Random Thoughts

Just some individual comments that I haven't managed to crowbar in elsewhere:

Sometimes I'm really pleased that photos don't record noise and smell. Normally the smell isn't a problem but just occasionally it's horrendous. So long as you don't mind the Concerto for Car Horn, sound isn't bad.

Trucks are almost invariably painted really prettily. No Eddie Stobart conformity here.

Guys can hold hands and nobody thinks it notable (apart from me, apparently).

The Indian government really wants the road system to be well-ordered and civilised. There are road markings, signs and notices all over suggesting that you shouldn't use the horn. Shame.

I couldn't ride on a motorbike over here. I'm too much of a wimp to ride one in the UK, and it would be so much worse here. Far worse than riding one, though, would be being a passenger on one. Girls also ride sidesaddle, shudder.

Lots of vans and trucks make a point of having a sign on the back inviting the use of horns. I've realised that this is because the side mirrors are largely ornamental.

Many buildings have notices in front of them asking nobody to park in front of the gates. Lots of these are sponsored, presumably reducing the cost. Personally, I would have thought that having an advert for pest control on the gates to your house would be unappealing , but there's plenty of signs that suggest I'm wrong.

I'm told that inside the unappealing exteriors the flats are often very nice.

Skype is a wonderful modern tool. Let's me keep up with the family and significantly reduces missing them. Kathryn may not entirely agree.

Sunday 20th - Worli Promenade

After I'd been back at the hotel a little while I decided that there was little point me just sitting in my room, especially as it was likely to be my last Sunday at that hotel. The concierge had told me earlier that the new bridge (the Worli - Bandra Sealink) was worth seeing, and that the Worli Promenade was a good place to see the sunset. He'd also shown me on the fairly rough local map where it was in relation to the hotel, but advised me to take a taxi.

Perhaps foolishly, I decided to walk. As a result, I got somewhat lost getting there, and took much longer than I should have done. (Note - I took a taxi back at the end and it cost notably less than £1. Sometimes it pays to listen.) On the positive side, I was able to get some orientation of myself with relation to the hotel and began to realise that walking to work was doable.

Anyway, I only needed to ask directions once to get where I wanted, albeit that I probably approached it from totally the wrong end. The bridge itself is clearly a wonder of engineering, although (at least from the Worli end) isn't the most photogenic, having something of a dogleg in the middle. I understand (from a chat with a local who said he was a policeman) that the plan is to extend the bridge so that it goes down to the city heart in South Mumbai. The promenade itself, however, is quite attractive and is very busy with couples and families walking along it, along with quite a number of traders.

There is a proper coastline, rock not sand, and without many people going on it as they tend to stay on the promenade. The crows remain ubiquitous, and are happy to sit eating in the middle of the promenade, largely unconcerned by the people and more bothered by other crows muscling in on their patch. The people, similarly, are far from concerned about the birds and just get on with their lives.

One thing that is noticeable is that, in India as in the UK, it tends to be the women who get dressed up when they go out, whilst the men tend to wear what they feel most comfortable in.

As is the way with more tropical climes, the sunset itself happened really quite quickly, to the extent that you feel that you can actually see it dropping below the horizon. It was, however, quite a pretty one with plenty of orange in the sky.

I wasn't feeling confident enough about taking photos of people who could tell, so I mostly took longer lens shots. Then, at the end, a girl came up and asked if I would take her photo. I did, and showed it to her (thank you, digital). She then dragged her little sister over and, with her mother's blessing and, indeed, encouragement, I took a couple of photos of her. One of these is the main picture of the Flickr set for the day (see the link).

Sunday 20th - Shopping Trip

After breakfast on Sunday I decided to go to the local shopping centre to get various bits and bobs. In particular, I had deliberately brought out only 1 week's worth of shirts as I haven't got that many 16 1/2 in collar shirts, but that's my size now after losing weight. It seemed to me that India would be a good place to get some more. I also wanted to get a proper mouse for my laptop as the trackpad was beginning to annoy me.

I decided to walk to the shops - it was only a 15 minute walk. Phoenix Mills is the big smart shopping centre that's horribly expensive, but there's a smaller, more sensibly priced area next door. I got there at 10 and found that the main shops didn't open until 11. I also found that I had to go through security - a metal detector

I spent a bit of time looking round the area to see what shops there were and where I was going to want to go. In particular, there was a specific electronics shop and also a shop called Big Bazaar which seemed to be essentially a supermarket. I was stopped from taking any photographs in the area. I still had time to kill so want and had a coffee at Costa Coffee (just as I would have done back in the UK), and got on with some reading. Same format as the previous coffee shop though - order at bar and then have it brought to you with a separate bill later.

When the shops opened I started by going to the electronics shop and found a difference with the UK - you have to leave your bags at the entrance, and in some go through a metal detector. When you leave you also have to show your receipt for the bags you're taking out. I got my desktop set at the electronics shop (price perhaps a bit cheaper than in the UK, but I'm no expert on UK prices for them) and then went to the Big Bazaar for shirts. Here I found that Indian shirts are measured in centimetres rather than inches My 16.5 inches is approximately 41 cm, but I ended up with 42 as there didn't seem to be many at odd valued centimetres. It's also a good job that I've lost weight and an inch or so off the neck as there were very few shirts that were more than 42cm, and none above 44.

I then went into a bookshop to have a look at it. They were having an Oscars quiz which I listened in to, and I also had a look around. It was notably more than just a bookshop (my Xmas Kindle means that I don't actually need to buy any books out here), and I bought a couple of DVDs and magazines - mostly about photography. It was also here that I saw some notebooks and bought one, thinking I would write stuff about the trip. (Obviously, later it occurred to me that a blog was a better solution.)

Finally, I went to the loo in the shopping centre (which was very clean and free, which came as a bit of a surprise to me). I then walked back to the hotel.

One of the key things about India is just how close to each other the really rich and really poor live. The entrance to a significant slum is directly opposite the entrance to the 5* Four Seasons hotel, and amongst the photos that I wish I'd taken (but didn't have my camera with me for) was the sight of two little girls from the slums who had crossed the road to peer into a luxury furniture shop (with furniture that I certainly couldn't afford in the UK). On the walk back I saw a piece of graffiti that seemed the only sensible response to this divergence:

Keep Your Money - I Want Change.

Saturday Walk Round Mumbai, Part 3

From the coffee shop I went to have a look at the old Opera House. This was, apparently, built at just the wrong time, as film was beginning to become very popular and as a result never made money. The guidebook said that it was now very run down but worth seeing. Unfortunately, it is now covered in scaffolding and thus can't really be seen. It is, according to Wikipedia, in the process of being restored although it would seem to be some distance away from completion.

My next target area was to be Kotechiwadi, a small area apparently of Portuguese origin. Whether or not I actually went through it while I was diving through the warren of little back streets I can't be certain, but I certainly found a lot of buildings that you can see are old and which would have been lovely at the time that they were built. Some of them still look in reasonable nick (even though you get the distinct impression that there are more people living in them now than they were originally designed for). What was clear was that this was not a wealthy area, although the people themselves seemed happy.

I had been warned before coming out that I would get culture shock. In reality, I haven't really had it. I think that's because I've been to places like Egypt, Indonesia and South America which have at least some similarities, so I think I've had my culture shock beforehand. It will be interesting to see how my 9 year old daughter reacts, though. Hopefully it will allow her to appreciate how lucky we are in Europe and not freak her out too much. Fortunately, she will be able to retreat to a pretty nice hotel if she does start having problems.

One thing I noticed while walking around was that particular types of shops group together. This is something that happens in London, too, but I've never understood why it happens. I can see why it helps if your customers know that if they need X then they can be pretty sure of finding it if they go to a specific area, but it seems that you then end up competing only on price with the others around, and that can't be great for profits. Anyway, I found the areas for car repairs and also for cards (who would have thought that there was enough demand for wedding cards to keep pretty much a whole street busy?). Note to my wife, I almost certainly won't be able to find the card area again.

I wasn't really lost while I was wandering around, although I didn't know exactly where I was at any point, and the map I had wasn't hugely useful. Also, road name signs in Mumbai are few and far between, and those that there are as often as not only in Hindi, which isn't helpful for a tourist. However, I broadly knew which way I was going at each point, and I knew that I wanted to end up at Crawford Market. With only one bit of assistance from a local I managed to get there.

Having finally got there I didn't actually spend much time there, though I'm not really sure why. It just wasn't appealing to me at the time. Perhaps I'll give it another go at some stage. I then carried on walking down to the main train station, the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, previously known as Victoria Station. This is a magnificent old building (Victorian, surprise, surprise) that I understand was modelled on St Pancras Station in London.

Next to the Station was the General Post Office. I've long said that the Madrid Post Office is the most OTT Post Office I've ever seen, but the one in Mumbai is more so. A huge flock of birds was roosting in a tree in front of it, and occasionally would rise up in a cloud.

I was getting hungry by now, so went and ate at one of the small restaurants nearby, and started watching the first match of the cricket World Cup. There has been a suggestion from one of the people at work that we should try to get tickets for the final, since it's being held in Mumbai. Not that she (Spanish) has any particular interest in it from the sporting perspective, but more from the event side. Tickets haven't yet gone on sale, and the chances are very low that we will manage to get any tickets, but we'll give it a go.

By this time I was beginning to get quite tired. My feet were hurting (fool that I am, I'd worn work shoes for the walk) - it turned out I had a blister about the size of a 10p piece on the sole of my right foot - and my need for a loo was growing (I hadn't really felt the urge to go into one of the public loos that I'd passed at Crawford market and the restaurant didn't have one. So after a very brief further walk I got a taxi back to the hotel. That turned out to be more of an issue than I'd expected - the first taxi drivers I asked didn't know where the hotel was. I ended up giving my key card (with the address on it) to the taxi driver, but it turns out that the street name is not necessarily a hugely helpful piece of information to taxi drivers. He found out the area that I wanted (Worli), drove there and then asked for directions when he got closer.

The rest of the day was spent in the hotel, at the pool and in my room, with a brief trip out with various members of the client team for dinner at a local restaurant.

Saturday Walk Round Mumbai, Part 2

Okay, I need to speed this up as I'm already a week behind and I've only been here two weeks!

Last time I wrote I had reached the Oval Maidan. From there it was just a short walk to the seaside Down at that end there really isn't that much of a seashore as such - it's all been reclaimed, and is made up of lots of what looks like concrete shapes in a somewhat higgledy-piggledy jumble. The concrete shapes are three pronged bollards, all emanating from a central point.

What the seashore lacks in attractiveness, however, is more than made up for by the view over the bay of the Mumbai skyline, both north and south, and also by the walk itself. The road, Marine Drive, is itself very wide in both directions, but next to that, on the sea side, is an equally wide promenade area lined with trees by the road and a reasonably wide wall / seating area by the sea. Perhaps inevitably, it is the narrow wall that the vast majority of people walk along, leaving the main promenade almost entirely undisturbed.

Facing the sea on the other side of the road are a series of buildings, many of them apartment blocks, that were presumably much sought after when they were first built in the 1930s. Now, probably not so much. If anything has been spent on them since they were built, it's certainly not obvious now.

Walking north along the promenade you come to an area where there are various 'gymkhana' as they are called - open playing areas. Inevitably, there's cricket matches going on on them. Further north you reach an aquarium, although, again, it has clearly seen better days. However, the art deco design and fish shapes on the roof and walls do make it quite an amusing building.

Just after the aquarium the concrete shapes stop and there starts to be actual beach, Chowpatty beach, which gets to be quite wide after a while. In some ways, the presence of a lovely beach seems to be something of a waste - nobody sunbathes, and it would be a brave person who decided to go swimming in the sea here.

At this point I decided that I needed to add water at one end and probably remove it from the other. Turning off from the main sea road I found a coffee shop and went in.

Inside the coffee shop I was asked if I fancied a cold coffee rather than a hot one. Somewhat unthinkingly, I said yes. It was only while I was drinking it that I remembered that amongst the advice I had been given before coming out was not to drink anything with ice. Whilst there wasn't any ice obviously in the coffee, there may well have been some used in its preparation(or at least cold water). Not necessarily my brightest move, and a reminder that you do need to keep thinking. In reality, there doesn't seem to have been any ill effects.

Incidentally, there seems to be the following advice about drinking water:

• If it doesn't say it's drinkable, don't drink it
• If it does say it's drinkable and its not in a bottle, don't drink it
• If it is in a bottle, but the seal is broken, don't drink it
• If the seal on the bottle is unbroken, you should be all right.

I was given advice before coming out that I should only ever drink through a straw. Since coming out here I have been advised to update that a bit - best to bring your own straw! Straws here are not necessarily the cleanest things.

Anyway, back to the coffee shop. It was at this point I learnt something about the differences between Indian and UK cafes / restaurants - there is no requirement in India to provide loos. Fortunately, this was by no means urgent.

The other thing I got to appreciate again was how much of a service culture there is in India. I'm used to picking up your drink and paying at the counter, but in India you order at the counter and then go sit down, where the drink is brought to you and then you ask for the check at the end.

Part 3 to follow, hopefully this evening after tea.

Saturday - A walk around Mumbai, Part 1

An early breakfast followed by a taxi ride down to the Gateway to India. The trip took about half an hour and brought with it the first of many lessons learnt during the day - nobody has change for large notes. 1000 rupees (£15) counts as a large note. When I tried to pay the 300 rupee bill with one the driver wasn't happy. He took me round the corner to one of the little shops and got it changed there.

I walked back to the Gateway, which was unfortunately mostly roped off. It looked like there was some sort of function or concert going to be happening in front of it, which was a shame as it meant that the view was somewhat limited. You could still get round to the back of it, down to where the boats leave to go to Elephanta Island and the like. As I was walking round to the monument (built to commemorate the landing of George V and Queen Mary there) I was selected by a young woman as her target for the morning. As with gypsies everywhere she started by trying to give me something - in this case a bracelet of Jasmin - and then kept appearing and asking me to buy her some food. In the end I gave her some money in the hope that she would go away (like that ever works) and then resorted to the ignoring her policy which is tough but the only one that works in the end.

From the gateway it was a short walk up to a big roundabout. This was the first opportunity to see the contrast in buildings. In essence, Mumbai has three types of buildings - brand new ones, Victorian ones which have been beautifully maintained, and ones which have essentially been left to rot. In the slums there is also a 4th type - buildings which aren't actually buildings at all but are actually a ramshackle collection of various bits and bobs to make up walls and rooves. The roundabout has a couple of fascinating looking buildings - the National Gallery of Modern art and the Prince of Wales Museum. However, there are also a fair number of buildings that are well past their glory days. When originally built they may well have been quite spectacular, but now they're less so (or for a completely different reason).

Further up the road and then turning right brings you to the Oval Maidan. This used to be the coastline and is a large park, now used mostly for cricket matches by the dozen. On one side (the side that was on the coast beforehand) is a collection of Victorian buildings, the High Court, Mumbai University and Clock Tower amongst them, which are in good condition and look lovely. On the other side (where the sea was before the land was reclaimed in the 1930s) are some art deco buildings that were probably magnificent when built but don't look as if they've been maintained since then.

Part 2 to follow.

First few days at work

I'm not going to talk about work itself, client confidentiality and all that (as well as being way too dull). However, there are things worth knowing - we're an international group. The client is a German multi-national company that is setting up an operation in India and is using us (a UK multi-national consultancy). So from our consultancy there's me (a Brit based in Chester), another Brit based in Sydney (who I'm replacing) and a Swede based in London. The client has a number of Indians with local knowledge heading it up, a Spaniard managing the project and a number of Germans in varying roles who spend time in both India and Germany.

There are two cars allocated to the clients and the office is too far from the hotel to walk, so we tend to go into work at the same time every morning (7:45 breakfast, 8:15 departure). Leaving work varies, but there's plenty to do so nobody seems to be in a rush to leave (which is a shame). There is a cafe at the office, but we tend to go out to a local restaurant (it's still only £3 for a proper meal, so cheaper than in London for a sandwich).

For some reason I've been in the front seat every trip. The trip to work starts by leaving the air-conditioned magnificence of the hotel and turning (against traffic), crossing and then heading along next to a slum area that is directly across the road from the hotel. Even slum is too generous a word, frankly. If you think of New York slums then you think of really run down buildings; in Mumbai they're not really buildings at all. They're tiny shacks at best, with corrugated iron for rooves. Amazingly, some of them have satellite dishes.

I mentioned the driving in my earlier post. The thing that needs to be added is just how little damage there seems to be to the cars out here. You would expect that the driving would lead to lots of little dings and dents, but that really doesn't seem to be the case. If anything, they look in better nick than in the UK. There's also a huge number of taxis, either on the roads or parked by the side of them. There seem to be two basic types - an old car or a newer 'minibus' style. I'm told that all the taxis run on gas, which means that the pollution is much better than it would have been.

Breakfast is a buffet service, much as you get in most good hotels, but with the fry up replaced by curry options. Actually it works rather well and I've gone with that most days.

On my first day I was told that the hotel we're currently at is increasing rates quite substantially so we will need to move. Thursday night we went to have a look at the most likely replacement. Rooms are a lot smaller, but it's a nicer hotel surroundings (old style colonial instead of modern functional). As luck would have it the proposed new hotel isn't available one night next week so it looks like we're here until next weekend.

Unfortunately most of the team was tired or working on Wednesday and Thursday evening so we didn't go out of the hotel. I didn't know the area and didn't feel comfortable venturing out alone so had room service for dinner at the hotel both nights. Very well done, but not cheap by any means - sauteed morel and forest mushrooms masala was about £10 excluding rice / naan.

Friday night was rather better, starting by going to the rooftop bar at the hotel (rather lovely views over the city) and then to the Phoenix Mills - a ludicrously expensive shopping centre that's gorgeous. Apparently the things there are more expensive than the same things in Europe. Given that there's a Bose shop there it's hard to imagine what they cost here. Within the shopping centre, as well as a franchise of the Comedy Store and a Manchester United bar there is a vegetarian Thali restaurant which is magnificent. There's about 20 or so different curries / breads / desserts that they just keep bringing around until you've had enough. Excellent value at £4.

Travel to India

So, the trip started for me on Tuesday morning with a 4.10 taxi pickup from home. Rather than risk oversleeping, and to try to encourage me to sleep during the flight, I stayed up all night. Fortunately I had a meeting of the Mold Camera Club on Monday evening (in no way the reason that I delayed travelling until Tuesday :)), and then out for a drink with them afterwards, which helped keep me up.

The flight was in 2 stages - from Manchester to Brussels and then from Brussels to Mumbai. This was pretty uneventful all in all, although the security process is a bit dull (having to unpack laptops from the bags before they go through the X-Ray machine, not sure I understand that). Then we had to go through exactly the same security checks again when transferring at Brussels.

I managed to sleep a bit on the plane, and the good news was that we managed to land more than an hour early (10:10 pm rather than the 11:25 that was expected). Immigration was surprisingly quick - I snuck through the business class line, but standard lines didn't look too bad either. Certainly it was much faster than I've experienced in many other countries. I was a bit nervous that, with only 1 hour at Brussels, my luggage might not manage to make the transfer, but actually they were pretty much first off. The only confusion was that there are two distinct baggage areas and you need to know whether to go left or right after immigration. There are great big signs at the bag which tell you , but I didn't see them (the business class line is right down at one end so I didn't see the sign). Thus, obviously, I went into the wrong area and had to retrace my steps after asking one of the very helpful staff.

So, all in all I got out of the airport very quickly - well in advance of when I'd been expected to land. Coming out there is a largish square which is where all the drivers stand with boards of who they're waiting for. This is, of course, the same as at any airport, but there did seem to be a much larger number than I've seen before (although that might be because this was the first time I've really been waiting for a driver). Unfortunately, my driver wasn't there. I wasn't too concerned (it was early, as I say) but was obviously looking a little lost. One of the many people around asked me which hotel I was staying at and directed me to the area where somebody from the hotel was waiting. I told him that my driver wasn't there yet. He asked me if I had a contact number for the driver (which I did after I'd booted up my work laptop), then told me to sit down while he sorted things out. He phoned the driver and then kept me up to date with how far out he was, and then took me to him once he had arrived. I assumed that he should be given a tip for all this, although obviously had no idea about how much was appropriate, but he didn't seem to be hanging around for one and wished me a good trip.

In many ways the car trip to the hotel was uneventful, but it was an introduction to the apparent chaos that is Indian driving. Cars drive exceedingly close together, and make plentiful use of the horn in order to let other drivers / pedestrians know. It isn't always clear whether they're saying 'I can see what you're doing, please go ahead' or 'I can see what you're doing, you'd better stop as I'm about to be where you want to be'. It may be a whole separate language that I haven't yet got the hang of - it might be Morse Code for all I can tell.

And so we got to the hotel and to the first instance of the remarkable security consciousness in India. Every trip, the taxi stops just inside the gates and the driver opens the bonnet. One security guard, with a dog, looks at the engine while another opens the boot and has a look there. When they're satisfied the driver starts up again and drives the few yards to the door. If arriving with luggage the porters whisk it away while you take your hand luggage to the metal detector outside the main entrance. The guard there takes the hand luggage and has a look at it while you step through the metal detector and are then wanded by another security guard with a mobile detector. You then get into the hotel proper.

No messy check-in procedures for me - the concierge met me and took me straight up to my room (the key card for the room is used in the lift and only allows you to go to your own floor), where he dealt with the signing in, checking of the passport and (importantly) the taking of the credit card details. It turned out I've been given an upgraded room, with a sea view, not that I could tell as it was now well after midnight in India. My luggage arrived at the same time and with that it was time to try to sleep.

Why am I doing this?

Hi there. I'm an IT consultant who was asked 3 weeks ago if I would work at a client in Mumbai for 3 months. To cut a longish story short I agreed and found myself flying out from the UK on Tuesday.

I thought it might be worth recording some of my thoughts while I'm here, at least partially to let friends know what I'm up to, and to record stuff in a little more detail than Facebook entries. Who knows, it may also be informative for people who are coming out here themselves?