Matheran to Home
4 & 5 February 2003
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On our last day in Matheran, 4 February, we left Lord's Hotel at around 3:30pm for the
twenty-minute walk to the "toy train" station. We were accompanied by two aged and very
thin sari-clad women porters nonchelantly carrying our heavy luggage on their heads despite
the fact that our bags had wheels. We took the 4:20pm "toy train" to Naral, from where
we changed to the 6:52pm mainline train (no reservations, fare 16 rupees (US$0.34 per
person) to Mumbai. On the train we conversed with four teen-age boys returning home from
school; they asked us for foreign coins to add to their collections but we had none. Upon
arriving at Mumbai's Victoria Station we took a 1.5 hour taxi ride through very heavy traffic
to Mumbai International Airport, arriving there at about 11:00pm.
Our Air France flight departed Mumbai on schedule at 2:40am and after a ten hour flight
arrived at Paris' CDG airport at about 7:00am local time. Then we took a connecting flight
to Newark International Airport, where we arrived at about 2:00pm local time. From the
airport we took a car to our home in northern New Jersey. We are always happy to leave
home on overseas trips, and happy to return.