Wednesday 20th Jan

The breakfast at the Intercontinental is spectacular. Definitely the best complimentary buffet breakfast that I’ve encountered. They’ll even make you a waffle should you so desire (as Rahul did).

We took a taxi to South Mumbai, which took more than an hour and a half as the traffic was so terrible. The driver asked us to go into a shop for 5 minutes so they would allow him to stay and tout for his next customer, and I nearly got persuaded to buy a carpet before I came to my senses and realised that this happens to me everywhere. The bit where the shop keeper referred to the carpet as “magic” really got me going. Maybe I should have bought one. But it wouldn’t have fit in my suitcase.

We went to see the Gate of India, a sort of Brandenburg Tor for Mumbai, then we had a wander around the Taj hotel which is rather magnificent. Apparently even the worst room is out of our price range so we couldn’t have stayed there. Then we went to Leopold Café just because it’s so famous, and had a rather nice lunch. It was nothing how I had imagined - no high tea, more like a Mexican cantina. Someone Rahul knew from undergrad recognised him and came up for a chat!

We were in a bit of a hurry to get a taxi for the ride back as we didn’t want to be late for our pick up for IIT, so we squished into the back of a tiny one without AC. The journey was not to arduous for me at all as I passed out, although I did wake to find Ben sweating all over me. Our poor taxi driver was really harassed by the security staff at the Intercontinental on account of being Muslim so we tipped him extra.

One of our contacts from IIT arrived with a car, and we discovered that our shipping was still stuck in customs. This added a new dimension of concern. We went to the campus nevertheless to see what space has been allocated to Quantum of Sol and to check on the cabinets that we’d had made locally. We were then taken on a tour of the campus, which is huge with monkeys in the trees. Apparently crocodiles occasionally come out of the nearby lake and roam around looking for students to eat.