Week 11: March 16-22
Monday, March 16:
We landed in Mumbai at 1:30 AM. Before that, I want to share one of our favorite conversations from this trip. It took place at the Krabi airport with our adopted brother Dibyo. You should know that I had informed him during the previous week that we were in
Thailand and not in Sri Lanka, to which he replied that he knew. Now the following situation occurred: Tina was in the restroom at the airport, and my phone rang. On the other end of the line was Dibyo.
Dibyo: Hi guys, how's it going? When do you arrive?Me: Hi! Good, just got through security. 1:30 AM Indian time. We're flying soon.Dibyo: When are you flying out?Me: 10 PM.Dibyo: 4 hours from Sri Lanka??👀Me: Dibyo...WE'RE IN THAILAND!!!😭😭Dibyo: Oh! That makes sense!Me: You said you knew that?😂
Well then, once we arrived in Mumbai and met up with Dibyo (it was around 3:30 AM Thailand time now), there was suddenly beer. Thus began the evening (morning), which included dinner (breakfast?) at 4 AM (5:30 AM Thailand time) and ice cream. I think we went to bed around 5 AM and slept. We woke up in the afternoon and spent the afternoon in bed. Kindly, we were served toast with chocolate spread and bananas as well as fruit for brunch. In the meantime, Dibyo was at the studio. How he managed that despite hardly sleeping? No idea. To our delight, a dog from friends of the house was also there! We played a few rounds of Uno with him and his roommate after his return, and later went out for dinner to see the ocean.🇮🇳
Tuesday, March 17:
This day also started rather late, as we adapted to Dibyo's rhythm, which means going to bed at some point in the morning and waking up during the day. But that was fine for us because we also like to take our mornings (or afternoons) slow. After brunch, we chatted a bit and entertained the dog. We spent the afternoon in South Mumbai, went to a café, and looked around a bit before swimming in the house pool. After that, we met in the game room where we played Carrom, also there were chess and billiards. We then went to Dibyo's favorite matcha place and treated ourselves to a fun drink. Mumbai is a huge city, yet we still coincidentally ran into acquaintances (funny enough, we met one of them again the next day by chance) and chatted with them. Just before 12, we headed back home and had dinner there.🛺
Wednesday, March 18:
On this day, Dibyo slept longer than planned and didn’t respond to messages, so we gained a bit of our independence back and set off to meet Henry (a buddy from
Germany who happened to be in Mumbai at the same time). Interestingly, his hostel was located exactly in the area where we had been the day before, but we weren't aware of that at the time. Unlike Tuesday when we took the train to South Mumbai, this time we booked an Uber from Dibyo's house. (You know it, we had no mobile internet, so you can understand why.) This took us to Henry's hostel, where we picked him up. He showed us a bit of the area, and we shared a chai and each had a dosa. Later we met up with Dibyo and Aashna (a friend of his) and enjoyed some Indian delicacies. We had plenty of matcha before heading to a bar where I, I quote: 'BOTTLED DRINKING WATER AND A COKE' ordered with loud music playing. Aashna and I got along well too. It was a really lovely day, truly one of our favorite days in India.🦚
Thursday, March 19:
On departure day, we packed our bags (who would have thought?) and said goodbye to Dibyo, to whom we promised to discreetly let his parents know to take him to Germany during summer vacation, which we of course did (since I'm writing this in mid-April, I unfortunately know the current flight prices, and it looks bleak, to say the least). Well then, the security check in Mumbai was not fun, and the Dominos Pizza (we actually wanted to try Indian Subway, but the shop was closed) didn’t taste as good as in Delhi, but Tina’s theory is that it was because we had a domestic flight this time and an international flight to Krabi. Otherwise, everything worked out; there was even free water from Indigo (one is amazed), and in Raipur, the Indian foster parents picked us up. Afterward, we had chai, which was of course wonderful.✈️
Friday, March 20; Saturday, March 21; and Sunday, March 22:
Unfortunately, I must admit that too much time has passed for me to remember all the details, but the three days were still free for us, and I remember that for some reason, we slept until noon every day, even though we had been in bed 'already' between 0-1 AM. Well, one should be allowed to sleep peacefully, right? We certainly had a very relaxed weekend; one can hardly complain about that.🛌🏼
➡️ Alright dear ones, best regards and see you in the next post!🌞
PS: I'm writing the last weeks from Germany, but I wanted to spend the remaining time in
India with the people we love, not with the blog.☺️
