Day 1: Wed 5 Nov 25 - Home to Mumbai (Via Melbourne and Singapore)


5 Nov 2025 - Home to Mumbai (Via Melbourne and Singapore)

I'll start this Blog, but no promises that I will keep it going for the entirety of this trip.

We had an early start today at 04:00am, when Noel and Olli delivered me to Canberra airport for a 06:35am Virgin flight to Melbourne - the first leg of another overseas trip for me. This one is for my 2nd cycle tour in India, riding from Mumbai to Goa. With flights booked through Singapore Airlines, I had a 2h30m layover in Melbourne followed by a 7h30m flight to Singapore. We landed on time in Singapore, where I met Greg in the business lounge, where he was waiting after arriving about 15 minutes earlier from Brisbane. Here we waited another 3 hours to board our next flight to Mumbai. Unfortunately, after boarding as we were preparing to take off, the A380 had an engine fail on the tarmac (the prefect place to have an engine fail if you're going to have one). After almost 90 minutes of waiting, we returned to disembark and went back to the business lounge for another 2 hours, waiting for a replacement aircraft to be prepared. We ended up boarding again and taking off at about 10:30pm, and eventually arrived safely in Mumbai at 01:00am (06:30am at home). By the time we cleared immigration which was a very slow and tedious process, we collected our baggage and met our driver Rajesh just before 2:00am. It took us almost 20 minutes just to exit the car park, the traffic was just ridiculous, even at that time of day. It was only a 25 km drive to our hotel, but the roads and streets were very rough, apparently the effects from recent monsoon weather, therefore it was a slow and bumpy drive. A couple of times we drove through red lights, and when asked why, Rajesh explained that it was after midnight, so we didn't need to stop. He did slow down though which was somewhat comforting. We eventually made it safely to our hotel, amusingly met by 6 porters waiting at the front entrance (it's after 2:00am remember!), who took us to level 5 to reception for check in, then back down to level four to our respective rooms. After a nice hot shower, and getting myself settled, I eventually got my head down under a very rickety and noisy old ceiling fan by 4:00am, ending a very long and tiring day. 

Sunrise at Canberra airport - 1st leg to Melbourne with Virgin

Boing 777 for the 2nd leg from Melbourne to Singapore


About to board the A380, which didn't get off the ground.

Doing it tough in business class on the A380, sipping on champers before takeoff - before the breakdown.


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