The sun rose as the train pulled into central station, around the same time as my hangover. Bag on back i disembark to find a quite, dark and rather empty Mumbai – sleeping taxi drivers, people selling cigarettes and combs. Rats. Back to the same guest house i started in last September, but what is the difference?

So many countries, cultures, experiences. So many photographs, disks. Another piece of luggage.; A basket hand-weaved in Burma that i simply could not abandon. Skin several shades darker, ribs an inch higher and cheek bones a little more prominent. I deeper education and new ways of seeing. New friends that i will cherish forever. Miss Smith, Miss Johnson, Mama Zita.

Back in a room on crisp white cotton without power-points. The entrance having been paved and the manager as charming and cute as ever. He greets us with his perfect queens English, clad in his teddy bear pyjamas and Canadian flag t-shirt. Thank you, Your Welcome!

So happy to be back in Mumbai. After everything – all the flights, the trains, the bus’s, the near misses we made it back, thousands and thousands and thousands of miles later, exactly seven months today. I can not wait to eat humus, sip a high quality bloody mary and see a Hindi movie. To walk the familiar streets of this glorious city, after everywhere still one of the best in Asia.