give all the kids the same so you have to become cold to it all, there is no other way!

Anyway, back to Dhobi Ghat, dirty laundry from all over Mumbai is bought here and painstakingly hand washed by the dhobis (washermen) in the seemingly endless rows of concrete troughs. This profession is handed down from generation to generation and must require  endless strength washing by hand all day. Apparently the Dhobi’s earn about 100 rupees a day (about £1.50).....it’s a hard life!

Next we drove through Mumbai and past the Victoria Terminus Railway Station as seen quite a lot in Slumdog Millionaire.

This station was built by the British and there are many other building like it across Mumbai, the station itself look a lot like St Pancras in London, you can certainly see the comparison.

Next it was onto the Gateway Of India. This is Mumbai’s most recognised monument, the gateway of India was constructed to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to the city. It was completed in 1920 and remains a striking symbol of the British Raj era. The looming, solitary standing gateway is designed to be the first thing that visitors see when approaching Mumbai by boat. We could not help but be reminded of the gate in Delhi although the gate in Mumbai is much bigger and imposing. The gate itself is directly opposite the Taj Palace Hotel, another important colonial hotel that was bombed and targeted by terrorists last year. The restoration work after this attack is now over and it once again stands as another reminder of the British era, we where going to go in for tea but security was a nightmare with scanners and detectors and all sorts so decided to give it a miss, shame but it looked like quite a lot of faff!!

As we were driving around Mumbai, you got a real sense of a country in change for the first time since we have been in India. Mumbai is a lot more western and you can see that in what the college kids are wearing and the amount of MTV playing in the hotel lobbies and such. All of the new buildings fight with the Bombay of old and the slums that we have all heard so much about. The newest luxury apartment block sits at odds with shacks made of barrels and cloths, corrugated iron and scrap woods and metals, anything that you could make some form of structure with, all on the same road as each other all neighbours, you wonder for how long?

We stopped at gardens and view points and got a sense of Mumbai being a series of islands with beaches all around, getting a sense of any direction is very difficult. We stopped at a western coffee shop for Frappe, a welcome break from the relentless humidity in Mumbai, the college kids hung out here in their skinny jeans and big sunglasses, such a different India.

We got back to the hotel and changed rooms, last night we were kept awake by the hotel disco so hopefully tonight we will not be laying our heads under the sub-woofer!!!!

A quick chillax and we headed out to a coffee bar on the Juhu road once again hanging out with the cool kids of Mumbai. This would have been great if the shop had not tried to rip us off manually changing the till receipt to charge us for four drinks instead of two, although doing this is biro on the receipt was not the cleverest thing. We left without leaving a tip paying the right money for two frappes with vanilla ice cream!

Next we went down to the beach and what a difference that was! When we went down there in the day yesterday it was a lifeless stretch of sand. Tonight it was full of good times and vitality! Indian families played cricket, stall holders were everywhere selling food of every shape, form and colour. Juhu had come alive and it was fascinating! Children's fair ground rides littered the beach and it felt like a carnival waiting to happen. We where both dripping as the beach felt so humid but the atmosphere was seductive so we walked some more and soaked it in as we continued to drip onto the sand beneath our feet.

Air -Conditioning !!! We are back at the hotel and order a pizza, still not being brave enough to stomach Indian food quite yet but hopefully tomorrow that will change!

Mumbai feels like a city that is changing every day, you know that if you come back in only a year, the change will be significant but will it be for the best??? We don’t know, losing the thrown up houses and shanti towns may be seen as progress but what about character and history? What other city offers you the Dhobi’s or families on the beach at night escaping the blistering sun? Certainly none that we have visited, Mumbai is alive but we hope it does not lose all of it’s identity, that would be a loss to India!

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