Of the early foreign trips Baba made, this was the only one in which Chanji did not accompany him. As Baba set sail for Europe, Rustom had been ordered to sail to Los Angeles by way of China, to do certain work in Hollywood. Rustom left on 2 December 1932. Chanji was also directed to go to China to stay for some time with Herbert Davy. He took a ship to China later in December. Before leaving, Chanji recorded these thoughts in a letter to the Kimco group:

Separation from Baba is no easy thing, particularly for one who has stayed with him so closely for over seven long years. It means something unthinkable; no one can have any idea. I myself had no idea it could be so acutely severe. I have seen so many suffer and they always had my warmest sympathy and fellow feelings. At times, I cried over these sufferings of others. But I still had no practical idea of it myself until it came on me personally.

When Baba told me this time to stay in India and do his work of seeing Herbert in China, I had to, of course. Nothing could be more faithless at this moment than to refuse. But how I did it, this heart alone can tell. For a week, even while Baba was still in India, I moved about like one dead — quite blank in mind and with a piece of ice in my stomach — dull, cold, stunned, benumbed. And when he left, life seemed extinct. Everything looked lifeless ...

Baba and the mandali arrived in Venice on Friday, 2 December 1932. They were met there by Elizabeth Patterson, Norina Matchabelli, Nadine Tolstoy and Quentin Tod. They then traveled by train toward London, arriving in Milan on the 4th, where Enid Corfe and another devotee met them. The group stayed overnight at the Hotel Diana, leaving at 5:00 P.M. the next evening. Baba arrived in Paris at 6:00 A.M. on the 6th and left for London at noon, arriving the same day.

Meanwhile Kitty Davy and the others in the Kimco group had arranged for Baba's seven-day stay at the Knightsbridge Hotel. No sooner had Baba arrived than his lovers enthusiastically flocked to be near him. This was the first opportunity Elizabeth and Norina had to meet the London group.