Arrival in India

While we were waiting, another waiting couple came into the dining room, but we were determined not to let them jump the queue. Then when people started to check out, we watched for any couples leaving, who might have had a double room rather than the dorm. It wasn't looking good until the two English boys who had been two shacks up from us in Don Det, having motorbiked through half of Laos, walked into the dining room. When we had said goodbye to them in Don Det, they had said “maybe bump into you in India”; I had thought “don't be daft, India is a huge country, it's not like Laos or Vietnam”, but here they were in the first place we turned up in India. It was their last day in India and as luck would have it, they were vacating a double room. “You might want to get them to clean it before you move in”, one of them said. After they left, Joanne said “Johnny's skin is looking bad isn't it?”, and so it was, but we put it down to them living a rather unhealthy lifestyle. We went back up to the desk and the grumpy concierge said I could look at the room to decide if we wanted it. The boys were not kidding: what a mess! There were socks all over the room (the room was honking), paper and plastic rubbish everywhere, a wet towel on one bed, and even though drinking (and drugs, etc.) are against Sally Army rules, there was an empty litre bottle of whisky. Back at the desk, I said we'd take it, but that it needed cleaned. “Don't worry, the boy will clean it now”, he said, as a man of at least fifty, with a mop, collected the keys. “Boy” is presumably used by Hindu chauvinists to refer to lower caste employees in exactly the same way as it was used in Apartheid South Africa (and still is to some extent, by racist whites there). He did an impressively quick job cleaning up the room, but it still smelled of socks a bit when we moved in. Exhausted, we decided we deserved a Glen Livet, and we too broke the rules by having a wee whisky to help us catch up on lost sleep. But this is Asia, so of course there was a building site nearby, in this case people were banging the floor above with mallets (it sounded like) all morning, so we had to abandon the idea of sleep and settled for a shower instead. The shower room / toilet opposite our bedroom was awful: it was very dirty by the (SE Asian) standards we were used to, and not all that clean by Indian standards, as I remembered them; neither the sink nor the shower could be coaxed into producing any water; and even the toilet did not flush. I believe this was our “private” bathroom. The one next door did have a flushing toilet, but no bin for the paper, which blocks toilets all over Asia, and the shower produced only a trickle. A bit further around the floor we found one with a functioning toilet and shower, so we were at least able to get clean.

At lunch time we returned to the dining room where, having seen breakfast, I was not expecting much for lunch, but it was included with our very pricey Rs600 room, so we were going to eat it. It turned out to be very nice actually. The other couple who had been waiting for a room had also checked in, but had only been able to get dorm space. Matthew and Jessica had travelled quite extensively in India already and reassured us that Mumbai did seem to be much more expensive than anywhere else they had been. I hadn't remembered people being as unpleasant as every Indian we had so far dealt with, so I said “Indians aren't typically like that concierge are they?”, to which Matthew replied “Well I don't want to put you off, but lots are; not all, but they ALL try to rip you off, which makes it quite difficult to trust people or befriend them”. After lunch I decided to make use of the internet facilities in the guesthouse, where I was amazed to discover that you are required to produce your passport before and after using the internet. Indian bureaucracy. I headed out to check out the neighbourhood and look for somewhere to get SIM cards, leaving Joanne behind to get some sleep. Immediately children start hassling me for money. I decided to see if I could find somewhere to drink because, apart from anything else, my friend, John, who I last went to India with was sending me texts asking if I'd yet had a strong beer, so I felt duty-bound. I found a rather nice looking cafe, called Leopolds, of the sort I did not know existed in India after the last trip, and went in to order a beer. There were more whites in one place than I saw the whole time I was in Delhi before. Unfortunately they did not have any strong beers on the menu. Indian licensing laws divide beer into “mild”, which has “no more than 4.5% alcohol”, and strong, which has “between 4.5% and 8% alcohol”, yet they cost almost the same. I had not checked the cost, so perusing the menu as I drank my beer, I got quite a shock when I saw that it cost £2.80 and decided to find somewhere less pretentious. Only when the bill arrived did I find out that the cost on the menu excluded tax and service, which hiked the price up to trendy Glasgow bar levels. Later I discovered that Leopolds had been one of the targets in November's Mumbai attacks, from which there are still bullet holes in the walls, although I didn't notice them. I left and discovered just two doors up and place much more like the Indian drinking dens I remembered: no whites, no women, no attractive décor, no atmosphere, and the general appearance of a dirty cafe, rather than a pub, oozing depression from every dingy corner. This was more like it! They did have strong beer, which cost less than half what Leopolds charged for the weak beer before tax and service, so I had two of them in John's name, and a delicious and cheap stuffed nan bread. On the way back to the hotel I spotted a stall advertising SIM cards, so I went over to purchase a couple of Indian SIMs to save on texts and calls. Amazingly they required for each of us, a photo, copies of our passports and Indian visas, and a hotel bill. Just for a SIM card! Helpfully, the guy at the kiosk told me I could “bring them later in the day, or the next day, but definitely no more than five days”, so I got the SIM cards and went back to the hotel where we phoned Bollystars to confirm we'd be taking part the next day, then I slept for fifteen hours, yet still had a hangover when I woke. Indian strong beer.

Strong beer

Having spent a bit more time in India since that first day, I can add a bit more. India was a big change after Thailand, where people are very friendly and warm, in fact the same is true of most of SE Asia. Our experience of India so far is that people are very cold and unfriendly and Matthew is right about them always trying to rip you off. In SE Asia I was cheated maybe twice in nearly four months; in India I have been cheated several times every day, and each day you could lose count of the number of times people try to cheat you, and they don't even bother to smile while they're doing it. Yet this was not my experience last time, however from this short visit they seem to be a nation of cheats, queue jumpers, and litter bugs. The place is filthy: rubbish is everywhere, and nothing ever seems to be clean; toilets are filthy, and it's often hard to find running water to wash your hands, but you can forget about soap unless you have your own; and of course depressing poverty is everywhere. Yet there is still something compelling about the country, although I've not really pinned it down yet; the madness, the busyness, the challenges are all part of it, but I'm sure there's something else apart (obviously) from all the beautiful architecture. We'll be returning to India soon, so hopefully I'll be able to put my finger on it then; of course I'll then have to disinfect my finger with alcohol gel!

More strong beer!

written by  The Happy Couple on May 20, 2009 from Mumbai, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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