Kala Ghoda

We are in a really weird time zone at the moment. We are watching all our family and friends break up for Christmas and go to numerous celebrations and honestly I can't believe its the 21st December. We didn't even realise the meaning of the date until halfway through lunch haha But yes today is the official date me and Will decided to be Boyfriend and Girlfriend 😏 Anyway enough of the soppy stuff...

Today we are meeting my dad's very good friends from his college days and I'm really excited to see them. I remember meeting them when I was much younger but I only remember Zarine being a very active, enthusiastic and energetic lady and Kersi being a calm collected man.

Our first stop though was to go and watch the famous Dabbawallas. If you've seen any documentaries about India you will probably know about them. It's an amazing system where all the wives cook the mens food for their lunch at home. Then a man comes to all the houses and collects them. These are all then brought by train to town. They are then sorted and delivered by men on bikes to each persons desk at work. The Dabbawallas are illiterate and therefore have a number system for their delivery. It was unbelievable to watch!! Supposedly they only get wrong 1 in 6 million and they do 80,000-100,000 deliveries a day. That is more efficient than any other current delivery system! It was amazing to watch happen live. Its such a simple system but wow honestly I was amazed that it still works.

We them went to meet Kersi and Zarine. They were just as I remembered them! They hadn't changed for 19 years!! I couldn't believe it. They were both unbelievably kind and showed us lots of sights in the area including Nariman Point over the sea and commercial district, horniman circle. Then we went to the famous Jimmy boy Parsi Restaurant where me and Will had a Parsi Laagan 4 course meal which they insisted we have. For starter I had Patra Ni Machi (Pomfret with chutney baked in banana leaf) with chapattis, Chicken Sali Boti with chapattis, Chicken Biryani and Parsi Custard for dessert. Obviously we couldn't eat it all so we ate most of the first two courses, had a rest, ate the dessert and packed up the Biriyani. Its possibly the best thing I've eaten in India so far. It was truly delicious. Cooked in a very homemade style and really authentic. Over lunch we talked all about our travels and their stories with dad. It was so so nice to hear. After lunch we then walked to where dad's home was when he was at college, then the famous Victoria Temrinus selfie point, Crawford market, then went for falooda and finally said our farewells. To be honest I'm feeling quite overwhelmed being here and hearing stories about my father but it's really helping me and making me stronger. I hope he's watching over us at the moment and keeping track of our adventure!

Afterwards we attempted to sari shop but to no avail so we headed home as we were unbelievably shattered. On the way back we stopped at the largest outdoor laundry in the world, dhobi ghat. Well it was pretty impressive to be honest!

As we were about half way back Adi rang and asked what we were up to. Honestly the only thing we had on our mind was that we wanted to lie down haha It was a Friday night and we probably were being quite lame. We were mostly home anyway so we decided to go back anyway, freshen up and then decide. At the spur of the moment we decided we might as well meet up with her and go for a drink. So we headed back out (by the way we aren't actually staying near the centre, it's about an hour away so us going out was actually quite impressive!). We met for drinks at Doolally which was a craft beer bar with boardgames. It was good fun. After a while we decided to see Adi's apartment and it was super swanky. They had gate men, a lift man and housekeepers. As we entered we were greeted by the most excited Shitzu I've ever met. He's only 4 months and he was bouncing off the walls!! Sooo cute!!

After chatting endlessly we realised it was 1:30am so we booked an uber and headed home. The uber driver was an absolute disaster and although he had Google maps up he refused to use it. We eventually got home at 3am!! We felt soo soo bad waking up the housekeeper of the house we were staying in. But it's a very very different culture here. You have a person who does everything including opening doors for your own home.Okumaya devam et