Outside Mumbai's New International Airport

After returning from Africa, we spent Sunday in Mumbai so that we could go to the U.S. Consulate on Monday -- Lon needed to renew his passport, and I needed to have pages added to mine. Since we arrived at 4:45 AM, we napped for a few hours after showers and breakfast. In the afternoon we walked over to the new international terminal at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, which opened in February. (I've posted a few pictures earlier: http://srollinson.blogspot.in/2014/06/new-international-terminal-at.html)

Obviously, we couldn't go inside, but we walked the outside public areas of the arrival and departure areas. We weren't the only people to be just taking a look at the impressive structure.

The departure area. The pillar and ceiling design theme continues inside the terminal.

The arrivals area. Lon has spent a lot of time here waiting for me!

Fountains in the arrivals area. The structure in back is the parking garage.

Coffee is not really a big thing in India, but Starbucks just opened. The Devanagari script is a transliteration of the English. The "home-grown" coffee chain is "Cafe Coffee Day", also on this level.

An elevated road connects the international and domestic terminals. Until it opened, you had to drive about 5 km (3 miles) through Mumbai traffic. That took at least 15 minutes and could take up to 45 minutes in rush-hour traffic. The dedicated road makes it a 5 minute trip. I love the palm trees planted along the road.

And, of course, no mention of the outside of Mumbai's airport can ignore the famous slums that surround it. This photo was when landing last September, so it's through airplane glass and from a pretty good distance, but you can see that the slums come right up to the fence.