Back in the U.S.A.

Back in the USA again, after a 10.5 hour flight from Mumbai to Amsterdam, and then another one to JFK for 8.5 more hours.  Now just one more leg to get home, and I'll start the whole process of flipping my body clock again.  Will probably take a couple of days before I'm right again.

Thanks everyone for all your comments about my posts.  I'll keep them coming as things develop in the next month as I get ready to head over there for good.

Getting around

So during the daytime here we've mostly been just scouting around the neighborhood, trying to get a feel for where the goods and services we'll need once we are living here are located.  This is probably one of the bigger challenges for me, at least for now. It's very different than the US, where you can say "I think I'll go to the Auto Zone" for instance, and drive to their store, or one of their several competitors.

Here, things are a little more disorganized, as a lot of goods/services are sold through these randomly located roadside storefronts that line nearly every road that is even remotely traveled.  You can see some in the photo below:

Good luck finding a place to park

Fortunately, there are large traditional malls here, some of which have things you wouldn't normally expect, such as the one near our apartments with a small grocery in it.  Yesterday we went to one that is about 4 miles away, which is one of the nicer ones in a reasonable distance.  It has a surprising number of US brand stores in it, mixed in with some I don't recognize.  This mall is about 4 miles away from our apartment, which requires a form of transportation other than walking, so we took one of the auto rickshaws mentioned previously.

This proved to be a pretty entertaining experience.  For one reason, there are TWO of these malls, but in different neighborhoods.  The rickshaw drivers have been the first people I've run into here that don't speak English, likely due to their lower position in the caste system.  At any rate, we had no trouble getting there, but coming back was an issue.  We'd walked down the street a bit before we decided to catch a ride back to our hotel (staying in a hotel for this visit, apartment when we move here for good).  We told him to take us to the Infinity mall ANDHERI which is the neighborhood we stay in.  Instead he took us to the Infinity mall MALAD, which is where we'd just left.  After some gesticulating and pointing, the driver did what most of them do when they aren't sure of a destination: he just started asking other people.  Eventually that worked out, and we were on our way.  The great thing about this mode of transport is that it's remarkably inexpensive.  Total cost one way was $2, and that included the distance we covered going the wrong direction.  

I took some video of the ride over and back, and spliced them together.  It doesn't give as good of a feel for just how close you are to other vehicles on the road as I'd hoped, but it will do.  I kept missing the sillier parts of the ride, but at about the 1:30 mark you can see what it looks like quite often, with a mix of vehicles of every size mixing in with pedestrians.  

What time is it?

The time difference here continues to kick my ass.  I'll probably be about used to it by the time I head for home Saturday morning (or Friday evening, back home).

Yesterday we had a tour of the city in a chartered taxi van.  I know I keep talking about the traffic, but it's difficult to even describe unless you've actually experienced it.  What we could have done in the USA in about an hour took us about five hours yesterday.  There's just an alarming amount of people.  To give you an example, New Jersey has the highest population density in the USA, at 467 people per square kilometer. In the most populous area of Mumbai, it's 92,000 people per square kilometer.  That's about seven times greater than that of New York City, for reference.

You can imagine the kind of issues that causes, outside of traffic.  For one thing, it's a major cause of the problems they have here with the water.  For what municipal water does exist, all it takes is a leak in a delivery pipe to allow in whatever junk people are throwing on the ground.

Another thing that you notice immediately is the number of pedestrians walking out in traffic.  The trouble here is again one of inadequate infrastructure.  The sidewalks do exist, but you'll find random piles of dog shit (there are numerous stray dogs...everywhere), trash, crumbling surfaces, and random 2x2' holes that are about 10 feet deep.  The sidewalks occasionally just end, sometimes with a 2' or more step down to the next surface.  We wind up just walking alongside the parked cars in the street, like the locals do. At least the surface is dependable there.

As for the tour we did yesterday, a lot of it was just seen from the car, so it didn't make for any good photo opportunities, but we did stop at Dhobi Ghat.  Otherwise known as the world's largest outdoor laundry:

Yep, they're washing clothes on rocks

We were told that they mainly wash clothes and bedding from several of the hotels and hospitals at this facility, with about 5000 employees.  Evidently they take great pride in the fact that they never mis-place an item, which is better than I can say for myself at home.

You recognize immediately how bad you stand out compared to the local populace, as you're accosted by panhandlers immediately at any place that is remotely touristy.  For example, meet my new friend Silba:

She really wanted to sell me one of those bags

She spoke perfect English, and chased us all the way back to our taxi trying to get us to buy one of her wares.

From there we stopped at the Gateway of India, where we were enticed to purchase traditional drums, maps, books, and giant phallic balloons for some reason.

This was directly across the street from the Taj Mahal hotel, which was the site of the terrorist attacks in 2008, where a lot of people were killed. 

At this point we had to turn around and head back to the hotel, as we had plans to meet the current client team for dinner.  Along the way, we saw at least four different weddings underway (on Wednesday afternoon?  Why not?).  They really go all out for weddings here, with a lot of fancy decorations, and the women wear even more elaborate outfits in a whole rainbow of colors.  I'll try to get some pictures of that when I come back for good in about a month.

The roads are packed with these 3 wheeled "auto rickshaws" that they also refer to as "tuk-tuks."  They're basically a motorcycle with a covered two person seat, and a two wheeled rear axle.  They're noisy, of course, but all seem to run on compressed natural gas, so they don't have a lot of smelly exhaust that you'd expect.  Almost all of the drivers appear to drive while barefoot, which amuses me:

Shoes? Nah...

What is amazing is everyone seems to go about their life in a generally happy mood, from the guy shoveling dog crap off the street to the hotel managers.  This despite overwhelming poverty everywhere you look.  The driver of our taxi yesterday makes 8000 Rupees a month.  That's $131 US dollars.  Somehow he manages to live here on that wage, and it's far more than a lot of people here earn.

Lastly, I had a good laugh about this sign on the side of a bus, but it feels like it adequately sums up the way a lot of people here seem to feel:

Life is....eh, it's all right

In country

We arrived this morning for our initial visit after a LOT of airline travel. Our itinerary took us from Columbus to Detroit, where we first flew to Amsterdam on a 7.5 hour flight.  We got there and walked right onto our next plane, for another 9 hour flight.  The one redeeming aspect of it was that we got to ride Business class, so the seats were in these little pod type things, and the seats folded flat so you could (attempt to) sleep.  They gave us plenty of food too, which was actually quite good.  I'm not sure I wouldn't have lost it if I'd been stuck in a middle seat back in the coach section.

We arrived in Mumbai with out any issues. The terminal here looked really new and modern, in stark contrast to the parts of the city we've seen so far.  Our instructions were to exit the secure area and look for a man with a sign saying "NetJets."  Here's what we saw:

He's got to be in there somewhere, right?

Unfortunately....no driver for us.  After some phone calls (here's to cell phones working everywhere!) we finally determined that they'd gotten either the time or day wrong. An hour later and a few more calls, and we were off to the hotel.  

The first thing I noticed is the rather constant smell of smoke in the air.  Not sure where it's coming from, but I think it might be the fires from the people in the large slum areas throughout the city.  Everything else was in line with what I'd read so far.  Lots of people out, considering it was 1 AM, and the traffic was exactly as it was in the video I posted previously, except we got to be inside the car watching it happen.  The cars here must need the horn to be honked at least once every 30 seconds to keep going, as they all do it.  All night.

I'd been up for almost 24 hours by the time I got here, but I took a z-quil anyway, since the time zone is so different than home (10.5 hours later). I managed to get a good 7 hours of sleep.  

The view from my hotel window

We're off today to tour the neighborhood where we'll be living, so I'll have more pictures to post when we're done with that.

Getting closer...

Finally got the first visa applied for this week, which should take 10 or so business days to process, and then I'll be heading over for an initial visit for 3 or 4 days.  I guess they want to give me a chance to look around before I commit to an entire year, but I figure you'd look pretty bad saying no at this point, after all the work and money they've invested into sending me over there.  The airline ticket alone is $10,000 round trip (they send us Business class, thankfully).  

My biggest concern right now is staying healthy over there.  Little things you can take for granted here, like getting a drink of water, become something of a challenge.  The water in India is a mess. I'll be sticking to bottled water as much as possible, but I'm looking into some filtration solutions when I get over there.  For now I got this nifty bottle, which should help with the biological issues, at least.  The arsenic and lead, on the other hand, is another story.  

It's a real party over there

I've got one more round of vaccinations to go, so that will be done, at least.  They gave me a prescription anti-malarial pill to take every week, but after reading the side effects, I think I'll just skip it, and risk malaria.  I mean...seriously..how does a drug like this even get approved?

Mefloquine may cause serious side effects that include nervous system changes. Tell your doctor if you have or have ever had seizures. Your doctor may tell you not to take mefloquine. If you notice any of the following symptoms while taking this medication, call your doctor immediately: dizziness, a feeling that you or things around you are moving or spinning, ringing in the ears, and loss of balance. These symptoms may occur at any time while you are taking mefloquine and can last for months to years after the medication is stopped or can be permanent.

Mefloquine may cause serious mental health problems. Tell your doctor if you have or have ever had depression, anxiety, psychosis (difficulty thinking clearly, understanding reality, and communicating and behaving appropriately), schizophrenia (an illness that causes disturbed or unusual thinking, loss of interest in life, and strong or inappropriate emotions) or other mental health disorders. Also tell your doctor immediately if you develop the following symptoms while taking this medication: anxiety, feelings of mistrust towards others, hallucinations (seeing things or hearing voices that do not exist), depression, thoughts of suicide or harming yourself, restlessness, confusion, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, or unusual behavior. These symptoms may occur at any time while you are taking mefloquine and can last for months to years after the medication is stopped.

 I guess the "unusual behavior" part wouldn't seem so out of the ordinary to most people that know me, but I don't think I'll amplify it with that drug, thank you.

I've had a great deal of fun lately watching the horror on people's faces when telling them about the bathroom situation in India.  People really have a hard time wrapping their heads around it.  This guy explains it better than I ever could:

Long story short, don't chew your fingernails.