As I mentioned before, our flight was delayed 3 hours. (Mumbai is building a Metro and so for the next 6 months, the airport is closed all day on Tuesdays and for 4 hours on Wednesdays so they can dig the tunnel under the runway. I feel like that should have been told to us ahead of time). We arrived at around 6pm.
I called Jess from baggage claim to check in. As Jess has talked about in our family blog, she's been sick this week and has mostly lost her voice. With the noise from the airport, the low level of static that comes from an international call, combined with Jess’ hoarseness, I could not hear/understand her. She actually passed the phone off to Sabrina for a brief chat so I knew we hadn't been disconnected. Kinda made me laugh.
Unfortunately, we hit rush hour traffic so it took us over an hour to get to our meeting. The meeting itself was great, it just was really long. We finally left there about 9pm.
We got to our hotel, the Hyatt Regency Mumbai. At Reception, we found out that our room had been booked for Thursday night not Wednesday night. To make matters worse, they were sold out. Oddly enough, through series of miscommunications, the client had booked us rooms at a nearby hotel. This turned out to be awesome.
We were travelling on a bit of a budget. The hotel they booked us was far nicer than what we had reserved. The Leela Kempinski Mumbai is an absolutely fantastic hotel. The room was huge. It had a big flat screen TV on the wall, a massive fancy bathroom. There were several restaurants. With our late hour, our only choices for dinner were the Chinese or the Italian restaurant. We opted for the Italian. Dinner was fantastic. By far the best of the trip. I got back to the room around 12:30am, called Jess again (this time we could actually hear each other) and crashed in bed.
From a Philly sports perspective, this week was a rough week to be away. The Eagles played on Monday night. The hotel in Chandigarh did not have ESPN so I was not able to get to catch that game. Phillies are also in the World Series. The 8:30pm EST start meant the game was on at 5am Thursday morning. My sleep issues aside, I really wanted to see the game. I mean the Phillies are in the World Series, how could I miss it? I’ll sleep when I am dead.
This hotel had ESPN (truly a 5 star establishment), so I was hopeful the game would be on. I set the alarm for 5am and decided to let fate decide: if the game was on, I would stay up, if it wasn’t, I would go back to bed and sleep until it was time to get ready for breakfast (scheduled for 8:30am).
The Phillies sports gods smiled on me, the game was on. No rest for the wicked. Just before 8am, I remembered I still had to get ready for the day. As I got in the shower, the hotel’s true value became apparent: I could see the TV from the shower. Not a second of the game would be missed. 5 star hotel indeed!
Thursday was a morning meeting with the client from the previous night, then a lunch meeting and a site visit with a second client. The lunch was at the CEO’s country club. Food of choice, Chinese (again). Is there something with India and Chinese restaurants or is it just my luck? I like Chinese food but not 4 times in a week.
Thursday night we flew back to Delhi. We ate at the Indian restaurant in the hotel. It was good. I don’t love Indian food but with Sunil’s help, I managed to get a few good (non-spicy) things.
I decided that a never-before "comination" was NOT something I was up for trying.
1 comment:
you could have stay at Hotels near Mumbai Domestic Airport at orchid hotel
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