February 26 - March 2, 2011

INDIA 11: MUMBAI

On account of my leg fracture, we canceled our reservation for travelon Feb 27 by train to Mumbai. Instead, we decided to fly, so that we could avail of wheelchair service.

At 9:25 p.m., on February 26, we boarded a Spice Jet flight at Delhi. Two hours and 10 minutes later we landed at the Mumbai Airport.

Mumbai was hot. The highs ranged around 35C (95F), and lows around 19C (66F). I had to use airconditioning in the afternoons and nights.

Roads in Mumbaiare congested. More and more new cars and motorcycles are launched every year. According to a newspaper report, in one year ending MArch 2010, in Mumbai, on the average, 200 new cars are registered, everyday. (More information about Mumbai at http://www.mumbai.org.uk/)

Traffic woes are not confined to Mumbai. The story is the same in almost all Indian cities. More and more Indians are buying cars and motorcycles. Sale of cars in India each day, in 20 years between 1991 and 2011, has increased 967 percent (although the number of air passengers per day has also increased 890 percent during the same period), according to the March 1, 2011 issue of the Hindustan Times.

Trains, however, continue to be a popular means of travel in India. Accrding to another news report, in India there are more than 17,000 trains, which carry 18 million passengers, everyday, over more than 64,000 kilometer-long, the world's fourth largest, railway track. (More information about trains in India at http://wikitravel.org/en/Rail_travel_in_India and http://www.seat61.com/India.htm)

Early on the morning of March 3, we bade Good Bye to our hosts and headed home.

We were lucky that we were flying by Korean Airlines. The cabin crew, with their special wheelchair, helped me go through the narrow aisles from my seat in the back of Economy section, to the toinet for the handicapped in front, on long flights from Mumbai to Seoul and from Seould to Seattle.