Well, I'm finally here in Mumbai. It feels like a million miles away from Canberra. It's very hot and humid, but probably no worse than the Gold Coast on a bad day. My brother's place is airconditioned, but we reckon that it's best to try and acclimatise because you can't stay in the airconditioning forever.
I don't recommend 12 hour plane trips. You bum goes numb, especially when, like me you don't get an aisle seat like you requested so you can't get up to stretch your legs regularly.
The Airbus aircraft had entertainment systems built into the seats in front of you. Problem was, they run Microsoft Windows CE, so an hour into the trip the software crashed. They tried to reboot the system a few times, but ended up having to reinstall the software which took about an hour. Unfortunately, it ran for a few hours and then hung again, with another hour while they reinstalled the software again. Not a good advertisement for Qantas, Airbus or Microsoft. I'm sure glad that the aircraft flight systems don't run on Windows. At least I hope they don't. Here is a picture of the screen that I had to look at for a few hours.
When we arrived at Mumbai, as we expected, it felt hot and steamy after a long time in the airconditioning. Visitors aren't allowed in the terminal building, so we exited the building to be confronted by a sea of dark-skinned, dark-haired Indians. My brother was there somewhere. Under circumstances like these, I can recommend being picked up by a person about 6'2" with red hair.
Driving from the airport, we almost ran over a dozen pedestrians and just missed a few major crashes. Apparently they play Dare with cars. People seem to walk across roads and dare cars to hit them.
There seemed to be about a million pedestrians between the airport and our apartment. When we asked why there were so many people milling about, my brother was surprised and said it was just the opposite. Apparently the streets were almost deserted. I realised then that we were in for a few surprises in India, and it wasn't going to be a bit like clean and orderly Canberra where you can occasionally see people actually walking on the footpaths.
Overall, I got to go to bed 25 hours after I got up on Sunday morning. It had been a long day.
When I woke up this morning, I was delighted to see (and hear) lots of buildings being constructed next door. It was fascinating to compare the building techniques to those used on the construction site next to where I work.
No safety rails for these guys. They pour the concrete slabs on formwork held up by wooden posts.
They make the cement by hand and send it up the lift to the roof level in large wheelbarrow loads. No concrete pumps for these guys. And no cranes either.
Next to the construction site is the workers' accommodation. "No frills" is the best way to describe it. The stuff on the roofs consists of large rocks to hold the corrugated iron down, and general rubbish (out of sight - out of mind !).
While walking around our accommodation complex I saw a power cord snaking out from one of our buildings over the 12 foot security fence and into the luxury worker accommodation. If you looked carefully you could even see the occasional satellite dish. Interestingly, even though the shanty village was predominantly corrugated iron held together with string and pieces of rock, it seemed to be systematically laid out and not anarchistic.
And no, my camera lens isn't dirty. Its the smog. I guess the 18 million inhabitants of this city can give Beijing a run for their money.
Anyway, I have to go now. Indian Idol is about to start.
Regards,
Andy
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