3am Mumbai - Nowhere To Go

New Years Eve 2000, Cameron, Dan and I had just finished our third whiskey and on the crest of that third shot we decided 'let’s go traveling!’.

Seven hard months of working and saving had gone by with a blend of excitement and boredom. On the 27th July 2001, I'd just finished my last 14 hour shift of warehouse work followed by hod carrying on a building site. The car was sold and the flights were booked.

1.30am 5000 feet looking into the pitch darkness over what I hoped was India. I noticed slight rain drops running horizontally along the airplane window. Thanks to a rather sluggish change over at Frankfurt I hadn't managed to get a seat next to Cam or Dan so I turned to my fellow passenger and said 'It's raining?' He looked at me, picked up his brief case and in a heavily accented voice said 'It is season.'

Then it dawned on me, we'd been so involved with saving, map reading and boasting (mainly to girls) that we hadn't even contemplated actually going travelling at all. To us it was still a pipe dream, except we were about to land in Mumbai!

The seatbelt sign had been on for a while and the cabin crew had all but given up trying to get the passengers to their seats and so had retreated to their own. The last passenger had just sat down as the wheels touched tarmac. No sooner than all wheels had touched down there was a queue of locals at the door.

I was beginning to worry about our planning, nonetheless I assured myself that we may have got the weather wrong but at least we had a local contact, Sunkha. For the past 3 months I had made a friend in the warehouse and he had a brother who was a rickshaw driver in Mumbai. The plan was to get outside the airport, meet Sunkha and he would whisk us off to the Midland hotel. We had no reservation or clue where it was but hey, we were assured it was a good hotel.

Having read all about surly officials taking their time with checks we kept our heads down and slowly and nervously passed through the airport system. Unsure of ourselves we were now standing in the middle of the airport, feeling scared and lost. It was 3am, time to step outside.

In a heart beat the blast of heat and realisation that we would never find Sunka hit us all. In front of us was a sea of faces, all looking at three pale outsiders and they had clearly sniffed an easy Rupee. We were under attack!