Hotel Living

In our first full day in India, we have experienced a range of somewhat cliched (though possibly true based on circumstantial evidence) aspects of Mumbai life; supreme hotel service, the monsoon, Indian bureaucracy and traditional North Indian cuisine. 

To start with the first of these, the staff at our hotel just cannot do enough for you, at a level we haven't seen elsewhere. Today's slightly surreal special touches included creating a swan sculpture out of a towel and bath mat and consolidating all shoes strewn around the room into a neat line with slippers laid out for us by the bed. It feels decadent, although extra tidying and lining things up in parallel does go down well with me....I made a special effort to tell the room staff how fantastic the towel sculpture is so we're holding out for another animal tomorrow. These things are all superficial, but the people working here seem to take genuine pride in doing them.

First member of the towel animal zoo

Geometrically pleasing footwear

Breakfast. In shot you see unusual breakfast mix of masala dosa, salty lassi, masala chai, smoked salmon, rye bread, sweet yogurt pudding....and this was Phil's second round of food. I did comment that he has 29 more days to sample what's on offer.

Saying that, the 600+ rupees I was charged for a mango lassi in the hotel last night (this was particularly extreme) compared with the 14 rupees that Phil paid for masala chai on the street illustrates the extremes in wealth here. The hotel service might be very good, but the happiest person that Phil saw today was the auto driver who leapt out of his cab, beaming, to shake Phil's hand when he gave him a 12 rupee tip. I shouldn't romantacise this though, other auto drivers were pretty grumpy! We'll try to strike a balance between enjoying the perks of the hotel and seeing life outside over the next few weeks. We've already started to explore a bit, including Phil going for a run up the path by the Arabian Sea this morning before getting down to work for the day.

We've also seen (and felt) our first rains today. It wasn't for long, but the rain comes down hard, the streets seem to fill up with water at a frightening rate, and the air around you feels saturated. Umbrellas don't make a great deal of difference! It's an impressive natural spectacle.

Rainy day

Moving onto bureaucracy, I had my first meeting with the bank manager today who helpfully came into work to meet me, but rather less helpfully seems to require a fathomless number of pieces of paperwork (a signed letter stating which hotel I'm staying in?!) and 20 signatures to even contemplate giving me an account, despite the fact that I already have accounts with the same bank in the UK. Saying that, I am fortunate to be getting lots of help with setting these things up which is making everything a lot easier for me.

We ventured out to Panchos this evening, a Punjabi restaurant in the heart of Bandra. Dal Makhni was a highlight, as was my sweet lassi (a sixth of the price of the hotel one). Less good was Phil's drink (jaljeera) which sounds good on Wikipedia but looked like a glass of dirty water and didn't taste much better. Not the best thing to order in India.  Maybe we just haven't acquired a taste for it yet...hoping he won't be ill in the morning!

Tomorrow's fun is gym (necessary given current hotel diet) followed by a day looking for our home for the next two years. Hoping to find an apartment that will work for us soon if possible.

Meanwhile, Phil's greatest concern is finding somewhere atmospheric to watch the India / England cricket match on Sunday. You've got to get your priorities right...