Food and Art

Mornings start very late here and I find it quite frustrating. By the time I eat breakfast and am ready to go out it is no later than 8-830am.

The problem is there is nothing to do except coffee, wander or read the paper over coffee until 10am. Most museums and galleries don't open until 10-11am!

So by the time you do one thing its lunch time and the day is half over. But I guess you need to put up with it if you are visiting India.

On the bright side I went to a restaurant for lunch called "Cafe Mondegar." Once again near the regal cinema.

Meals are about 75-150 and 650ml of beer is 150, it is a little expensive but it has got a nice atmosphere and the music is pretty good. It is open from about 8am until shortly after midnight.

The food is "ok" a chicken burger is white meat inside a toasted piece of bread. It wasn't what I expected but it tasted good.

After food and beer I needed to stay out of the heat so I headed to an art gallery. The national one was closed for renovations but there is another a block away. It was free to get in, but to be honest the only artist who I enjoyed his work was Natu Mistry.

I went to a couple travel agents and inquired about Goa. The agencies around here are doubling the price for tickets which is BS but expected. I'll check out the website later to see if they recommend an agent or if the bus company has its own office in Mumbai.

I'm sweating my ass off today, probably because I'm wearing a tshirt... Seriously, tshirts are too heavy material and you just get cooked. I gt an email from Bro Gomez in North Bay and he said the windchill was down around -39C... What I wouldn't do to have a little portion of that mixed in with the warm air here.

So I met this other Canadian Guy from Vancouver and we headed to the train station to look for tickets to Goa. We went to the tourist reservation desk on the first floor, counter 52.. but neither of us had our passports. Normally when you book tickets you don't require it, but because its the tourist desk you do. So it was a wasted trip. Oh well.

Note to everyone:

If you go to the tourist reservation desk at CST / VT Train station in Mumbai (Bombay) you need your passport and if you want to pay in Rupees then you "should" have a bank slip from withdrawing or converting currency. The slip isn't "normally" asked for but you might get bugged if the person is having a bad day and wants to stick to the rules. I think it only gets asked for if you pack with big bills like 500's or 1000's.