Day 75 (Wed 20 Sep) - Mumbai

Got up and showered and headed to the Food Plaza, the cafe round the corner for breakfast.

We decided that we should try to do some jobs today,so we started off in the internet cafe. Jo also decided to phone up her bank, Barclays as she had been trying to move funds from her current account using internet banking since we were in Kenya. They had finally emailed her to say she needed to call them to sort out the problem. We knew that Barclays call centre was in India so it was a bit annoying that we had to phone a London international number to speak to them.

Jo finally got through to someone who called themselves "Sue" and after going round the houses was told that she couldn't use internet banking to transfer money. She had two options; either go into a branch or use telephone banking. Jo asked where the Barclays branch was in Mumbai. There isn't one. However, during this exchange she found out that "Sue" was speaking from MUMBAI! Jo was not impressed with Sue and asked to be put through to a supervisor. "Nicola" came on the phone and was just as helpful, repeating Jo's options but did suggest that she could phone back at 8am (British time) to speak to the specialist on line team. Jo had already explained that she was phoning from India and asked for a direct line to save her having to make another international call. She was told there was only one number to call but she was given a reference number to quote when she phoned back.

(Aside: we asked the receptionist how much the call was, she printed the receipt and read out '80 rupees'. Sarb then asked for the receipt thinking we would charge the cost of the call to Barclays. Suddenly this scrap of paper could not be found anywhere; it had simply vanished. Finally twigged and Sarb asked her point blank whether she was just ripping off tourists or was it a more inclusive kind of club ie she was diddling everyone. We were not impressed! )

Despite the current result ( Setbacks: 1; Ripoffs: 1 ) we set off to tackle more jobs.

First we set off to see if we could buy a ticket to fly from Mumbai to Kolkata. We located the Jet airways office nearby but soon found out that as we were "foreigners" we would have to pay $295 (about 150 squids)each for a two hour flight, however if we were indian nationals it would only cost us Rs 3000 (about 35 squids). All over india we have experienced the two tier pricing structure, and agree with it to an extent, but felt this was just taking it too far! There was no way we could afford this; we opted for the 30 hour train journey to Kolkata cutting short our stay in Goa by a day.

( Setbacks: 2; Ripoffs: 1 )

Jo was in need of some cheering up so Sarb suggested they stop off at one of the posh hotels for some refreshments. We walked through Nariman Point and came to Marine drive where there was a row of top range hotels, we finally settled for the Oberoi - which is a mere five star hotel. As we got there a dodgy double decker bus wheezed past.

We walked into the grand entrance and look the lift to the lobby. There we settled ourselves in the grand lounge overlooking Back Bay.

Sarb had a beer whilst Jo, not wasting the opportunity, had a delicious glass of chilled pinot grigio and a club sandwich. Note this was Jo's first taste of meat since she had arrived in India so she was very content. It was such a treat to be spoilt in such luxurious and beautiful surroundings. As we sat savouring our refreshments a pianist even tinkled on the grand piano in the background.

In relatively high spirits we left the Oberoi and headed off to find Malaysia Airways. Our next job was to amend our round the world ticket as we had decided to slightly alter our route. Got to Malaysia Airways, located in a huddle of tall buildings, who having looked at our sheaf of tickets decided that since the first flight we took was with Kenyan Airways they should sort it out. So we traipsed to the Kenya Airways office, had a chat with them, and they told us that Malaysia Airways should sort it out as the next flight legs were with them. We got that 'sinking feeling'.

In the end we asked the kindly woman at Kenya Airways to phone up Malaysia Airways whilst we were there to explain the situation and hopefully prevent a wasted trip. She put the phone down and said that Malaysia Airways will sort it out! Yippee!

Left our change of flight details with the vague travel clerk and because he said it was so complex (!) that we should return the next day.

( Setbacks: 3; Ripoffs: 1 )

The next job was to head for the train station to book our overnight ticket to Chennai and the epic journey to Kolkata. On the way we stopped off at a pizzeria, called the same on Marine Drive, where Sarb devoured a tasty pizza.

It had started to rain so we walked briskly to the train station. By the time we arrived at the CST (Victoria Terminus) train station we were soaked and then had a bit of a hunt for the reservation centre. We were shown to the tourist counter and waited to be served.

What followed was a very confusing 15 minutes with a very unhelpful ticket clerk - what we finally understood was that we could only buy advanced train tickets (i.e. more that 2 days) with either dollars or sterling. Since we had neither of these, we were told we couldn't get advanced tickets. This didn't seem to make sense to us but we had no choice but to leave the train station and come up with a plan.

( Setbacks: 4; Ripoffs: 1 )

We headed back to Colaba, stopping off for a (BIG) drink on the way.

Not a successful day as the our tally shows: ( Setbacks: 4; Ripoffs: 1 ).