The Terrific3 travel blog

The last day in Mumbai, I had initially scheduled nothing, then last week decided to schedule a slum tour (the slum from slumdog millionaire). I was excited to do this but as soon as we arrived in Mumbai, the kids started begging for more down time and I didn’t want to rush things on our later day.

The kids woke at 5am so around 6am, we joined the hundreds of Indians who walk, run and exercise on marine drive before sunrise. Z ran with me and S walked behind us. It was only about 20 minutes but felt good.

After this, we had a relaxed and delicious breakfast at our hotel.

We then spent some time in the weight room and hotel pool.

Next I confirmed with our tour company that we had a driver as the kids didn’t want to walk the 30 minutes to Colaba neighborhood where we were planning on doing some last minute shopping. So we drove over there and walked around for souvenir shopping and got Indian outfits for all, had lunch and headed home.

We returned to have some chill time at our hotel room which included a facial and massage for me and screen time for the kids.

We had an early dinner at the hotel and I got things packed and kids to bed by 6pm as we were leaving the hotel at 1030pm for a 230am flight. I was glad they got sleep as the rest of the night was hectic—long line to get into Mumbai airport, long line to check bags, security etc, and a very long and inefficient boarding process by KLM to finally take off 45 min late at 315am. I hadn’t slept and was pretty exhausted. I also knew they were canceling flights in Amsterdam where we were connecting due to poor weather and was also worried about our now 45 min connection.

We got through the 10 hour flight with some sleep for Z and rest for me and S after struggling setting screen time limits as my kids now think plane =unlimited screens and it’s a huge battle when the screen is on the seat in front due to international flight.

I was stressed about our connection and rightfully so. We got up as soon as flight landed and we were in the back of the plane so as soon as people started moving we started pushing past people explaining our connection. We then had to run well over a mile, stand in a very long security line as the monitors said the boarding gate for our flight was closing. The woman working at security was kinda like, “no, too bad, you have to stand in line.” I found the KLM crew and people in Amsterdam generally unsympathetic of me traveling alone as a single parent with 2 kids. I thought the Netherlands was more kid friendly but I definitely didn’t get any help or sympathy. We had to beg the people in line in front of us to let us go since we had a flight that would leave without us. Thankfully they were gracious. We got through security and then kept running to find the gate where we arrived panting and hyperventilating to a flight that has been boarded but gate was still open. Got onto the flight. Z said, “that was really stressful.” The kids, especially Z, were helpful and cooperative in getting to our flight on time and thankfully we had checked suitcases on way back (not on way there) as that would’ve been harder to run and snake around people with. S kept telling us we didn’t need to run but there is no way we would’ve made that connection without haste.

The delta plane and delta crew were so friendly and plane so much better than KLM that it already felt so much better. The flight was great—I medicated all of us and we all slept at least 5-6 hours.

And now we are back in Portland. So surreal but it was such a wonderful trip. I may write one more recap again in a few days.