternoon we also went to the former Price of Wales Museum (also known as City Museum), the Gandi House, and also looked at some sights around town. It took us about 1.5 to 2 hours to get back to the hotel because the traffic was absolutely CRAZY! Let's just say there were way too many cars to be on the size of roads we were driving on.

And now for some comical times of the day...

the monkies were liking Kaitlyn at Elephanta Island!

the women had a fun experience with the toilets at Elephanta Island...we used the "western toilet"

and chose not to use their version of a hand-washing system...

This was some of the traffic that we saw as the sun was starting to set. I think this may have been one of the intersections that they showed on the Amazing Race a few seasons ago when the contestants were here in India.

more traffic...and you can see some tents setup on the right for a wedding - it looked like it would be a huge wedding (which our tour guide said is very common)

Tomorrow we'll be leaving Mumbai and heading to Delhi! Hopefully I'll be posting again soon (except I think I need to condense my stories a little since this took a little too long!).

And Merry Christmas Eve! As I type this it's about an hour away from being Christmas :) Blessings to everyone as you spend time with family.