It is undeniable that finding a home to rent in the UK is straightforward. Full details of rental properties tend to be readily available online, landlords are regulated, the price quoted is generally what you will end up paying and it is much easy to get a feel for the suitability and safety of an area in a country which you know and understand.
Like most things, finding somewhere to live in India is a bit of an adventure! Thankfully, we have an agent to help us, but fundamentally the only way to go about it is to look round lots of places and find out what you like. Before we arrived, we drew up a rough list of requirements (number of bedrooms, general area, not infested with anything, good access to local amenities etc.) and sent these through to our man, who compiled a list of around 30 properties for us to look at this weekend.
So today, on Day 1 of our search, we traipsed round 18 different apartments accompanied by a series of brokers, meeting several landlords and generally trying to work out what we are supposed to be doing. Our agent made this much easier for us, and let his views be known to the brokers if he wasn't impressed with what was on offer. On one occasion, we listened to him speaking rapid Hindi with the only identifiable words being "s**t apartment" within a sentence which was quite entertaining.
Anyway, we haven't found the ideal place yet (though there are a couple of apartments on the shortlist) but now have a much clearer idea about what we would like, especially Phil who hasn't experienced the joys of an apartment search before. There is a cultural barrier though; including expectations regarding standard of bathroom and our requirements that we'd rather be able to comfortably walk to some shops and restaurants if possible (the expectation seems to be for us to drive everywhere). We're optimistic about tomorrow though - ruling out several things on day 1 (generally too small, too expensive, or not in good condition) helps to narrow down the search for Day 2. We're very pleased that we've got a knowledgeable guide in any case, I think this would be challenging to sort out by ourselves...
Overall though, it was all pretty good fun and we met lots of locals, including some showing us round their apartments. Whilst some apartments had been done up and clearly targeted at expats, others were Indian homes being let where the style and furnishing was often quite different. One highlight was meeting a cheery man who was particularly enthusiastic about the disco prayer room (!) in his apartment and showed us all the different colour combinations of his lights. It was very surreal.
When the apartment search was over, we returned to the hotel and tuned into the 12 bell final live stream. The sound quality was remarkably good and the live presenting super. We caught a bit of the Birmingham touch (predictably excellent) and went for a swim before returning to listen to the Cambridge test piece. Once Phil had provided his feedback, we had more excellent Indan food for dinner (venturing into Biryani) and are now listening to the introduction to the results. It's fantastic to be able to listen to all of this whilst so far away, and this makes the world seem very small.
Like most things, finding somewhere to live in India is a bit of an adventure! Thankfully, we have an agent to help us, but fundamentally the only way to go about it is to look round lots of places and find out what you like. Before we arrived, we drew up a rough list of requirements (number of bedrooms, general area, not infested with anything, good access to local amenities etc.) and sent these through to our man, who compiled a list of around 30 properties for us to look at this weekend.
So today, on Day 1 of our search, we traipsed round 18 different apartments accompanied by a series of brokers, meeting several landlords and generally trying to work out what we are supposed to be doing. Our agent made this much easier for us, and let his views be known to the brokers if he wasn't impressed with what was on offer. On one occasion, we listened to him speaking rapid Hindi with the only identifiable words being "s**t apartment" within a sentence which was quite entertaining.
Anyway, we haven't found the ideal place yet (though there are a couple of apartments on the shortlist) but now have a much clearer idea about what we would like, especially Phil who hasn't experienced the joys of an apartment search before. There is a cultural barrier though; including expectations regarding standard of bathroom and our requirements that we'd rather be able to comfortably walk to some shops and restaurants if possible (the expectation seems to be for us to drive everywhere). We're optimistic about tomorrow though - ruling out several things on day 1 (generally too small, too expensive, or not in good condition) helps to narrow down the search for Day 2. We're very pleased that we've got a knowledgeable guide in any case, I think this would be challenging to sort out by ourselves...
Overall though, it was all pretty good fun and we met lots of locals, including some showing us round their apartments. Whilst some apartments had been done up and clearly targeted at expats, others were Indian homes being let where the style and furnishing was often quite different. One highlight was meeting a cheery man who was particularly enthusiastic about the disco prayer room (!) in his apartment and showed us all the different colour combinations of his lights. It was very surreal.
Disco prayer room
Room 101 - The people showing us the apartment didn't see why we thought this was funny!
Roof terrace focus
When the apartment search was over, we returned to the hotel and tuned into the 12 bell final live stream. The sound quality was remarkably good and the live presenting super. We caught a bit of the Birmingham touch (predictably excellent) and went for a swim before returning to listen to the Cambridge test piece. Once Phil had provided his feedback, we had more excellent Indan food for dinner (venturing into Biryani) and are now listening to the introduction to the results. It's fantastic to be able to listen to all of this whilst so far away, and this makes the world seem very small.
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