I run into the taxi at 7:55am, the driver tells me that he has been waiting outside since 7:30am just in case I was early. He gets me to Starbucks at 8:40am and the barristers at Starbucks recognise me. The westerner who had tried every frappucino in the four hours that she had spent there the day before. Ordering from experience, I pick the strawberries and cream frappucino and get to work. Dragoman have provided the hotel list which I enter into the spreadsheet, the confirmations have come through for my hostel bookings, China travel guide have sent me my train confirmations. I complete the application form and cut two passport photos off the sheet of six. 10:15am and my application is all ready, apart from one massive technical hitch…none of it is printed and it needs to be processed by 11am. I ask the men in Starbucks where the nearest Xerox place is… They don't understand me. I ask the security guard and he points me down a main road. It's 10:30am. I see a laptop repairs shop. I run in. They don't do printing, but there's a shop back the way I came. I run in. 10:40am. They can print stuff but you have to email it to them and there's a big sign saying ‘THIS NO INTERNET CAFÉ’. I feign ignorance. The owner gives me the wifi password and I print a small trees worth of documents. Some of which have to be reprinted because the formatting is all wrong. It's 10:57am. I'm too late. I hand over what would be an actual printers worth of rupees and walk to the office. 11:05am. I walk in. The assistant recognises me and walks over straight away, I explain that I know I have missed the deadline but would he mind going through my application to check that everything is there. He's impressed with me having turned it all around in 18 hours, tells me to ‘take a seat and he'll submit my application as there's a 15minute grace period. I have to write a small cover note to the embassy requesting my VISA, he explains written by hand is fine. 11:50am, I leave the office. VISA submitted and told to return tomorrow with 5700 rupees cash, any time between 2pm-5pm. I'm beaming. I take a taxi from the office and try to find the ferry port to Elephanta at the Gateway to India and the Taj Palace hotel to book afternoon tea for me and Beth. Turns out you don't need a reservation for afternoon tea. But as I'm waiting to enquire I hear a man ask to extend his stay. The concierge advises that the nightly rate of 11,000 rupees is available. That's £110. Now I know in India that that is a lot of money. But if I were staying in a similar hotel in London it would easily be £300-350 plus. I book myself in for Saturday night, dreaming of a king size bed and bubble bath. Feeling flush I leave the hotel and head to the gateway monument just outside. While taking photos of the impressive archway a travel sales guy corners me. I tell him I'm interested in Elephanta to which he says its too late to go now, it'll be too hot and I should do it in the morning. Then comes his sales pitch, he has a day tour which is available. 2500 rupees, four hours, just me and a private driver in an air conditioned car seeing some of the highlights of Mumbai. I politely decline, he offers 2250?…no, thank you…2000?…no, thank you….1750?…no, thank you…1500?...let me see that list again. I figure I have nothing else to do so I say yes to 1500 rupees and follow him to the travel office. I arrive at a dingy, unprofessional looking ‘office’. Office is generous, a rickety table surrounded by pictures of various attractions in India, in the middle of brown, low lit, hot and sticky room. Immediately I regret my decision, I've been scammed, I've been a bloody idiot, I'm going to get mugged. A moment later, a silver saloon car pulls up beside the office and a man opens the back door for me to get in and says ‘Hello Madam, I will be your guide today’ and hands me an itinerary and business card with a kind smile. Perhaps I'd overreacted a little. India is always a little rough around the edges. Our first stop is Dhobi Ghat. An enormous outdoor laundrette where men position themselves in square concrete stations beating clothes against rocks, and then passing them on to others to be dried, then another person irons, another folds. It's an impressive and vast operation. Afterwards,the fisherman’s village. This is the small bay where the terrorists got into Mumbai for the attacks. The fear still quite prominently resonates throughout India; bag checks and body checks at most public areas. I suppose another justification for them still having no bins anywhere? The rest of the tour included the raised gardens with a beautiful look out point over Mumbai, a tower used by the Parsis in Mumbai for their dead, a Jain temple, Ghandi’s house, Crowford market and the Victoria terminus. If I could live in India, it would be in Mumbai. I was grateful for the tour as well. The tour was supposed to end back at the tour office but I asked to finish at the Victoria terminus so I could carry on wandering around the city. I managed to find my way to Churchgate station and got the train back, a nice younger couple helped me work out what carriage to get on. Again, I think they thought I'd gotten lost. The women were funny though. I don't know if they did know one another but they all chatted like they did. The train started its journey at Churchgate so I got a seat, by the third stop the train was rammed. I was asked where I was getting off (in pigeon English, I hadn't by some miracle learnt Hindi sporadically) and then a lady told me that when I get off, my seat would be her seat. This seat allocation process continued until I got off. I have no idea whether she got my seat or not. I made good time getting back to Nina’s so we tried out Nisha’s favourite restaurant for dinner. I had A BACON AND CHEESE BURGER!!!!!! It was incredible. A brioche bun, sautéed mushrooms, cheese, crispy bacon and a seasoned patty. Very satisfied by my cheese and bacon burger which I had been craving like mad, we headed back to bed.