Folks, believe it or not, this is going to be the final instalment of my Indian adventures!

DAY 14: Bombay

• So we had reached the last weekend of our visit to this hustling, bustling, shuffling megalopolis - and we hadn't even done any shopping!! This we rectified by having Nair take the four of us to the Inorbit shopping centre. This mall in western Mumbai is the latest thing for Mumbaikars, with exciting coffee shops and boutiques. It's been thrown up on an old landfill site, and this is evident from the pungent aroma that hangs in the air as you get out of the car. Thankfully, it's filtered out of the air-conditioned interior.
• After a spot of shirt shopping in a Fab India! store, a bite to eat (at last I got to have some masala dosa, which I had been hankering after all week) and much milling about, Gareth & I popped to the hypermarket next door to get supplies. Bizarrely enough they sell Waitrose products (which explains the mystery of how Gareth could have Waitrose muesli in his cupboard; we were thinking maybe BG shipped it out for him).
• We drove home the way we came, along the Milk Road, an area set aside for dairy farming that is now absolutely surrounded by urban sprawl but which offers an escape from the city, with a boating lake, fields, and many a lush tropical tree.
• And before we knew it, it was time to head off for dinner! Christian stayed at the flat, with a bit of a dicky belly, but Michaela, Gareth & I set off to the Mahesh Lunch Home, a super trendy seafood restaurant in the area of town where all the Bollywood stars live. We met up with a bunch of Gareth's friends and had a monster meal of lobster, crab, tiger prawns and other ocean delights.

DAY 15: Elephanta Island

• Our last full day in Bombay was a real feast of "keeping it real" tourism. We jumped into motorickshaws that took us to Gareth's nearest railway station, and there we queued among hundreds of locals to get tickets for a train to Victoria Terminus. We were literally head & shoulders above the other ticket-buyers - even Michaela.
  
• Our first-class tickets cost 70 rupees each, which is steep compared to the second-class price of just 7 rupees, but did at least guarantee us standing space INSIDE a carriage, rather than having to cling onto the side of a carriage in the hot sun.
• From the terminus (ah! a delight to behold!) we jumped into a taxi (once again I was forced to sit with my head at ninety degrees to my shoulders, just to fit in the back of the car) and headed down to the Gateway and the ferry terminal. After a lengthy discussion about the price, we needed some refreshment so we headed into Gareth's favourite delicatessen, Indigo, for a quick drink and to get provisions.
• Then we jumped onto a ferry heading across the bay to Elephanta Island, so called after the huge elephant statues found there by the Portuguese in centuries gone by. The island, aside from being a favoured day-trip destination, is home to some of the finest Hindu carvings anywhere in India. For thousands of years, it's been a centre of worship, with temples literally carved out of solid rock. Spectacular!
• One of the best things about the temples that we visited was the free guided tour. It was genuinely pleasurable to have a knowledgeable and intelligible lady telling us exactly what was what - and with humour too! It's a pity the group was so big (about 40 people were ambling along behind the guide, including us) but everything else about the tour was splendid.
• The sun burned down upon us as we made our way back on the ferry to the city. (Ooh, ooh, we were SO naughty! We went upstairs to the sundeck and then didn't pay the extra money for the "special" tickets up there!) It was very blustery too, and Christian's baseball cap now lies somewhere beneath the waves.
• We headed back to Indigo for some more food before taking a taxi to the Crawford market. Sadly this was just closing for the night, but we got to wander about a bit in the marvellous Victorian iron market halls before walking back to the terminus and catching a train - this time we even had seats! - back to Ghatkupar station, whence rickshaws whizzed us back to Hiranandani.
• Our last burst of activity for the day was dedicated to packing our bags. And then we hit the hay for a few hours.

DAY 16: Bombay -> Doha -> Munich

• As so often on this trip, we had to get up in what felt like the dead of night. We bade Gareth farewell and headed down to Nair and the waiting car. He brought us to the international terminal of the airport, where we did the necessary with our bags and passports. And before long we were boarding the plane to Qatar.
• At Doha airport, we decided to buy entry visas to Qatar (from a very jolly Arab chap who chatted happily away to us whilst stamping our passports). We had seven hours before our connecting flight after all. We jumped in a taxi and were treated to an impromptu tour of the whole city.
• Our Indian driver showing us all the most interesting areas: glittering skyscrapers; a whole new city being built on the other side of the bay; residential areas scattered with shiny mosques; the sports facilities and HUGE flame tower that make Doha Olympics-ready for their 2016 bid; and finally back to the most elegant shopping centre Doha has to offer.
• There we had some breakfast and did a whirlwind shopping tour around this mall, so huge and so well-appointed - the whole ground floor is a skating rink! The top floor was given over to an enormous fashion outlet, where just the burqa department (replete with flat-screen walls showing catwalk-skipping models in burqas with cheeky stitching, burqas with risqué diaphanous veils, as well as more modest monochrome burqas) was the size of many a department store in Europe.
• Another taxi whisked us back to the airport, and then it was farwell tropical heat and - a couple of hours later - hello icy wastelands. Home.