Despite my self-induced level of stress regarding traveling, all went smoothly on the longest leg of our journey. Karen and I arrived in Mumbai late last night. We met up with Chris Beach, president of IYNAUS in Newark. It was entirely a coincidence that he was on the same flight from Newark to Mumbai. A bigger coincidence was that his seat on the flight was the center seat between Karen and me! We were astounded. Karen, Chris and I had a fairly pleasant 15 hour flight and all of us managed to sleep pretty well.


We drove through crazy traffic from the airport to the hotel. Our driver to the Leela hotel told us that they are undergoing a massive expansion at the airport – building a brand new departures building so that the arrivals and departures will be in separate buildings.

Arrival at the Leela Hotel was interesting. We had to go through a airport like scanner and our luggage was x-rayed for security purposes. The hotel lobby is beautiful, and smelled strongly of incense. It was Karen’s birthday and the hotel had flowers and a chocolate cake waiting for her. We ate the cake at 11:30a at night and it hit the spot!

It is morning now in Mumbai and rainy and gloomy. Our of our hotel window we can see the beginnings of an elevated train track. They have built the elevated concrete supports in pieces for some reason, leaving large gaps of 200 feet.

We are packing up now for our four hour ride to Pune.