Take a pre paid taxi from Mumbai International Airport to Colaba and check yourself in at the Apollo Guesthouse. This low budget hotel in the heart of the Mumbai tourist centre has Euro showers and toilets and even has air-conditioning which works but is fairly noisy and irritating. You can find the Apollo Guesthouse upstairs and in behind a leather shoe and sandal store which makes it quite unique and a little hard to find. Rates here range from about 800 to 1000 rupees.

Tip: Don't worry if you think that arriving this early will keep you out of a bed. Almost all of the hotel porters at budget places live in house and so will gladly check you in at whatever hour. Just give him a generous tip and don't scare the hell of him when you open the door!

6am

If you're in Mumbai during the Northern Hemisphere winter months, make sure you catch the entertaining and spiritually cleansing Laughing Club which operates in the gardens across from the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel and in front of the famous Gateway of India before the working day starts. The Laughing Club is a get together of people from all walks of life who believe that starting your day by laughing is good for the soul. They do a range of laughs from different countries, including a New Zealand laugh which is very interesting to say the least. So whether you're looking to be cleansed or just entertained, get up early and take a look. It's well worth while.

8am

Get yourself down to the famous Leopold's Café and Bar, a short walk down the Colaba Causeway from the Apollo Guesthouse, where you will have a massive array of dishes to choose from for breakfast. Unlike some places in India, the Leopold chefs cook European style food reasonably well if you're looking for bacon and eggs, otherwise their Indian and Chinese dishes are excellent.

9am

Head on foot back to the famous Gateway of India monument for your pics and monument viewing fix. The Gateway Monument was built as a symbol for approaching ships to be the first thing they saw upon entering the city. While in the monument vicinity, book your ticket for a trip to Elephanta Island to view the famous temples and sculptures that date back thousands of years.

Tip: Con artists are very prevalent in this area. One great scam is a "lucky charm bracelet" being attached to your wrist seemingly out of good will. But don't be fooled, these men and children working for them, will follow you until you pay them grandly for it and they also leave a nasty red dye stain on your wrist.

10am

Board your boat to Elephanta Island. The trip should take around 40mins but this can change depending on the weather, and if it's bumpy be prepared for a harrowing and nauseating experience. Once on Elephanta Island you can view the temples and carvings of Hindu Gods by taking a small train (kind of like the Kiwi version of the Noddy Train) from the pier and then walking up what seems like hundreds of steps. Be prepared to pay for the viewings more than once. A "tourist" fee is charged at the pier and then again when you reach the temples. The fees are not cheap either; 500 rupees at the temple entrance. You can eat at a number of places on the island and the one right at the top of the island near the temples will provide you with a great view back towards Mumbai, but some fairly average food.

Tip: The monkeys all over this island will steal anything that is not tied down, especially your food, so keep an eye out.

2pm

Book a guided tour of Mumbai either through your hotel or from touts at the Gateway of India who will always be offering their services. The tour, depending on who you go with, will include a taxi ride of the city to numerous tourist attractions including The Jain Temple, The Hanging Gardens (where the Jain religion brings their dead for the crows to feast on), The Washing Ghats (where clothing is washed for millions by hand), The Mahatma Ghandi Museum, and an outpost overlooking the entire city of Mumbai. This tour is well worthwhile and for around 1500 rupees plus a tip, is pretty affordable.

5pm

After being dropped back at the Gateway of India, head back up the Causeway on foot for your cheap shopping experience. Everything you could think of is being offered for sale right on there on the street including DVDs, books, belts, Indian Cricket memorabilia, clothing and jewellery.

Tip: Don't get caught out of cash on a Sunday. All the money exchange places including the Travelex in Colaba will be closed and so you will be forced to exchange money on the black market. Not advised, but as a last resort they do offer rates very close to what the exchange rate actually is and as a plus, they are not be hard to find!

7pm

Café Mondegar, just up from Leopold's, is a great place for dinner and a tourist mecca. The food is pretty good especially the Indian Curries, and the jukebox, young crowd and plenty of Kingfisher Beer make for an entertaining evening. You can also purchase Café Mondegar remembrance t-shirts for the ultimate experience.

9pm

Head back down to Leopold's Café and Bar for clubbing Indian style, upstairs from the restaurant. Hard to spot if you didn't know about it, they provide mostly American pop music and serve top shelf spirits and a range of beers for a reasonable price. A great place to meet other backpackers and tourists.

11pm

Board the overnight Konkan Express from Victoria Station to the gorgeous state of Goa. The trip will take you around 10 hours overnight depending on stops along the way. Book the second class sleeper carriage which will give you fold down bed in an 8 person compartment. This is not as cheap as taking a bus from Mumbai, but it shaves off a few hours. Don't worry about going hungry or not being able to shine your shoes either, as at every stop, sellers will get on offering all types of services. A Chai or two and an Indian Samosa would be recommended which should fill a hole.

Tip: You can book the Konkan Express online and you need to do it well before your trip as seats fill up extremely fast as everyone tries to get to the sun, sand and surf.

The vessel was old but seaworthy. It sailed out of what was Bombay in those days and took a leisurely 24 hours to make its way to Panjim where it tied up for the day before heading back north.

The passage was cheap no matter which class you chose but there was really only one, especially if funds were tight. Getting on board was the usual tussle, all elbows and knees, babies being surfed over the heads of everyone else along with goats and chickens and nondescript packages that wriggled.

I was travelling in November with little chance of rain but it wouldn't have matter if a storm had lashed down. I claimed my space on the deck on the port side so I could see the coast all the way. With my Gulmarg blanket spread out on the damp planks I built a low partition with my possessions between myself and the open sea as a windbreak. My possessions were meagre, but so fortunately was the wind, even at night when we were far from the warm influence of the land. There was a family camped beside me: father, mother and two children, all spread out on a blanket the same size as mine. They also had a chicken which lay with its legs trussed, accommodatingly quiet for the entire trip.

The boat pushed off and started to rise and fall as it left the shelter of the harbor and headed out into the open Arabian Sea. I love traveling by boat. I don't mind bad weather, I enjoy storms, but this was no more than a slight swell with a gentle sun falling down to bless us.

Towards evening my thoughts turned to food. I'd brought water with me but that was all. For the first time I took a good look at my ticket and realized that a meal was included in the cost and I headed to where everyone else seemed to be heading and found a large dining hall set out much like a school refectory.

Dinner was rice and fish. The man in the queue in front of me got the jackpot - a fish head, and he was well pleased. It was a substantial enough meal but could have done with a bit more flavor, maybe a vegetable or two in the fish stew. But I enjoyed it.

I lay all night on the deck, under the clearest sky I had seen since a trip across the Indian Ocean when I was so far from land. The stars were spectacular and I could see that they were not just stuck onto a black background, but that they were actually suspended in space. The other passengers quietened down and fell into slept: the two children beside me had slept from very early, exhausted from the excitement of the journey. Their parents spoke no English; no-one seemed to.

At some remote hour during that magnificent night the boat slowed and dropped anchor off the coast, some way from a small town whose few lights twinkled in the distance like low-hung stars. A small motor boat chugged out through the shallows bringing a few more passengers and parcels. They boarded with not much noise and the boat sailed on.

At dawn we were closer than I expected to the shore. The Western Ghats rose out of the misty surface of the water and the smoke from the funnel left a faint graying smudge against the colorless, cloudless, sky. For the first time I felt the air as something cold. I lifted the blanket from the deck and wrapped it around my shoulders and watched Goa come into view.

There was no StarPlus with its sans's and bahus, no ESPN with guys continuously running between wickets in some country trying to beat some other country, no nothing. Only Doordarshan. So the younger ones saw cartoons, documentaries on Nehru , punctuated with " Amchi Mati Amchi Mansa" the program with the highest farmer TRP's. The kids would draw a card at home, attentively color it till the pencil pierced through the paper; never mind.... ; it was given and accepted with much grace and appreciation . If you had a garden, you plucked a flower, and clutching it as if it was gold, took it to school, to present it to your class teacher. Paanch rupaiyya, ek phool was blasphemy.

Once folks got a whiff of the impending globalization, we were suddenly subject to an onslaught of Mothers, Fathers and Valentines Day. Not to speak of Friendship Day. Shopkeepers , whose limit of ambition had reached up to selling Maggie Noodles, suddenly started stocking, satin ribbons to be sold by the metre, for Friendship day. Nine shining inches of a silky ribbon , when tied on the hands of someone , you probably met only when you wanted some class notes, signified eternal friendship !

Just in case your interest waned, or you appeared to be responding to your parents suggestion of not wasting money on such things, the TV channels ensured that you did the stuff , lest you be branded a kaku type...(unfortunate name, that).

I thought time had come to define certain indigenous days , more in keeping with our Desi ethos.

BNBC: Be Nice to the Bus Conductor Day

My eternal tribute to the BEST bus service of Mumbai. the buses may creak, rock, rattle, the driver may do the same, but the bus takes you from A to B, while the conductor exhibits an uncanny ability to slither through a packed bus from back to front, without outraging anyone (or anyones modesty). (Suggested activities : carry exact change, share a chocolate/chikki with the conductor, get up when he tells you to vacate a ladies' seat (without an argument or frown). Say Thank you to the driver and conductor when you get off. Ram-Ram is even better. See how he goes into first gear with new vigor on the Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Rd.

HRD: Hamara Rasta Day

Please note that HRD has no connection AT ALL with a ministry of the same name. On this one day, folks should desist from saying "Kya ye aap ke baap ka rasta hai ?". (Suggested activities : take a detour around the bhajiwalla, instead of leaping close to the tomatoes; shake your head instead of mouthing something bad; exchange high-fives with the vadawallah after you politely move aside to let a truck pass a foot away from the stall.)

HD: Hornless Day

There are a variety of ways one can observe this. Keep your vehicle at home and walk. Be creative in communication through your vehicle window, if you are forced to use the vehicle at all. Glaring at a taxi driver and saying "dikhta nahi kya ?" does NOT earn you any points.... Drive at a sedate pace, so others are forced to drive the same way. Enjoy the scenery, the trafficjams, the dug up roads, the wandering bovine population looking for a relic of the past - a blade of green grass....

L+ Security day

This will be ONE day on which the X, Y, and Z security types are left to themselves. The several jeeps, constables, inspectors, lights on vehicles and sirens can be put to much better use. And L+ will be a day dedicated to the Ladies Security . Remember Chivalry ? Well, Let the ladies get into the bus ahead of you. If you see someone pretending to be thinner than he is, and trying to squeeze through to the front of the bus through a congregation of ladies, make him remember his "nani", a super L+ lady. If you are traveling at night in the suburban train, travel after 7:30pm in the ladies dabba, not because its allowed, but beacuse the few ladies who travel late may feel they have someone to help them. If you see guys whizzing past on cycles and motorcycles dangerously close to ladies with glistening long mangalsutras, take a diving leap to stop the thieves, in a manner that Moammed Kaif would approve ....

BBD: BhajiwaliBai Day

Avoid the Bhajiwalla Bhaiyyas (BB) on this day. Buy your vegetables only from the bahji ladies on this day. Notice how you get more of bhaji, suddenly. Say Mavshibai, and ask her where her hometown is. Comment on how smart her son is (who is arranging the lemons artistically), and pretend NOT to notice as she adds ONE more sheaf of Kothmeer in your bag.

ID: Immobile Day

Leave your mobile at home, along with the hands free kit. All those who think you are mad when they see you talking and laughing with yourself on the road, will be reassured. Music in the cacophony of buses is sometimes OK; but have you heard a Sonata in 392 Major, where "Saare jahan se achcha", "just chill chill" and "kajra Re" continuously play while you are trying to shout the name of the bus stop to the conductor ? And sometimes everyone speaks so loudly on the phone, that you wonder why the require a phone at all; just holler. All Talk time is permanently free.

Class 7 day (C7D)

The immediate consequence of everyone getting hyper about classes 10 and 12 is that once the children go to class 8, parents get into PUSH Mode. Free time from 5 am to 8 am ? No Problem. Join a class. Last years highest was 99.9. Its always "WE mange More" (and I am not talking about the selection committee for cricket). Study, Study, beat your buddy, you must get 99.9999. On the occasion of C7D, take the children on an excursion somewhere. Honor the sports kids in your school. Applaud the artists and admire their art work and performances. Have some non-engineers, non-doctors, and some such , come and chat with the kids on what they do. Get your kids to visit an institute for differently-enabled special kids. Play cricket with them . Life consists of SO many things other than Engineers, doctors, computer scientists, and managers....

LTD: Local Train Day

They are the Lifeline. While we cling in doorways, squeeze into compartments, specialize in saying "zara sarkoon ghya " (just push that side a bit...), so one more can lay claim to 36 square inches of plywood , day after day, month after month, the motorman simply follows the Bhagwad Gita ; he continues to do his work, without expectation of any reward. Instead, whenever there is a train strike, and some senseless people take their anger out on trains, these guys get beaten up. NO one, and i repeat , no one, ever, waves , smiles, and says thank you to them, when they stand taking a breather at the terminus , in the doorway of their train cabin, waiting for the next signal to fall. So, on an LTD, meet your motorman, wish him well, introduce your children to him, and tell him you admire his difficult job. If he has an off period, have an impromptu chai with him along with the people in the railway dabba.