In the last two days, we’ve continued to explore and learn
more about India as well as make progress with organising the big ticket requirements
for our life here; getting an apartment and a car.
The apartment search is ongoing; we’ve seen over 30
different places between Saturday and Monday, and our agent has now got a good
handle on what we are looking for.
Specifically, we don’t seem to fulfil the typical expat mould (according
to our agent) of wanting to be tucked away down a long leafy drive where a car
is always required. Phil in particular
is keen to be in the heart of the action and we’ve now seen some apartments
which we both really like and would feel happy living in.
Light at the end of the apartment search tunnel?
The process of putting a lease in place is not a simple one. Our next task is to shortlist five or six
different places, and to visit them all again to determine exactly what we want
the owners to do before we can move in.
This can include new floors, white goods, changing furniture,
decorating, changing bathroom / kitchen fittings; and this all has to go in the
lease before it is signed or the owner will refuse to change a thing! It’s crucial to work out if anything is
broken before moving in else the owner will have no obligation to fix it. All these factors are then taken into account
before our agent enters the hard negotiation phase to agree the rent and
deposit (which can be shockingly huge) to try to agree a decent deal. He will do this with several different apartments
until a deal arises that we are happy with.
This is all slightly intimidating and, again, we are very pleased that
we are not doing this alone!
In addition to the apartment activity, yesterday we met with
a couple who are leaving India and looking to sell their car. After going for a test drive (with their
driver, not me, behind the wheel), we’ve agreed to buy the car (to be exchanged
next weekend) and also take on their driver.
We’ve had lots of useful advice from various contacts regarding
employing a driver and everything about doing this seems typically unofficial
and adhoc. The employment contract is
verbal, and our question regarding how we allow for administrative formalities
on his salary caused our apartment agent to laugh for some time as our query
was clearly so ridiculous. This will all be new to us and I’m sure we’ll have a
lot to learn. What I know though is that
I will not be driving in Mumbai; it is a completely different system to the
UK. What has impressed (and scared) me
most so far is how all vehicles can come incredibly close to each (at a
reasonable speed) on the road, and yet not touch (most of the time). I will be staying in the passenger seat for
now.
Aside from the apartment and car, we’ve made several
attempts to learn more about Indian life and the local area in the last two
days; some more successful than others.
On Sunday, we walked to Bandra Fort on the southern tip of
the suburb (very close to our hotel) which has excellent views of South Mumbai
and the impressive Bandra-Worli Sealink.
The fort was bustling and appeared to be a popular venue for couples,
some behaving themselves more than others in the gardens next to the fort. It’s definitely worth a visit by those
exploring Bandra.
In the evening, Phil successfully located a Raan (marinated and grilled leg of lamb)
for dinner and enjoyed a meat feast, though it became apparent later in the
evening that he had somewhat overindulged.
Less good was that we had intended to watch some of the India vs. England
cricket last night in a bustling bar; although the bar we went to turned out to
be empty and the cricket had been rained off.
There will be more opportunities in the future. We heard in the morning that India had won;
news that several Indians enjoyed sharing with me throughout the day.
On Monday morning, Phil explored the local area a little
more before starting work and was particularly happy to see his first street
monkey (as it was stealing the clothes of someone in the street).
Further, he is very proud to have purchased six bananas for
20 rupees (22p) which our apartment agent told us is only a little over the
typical price (30 rupees for a dozen, but in a cheaper area), an excellent result
for early in our fruit purchasing career.
He also helped someone practice their English (although this was
apparently non-existent) when they stopped him on his run. As of this morning, Phil has introduced an
hour of Hindi learning into his morning routine each day, so I’m expecting some
fluency very soon!
The Bandra area has Portuguese heritage and a strong
Catholic influence demonstrated by the large number of churches in the
area. Phil wandered by Mount Mary Church
earlier today which he says is quite impressive:
As much as we love the Indian food, a happy moment of my day
was finding out that our hotel serves a western menu (with basically anything
western you would want to eat), including fresh pizza at any time between
1130am and 4am. Whilst we won’t
necessarily want a midnight pizza, having a plate of pasta for dinner was a
relief, however adventurous we’ve tried to be so far.
We didn’t partake, but the hotel has a buffet which is a
visual feast in itself. The dessert
assortment this evening was a work of art such that I would have felt bad
removing anything and destroying the symmetry.
You can get tasty food in all prices range in India though; we’ve found
great mini-cakes for 15 rupees a piece from the bakery down the road.
Other positive hotel experiences: the housekeeper for our
room came to greet us with great enthusiasm as we arrived back at the room
yesterday. He was keen to show us
something; which turned out to be a mouse mat that he had found for Phil as he
noticed that he didn’t have one at the desk.
We hadn’t even thought about this, but he’d clearly noticed and tried to
make things easier for us. We sadly haven’t
had a repeat of the excellent swan sculpture, but I might start dropping a few
hints (including trying to construct one myself) in a few days’ time.
In other news from the UK, we were pleased to hear the great
result for Cambridge in the National 12 Bell competition, and to manage our
first semi- successful Skype call home to my parents (the audio was there, we just
need to work on the video bit).
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