delhi emails

BIDNISS

We hadn't expected much from Air Canada business class and - sad to say - we
weren't particularly surprised by what we got in terms of service and
general lack of obsequeious ass-kissing. When we checked in we did get to
zip right to the front of the line. However, our check in agent was
downright surly. There was no "Ah! Welcome to business class, oh esteemed
travellers". He po-facedly made fun of the idea of handwriting baggage tags
("those are just to make Grammas and Grampas feel better. All you need is
the computer tag. You don't have the computer tag, your bag isn't going
anywhere"), and also mocked Phet's unsureness of what to do with the baby
carseat ("he hasn't been a father for very long, has he!"). Uh, ok buddy.
The business class lounge was very pleasant although -- if you can imagine
-- it didn't have a pull out baby change table. Luckily, Seung Yi slept
through the whole lounge experience and didn't have the chance to feel irate
at this spectacular planning oversight. While in the lounge we availed
ourselves to the free wireless internet, to the beverages, and to the salad
fixings. Phet asked for cheese only to be told that the cheese would only
be served after 7 pm. What, there are timelines for cheese consumption??
Not in our family.

When we boarded the flight we were sorry to see that we would be viewed by
all the hoi polloi as the entered the aircraft; there was no 'turn left into
business class' or 'climb the stairs to first class', just the normal
domestic flight style business-before-economy style of cabin. The chairs,
it must be admitted, were large and comfortable. There was plenty of space
between the seats in front and behind us and we could easily stand up in
front of our seat with Seung Yi. Again, unsurprisingly, all the flight
attendants except one were rather ripe in years. Two were cute little men
about 50 years old with Quebecois accents, one was at least 62, rotund, and
grumpy, and one was cute like our Emma. The big bonus of being in business
class, aside from the chairs, was that the meal service took so long. It
made time pass pleasantly to have the meal verrrrry drawn out. First, nuts
and drinks. Then, appetizers. Then the meal. I had some beef. It was ok.
Then the cheese course. We had one of each kind of cheese. They were all
uniformly somewhat creamy and white and bland. I liked the Port but Phet
thought it was crazy sugary. Then came dessert. Mum, you would've loved
this (especially after the parsnips with dinner): chocolate mousse with
rhubarb preserves! The flight to Zurich was 7 hours, and near to landing
time they served some breakfast. It was an odd time of day for us to be
eating by that point, around 1 am. I had a bowl of Frosted Flakes in a
pour-the-milk-right-in cardboard container. They should serve those in
economy as an alternate to cup of noodles, me says.

The one very happy surprise about the trip was that we did get to leave the
plane in Zurich. The airport was cool and European and had a fantastic
nursery and kids' play area that I will be sure to frequent with Ji and
Seung Yi in the future. We had just enough time to change the baby and
wander around a little and then we reboarded. The other very pleasant
surprise was that the second flight was only 7 hours. The itinerary said
the trip was 17 hours, so I though the second flight would be 10 hours long,
but very much to my happy surprise that wasn't the case. Time flew. Seung
Yi slept like a baby, ha ha, and I even dozed off for an hour or so. The
food was so-so, the new flight attendants were surly and unhelpful (when
asked for a pen, the attendant looked at me, looked away, thought for
awhile, and then said "well, I will look for one..." with a sigh. Um,
shouldn't they have, like, a bin of free pens for business class passengers?
Just wondering).

In the end I decided that Air Canada business class is definitely not worth
the price. It's about 10 times the price of a normal ticket. I decided
that I'd pay a premium of $500 for a larger, more reclinable seat, but
that's about it for skinflint me. Mind you, next time I fly you'll probably
hear lots of moaning and complaining about the squashy state of economy
class.

SMOG

When we landed in Delhi, it was stunningly hazy and smoggy. It was 11 pm,
and the air was VISIBLE. Even INSIDE the terminal building our eyes were
hampered by haze. Outside, in the taxi area, it was like Bangkok times
twelve in terms of air pollution. I became scared of our decision to move
to India. Then, the ride to the guesthouse took us past only the most
crumbling and decrepit looking construction sites imaginable. I got even
more anxious at that point.

GREEN MEADOWS

Our guesthouse turned out to be just that; a house with some rooms to let.
The owners were very pleasant and nice and fixed up some food for us and got
our room prepared. I had kind of been expecting a plush hotel with a
Jacuzzi, but now two days later the guesthouse feels perfectly comfortable.
The first night, though, ai ai ai. MOSQUITO ATTACK. It is currently the
most annoying time of year for me in the tropics: the weather is cool
enough to enjoy open windows, but the mosquitoes somehow always get through,
thus forcing the use of air con at a time when air con is really totally
unnecessary. I complained and moaned throughout the entire night and
worried anxiously lest Seung Yi get bit. Fortunately for Phet's sanity, his
colleague at work gave him a super amazing plug-in, smell-free,
safe-for-kids mosquito killer the next day, and we've slept comfortably
since then.

The first day we were in Delhi, Phet went in to work for a couple of hours
and then came back to snooze and relax with us. The guesthouse will fix up
all meals, so it's very handy not having to go out to eat.

RELOCATION SERVICES

This is the first time we've had the super ex-pat treatment of being shown
around by a relocation service. This morning at ten, Rita and Surita came
by to spend the day showing us around and taking us to see houses.
We had to listen to a very long description of the
day's upcoming agenda, but once we actually got going, things were quite
interesting and helpful. It helped that there are big protests and
shop-shuttings going on around Delhi. It made the roads very clear for us
to travel around on! Apparently, there are problems these days because the
government wants to shut down shops in residential areas (because they annoy
residents with their noise and such, Surita said) but the shopowners of
course disagree and are fighting back by closing their businesses.

Our first stop was at a central complex, Dilli Haat,where there are craft fairs and
festivals and so on. We walked around a little, then went driving up
through Aurangzeb street and the very super rich houses, and then to India
gate, and then to the parliament buildings, which are extraordinarily
beautiful. We drove through the embassy areas and into a southern
neighbourhood called Vasant Vihar to look at houses. We met up with the
real estate agent, a very large Sikh man in a very little car, and carried
on. The first place we saw was incredibly fancy and upscale. It was
actually a bit overwhelming because all the flats come unfurnished, and the
idea of having to self-furnish a sprawling, 4 bedroom apartment/mansion
seemed over-challenging to me. I've been used to getting furnished places
and don't really like the idea of having to get all the furniture organized,
buy air cons, and so on and so forth. Then we saw a few places "under
construction". Rita, Surita, and the agent seemed to be surprised that we
weren't keen on seeing places that were still FILLED with workmen attaching
wires, sanding surfaces, sledge-hammering garden bricks, hefting sand for
cement, fitting in windows, cleaning up dripping water, installing walls,
and using vast amounts of industrial glue. Luckily, they cottoned on after
about the fourth place, and thereafter we saw only finished places.

After lunch (iddly and THE WORLD'S BEST LASSI for me), we checked out a
couple of places in another southern area called Haus Khaz. The first
apartment is insanely spectacular but just above our price range. We'll see
if anything comes of it, but it'd be our first choice. All brand-new,
revamped with crazy fancy fixtures, gorgeous huge windows overlooking an old
tower and gardens, enough space for at least two simultaneous football
matches, etc etc... We also saw a beautiful old house that would suit us
perfectly if we had an extended family of about 46 moving in with us. Also
saw a nice place with a terrace on the roof and the terrace had GRASS on it.
Cool.

Anyways, dinner has been served and I must run. Will call to hear how Ji's
Halloween is going.

DELHI, TAKE TWO

Got back into Delhi the night before last, following a trip to Bangalore. Strangely enough, the domestic terminal was much more pleasant and relaxed than the international one.  We easily found the place to arrange for a pre-paid taxi, didn't have to wait in line at all, and got into a zooming black sardine can van to get back to the guesthouse.  Unfortunately the driver was a dork.  A dork of the ask-directions-many-times-but-never-listen-properly variety.  We ended up circling around the Green Park neighbourhood at midnight for almost half an hour as he tried ineptly to get us to the right address.  We've had really good luck with the taxi men so far, so it was frustrating to have that happen when we were exhausted from the travelling and just plain tired.  On the good side, it made the guesthouse feel like HOME, Hallelujia, HOME, by the time we got to it.  Our beds were so lovely and comfortable with their excellent mattresses and soft cotton sheets. 

The next morning, after having been up with Princess from 2 till 5, I couldn't get up.  Phet had to take over the baby for a couple of hours while I slept.  But then, when I woke up, I was chipper again and very happy to be in Delhi.  The city is definitely growing on me.  It helps that the weather is great (warm during the day, cool enough for no air con at night) and now the streets are becoming familiar. Delhi is a very busy place, but is somehow not quite as crazy-jammed as I had expected.  The traffic, while heavy, isn't as nuts as Dhaka, where it was basically like a slow-flowing traffic soup.  It may also just be that we haven't been in the really packed area of old Delhi, but I haven't had the scary feeling of being surrounded by eight million trillion people yet.  And lastly, the begging hasn't been as bad as I'd expected.  When we've gone out walking we've had kids ask for money, but it's been along the lines of one kid per area, and they aren't particularly insistent or grabby.  I'm kind of scared of that now since we're travelling with a teeny tiny baby.  But so far so good.

Yesterday we had a pleasant and quiet day.  We relaxed at the guesthouse until the afternoon and then went for a short foray to the Khan Market. We'd heard that it was a top spot for expats for shopping, but it turned out to be pretty low key.  Just some boutiques, some sportswear shops (Nike, Addidas, AND Reebok), a few bookstores, and that was pretty much it.  I have to say that Delhi is thus far a very tame shopping destination in comparison to Bangkok or KL.  It feels a little bit like socialists run the place -- on the day we arrived, there were shut-downs of shops across the city in protest against the government having plans to permanently close shops that have opened in residential neighbourhoods.  Apparently, about 6 months ago, the government smashed in a few new malls that had been built.  We asked the guesthouse owner about it, and she told us that builders ("mafia builders", what a great phrase) greased the palms of officials to build the malls in illegal spots, but when there was enough outcry against the builders, the government caved in, dis-admitted taking any bribes, and smashed in the malls.  Smashed in the malls!!  I tell you, the Thai would kiss dirty feet before they'd knock down a shopping centre.  They'd have made sure that the bribes would stick without a doubt.

We just now got back from a Sunday spent mall-hopping.  First we went out to a mall that the guesthouse owner had mentioned was nearby.  It was aiight; normal, no great deals or fabulous shops.  We went out to try and catch a taxi but had no luck so went wandering along past a residential neighbourhood hunting for one.  Delhi has some very nice neighbourhoods. Not spiffy-shiny nice, but dusty-greeny nice.  Plenty of trees well-covered with the sandy dust that is everywhere, lots of small parkettes, tidy low rise apartments.  We saw a giant ox hanging out munching grass by the side of the road and a heap of schoolboys playing cricket.  We also passed a little spot where they seemed to be giving out free bowls of rice porridge...but they could also have been selling cheap bowls of sweet rice pudding.  It was hard to tell.  Eventually, after about a 20 minute walk, we caved in and grabbed a tuk tuk ("three wheeler" here) and headed back to the guesthouse.

After a short rest we called for a cab to take us out to Guragon, the new suburb of Delhi, which is home to the city's IT industry and its malls.  The drive out was pretty neat; saw where to buy marble slabs, bamboo ladders, wicker furniture, bricks, and name plates for the fronts of houses.  We hit two malls.  Both were okey dokey.  Kind of along the lines of mid-level KL malls but with a real lack of foodcourts.  People here don't seem to be so big on eating out here at malls.  Also, no grocery stores.  I figure I'll explore the hot and crazy food markets later on when I have a driver and don't have to bring Seung Yi in with me.  We picked up some shoes for Phet, and a few more treats to bring back home.  Then we headed back the way we'd come and are currently mellowing out at the guesthouse.  While I have the chance (Princess is sleeping), I'll tell you about the 2nd day of house hunting and our trip to Bangalore...

HOUSEHUNTING, DAY THE SECOND

We started out at 10 am with Rita, Surita, and the mighty Mr. Amad Paul. The day before, when we'd met Amad, I saw him and said, "Big man in a little car."  Amad is a huge, tall Sikh man, of significant girth and breadth.  He wears fancy-pantsy shirts and slacks with shiny shoes that thrust at least 4 inches past the ends of his toes.  On the previous day he'd worn his aviator sunglasses pretty much a hundred percent of the time.  We drove around in our big van while he sat in his little wee Japanese style car beside his little wee driver, with his turban just about hitting the roof. Interestingly, for a real estate agent, he is very low-key.  He talks little, shows the apartments, and doesn't say anything enthusiastic one way or the other. 

We start out looking at a few places in Friends' Colony (all the neighbourhoods here are 'enclaves' or 'colonies', and Rita at one point refers to the fact that a particular one has 'a very good type of gentry'). "Tara House" is a lovely place with a big garden and small pool, but the floors aren't nice and we'd have to employ a guard, maid, and gardener if we lived there.  Plus, our friend has said it's a long-ish drive to the office from Friends' Colony.  We drove to the other side of Friends' Colony and saw a nutso mansion apartment.  Gigantic, massive bedrooms, each with its own fabulous bathroom, splendiferous central entrance gallery, kitchen the size of Montreal, and that was before we got to the soccer-field sized living room.  This may sound great to y'all, but once again the problems would be upkeeping the place, paying for air con for a space the size of a mall, never seeing the members of our family because we all have two rooms to ourselves, and the driving.  We saw a couple other apartments and then went closer to Phet's office.  There were a couple of ok places near a nice monument but they were very boxy boxy. 

A lot of the apartments don't have a feeling of a central open area (like, for example, how our place in Bangkok had that big, main room).  Instead, there's a formal living room, a closed off and giant-sized kitchen, and then several bedrooms each boxed off from the other.  Surita mentioned that the reason for this is because often the extended family will live together, so they want their privacy for each room.  What surprised us was that the style was so similar in all the places we saw; only the very newest apartments were different.

The next spot went to was a place called Golf Links.  Right beside (surprise, surprise) a golf course, the neighbourhood is one of the "poshest" in Delhi.  It's interesting, though, because the houses look very normal, even kind of run down and simple, like an off-alley in Vientiane. But it's quiet, tidy, safe, and right next to the diplomatic area.  And the golf course as I mentioned!  We take a look at a fairly normal, decent ground floor apartment with a garden.  It's got 3 bedrooms and the bathrooms have been fixed up, but the rest of the house is normal, 10-years-ago style. The price for the apartment?  250 000 rupees, or 6 300 cdn $.  Per month. Uh, yup, that's what housing prices are like in Delhi.  Of course, that's because the neighbourhood where Phet's office is located happens to be one of theeeeee most expensive areas in the entire city. 

We then went to Jor Bagh, where Phet's office is, and saw a couple of places.  First up?  An ex-UNICEF office, complete with brilliant UN-blue walls in several of the rooms!  Unfortunately it was dark and not so pleasant.  The next place we saw was absolutely perfect, but like the one in Golf Links, it was out of our budget unless we add in a significant chunk of our own money.  It's brand-new, 3 bedrooms, massive windows, super super styling kitchen, crazy modern fancy bedrooms, yadda yadda.  And a 4 minute walk to Phet's office. We've now let Rita know that they should please show us places WITHIN our price range so that we don't get our hopes up for these top-of-the-line places.

BANGALORE

Bangalore turned out to be a really nice city.  Nutso traffic, but lots of big trees, nice parks, good shopping, and the world's TASTIEST iddlies.  We arrived fairly late via Jet Airways.  Yech, squishy economy seats.  Yum, Indian food on the plane!  (Though here they just call it "food", of course).  I'd been expecting a five-star hotel since the page printed out by Phet's assistant said it was a five-star hotel (ok, guesthouse), but it was just a normal guesthouse with nice decorations.  No Jacuzzi, no white terry towel robes. 

The next morning Seung Yi and I went out to do our shopping at Fabindia, an NGO super success story shop selling printed cotton clothes and nice curtains, linens, etc.  I bought 80% of my Christmas gifts in less than an hour, and then we headed back to the guesthouse for the aforementioned iddlies.  In the evening we met up with Sunil and his with Ezme, who treated us to dinner at the Bangalorian institution, The Tandoor, a very classy restaurant with great food.  I was ravenous and got a lassi and then ate waaaay to quickly and stuffed myself from the assorted tandoori plate and with Kashmiri pulao (mmm, pomegranate seeds!  Cashew nuts!  Dried fruits! Coconut!  Slivers of carrots!  Butter!).  We all ate so fast that we couldn't finish the food we'd ordered and had to take some home with us.

Just as a note, I am definitely worried that I will balloon like a, uh, balloon, if I don't watch what I eat here.  The rasmalai are KILLER.  We're talking, like, pure butter in the sauce.  The barfi is STELLAR.  The yogurt and milk are more delicious and creamier than I have ever had.  The dosas have been AWESOME and the uttapam I had last night was fantastic.  Even just normal thalis are yum, yum, yummy.  Add to this the fact that there aren't really any vegetables served, nothing comes without an oily or creamy sauce (mmmmm!), and most meals are the equivalent of a perogie sandwich -- starch wrapped in starch, topped with starch -- it's just as well that when I come back I'll have my own kitchen and will be able to provide some kind of nutritional balance to the creamy carbs that I'll be ingesting outside.

The next day in Bangalore, Seung Yi and I went out and bought a few crafty items, ordered in rawa dosa, and then napped while waiting for Phet to get back.  There was a wild rainstorm on our way to the airport, and the traffic was mad, mad I tell you.  The "drop off area" was chock a BLOCK with cars, each less than an inch and a half away from the other.  Still, we were very early, in no rush, and I was happy to watch the insanity pass by my window. The airport itself turned out to be very nice and the trip back to Delhi was just fine. 

Seung Yi has been absolutely a lovely travel companion.  She sleeps soundly for about 3 hours at a time, wakes up and eats hungrily, pukes a little, rests a bit, usually eats again, and then has a great hour or two or sometimes even three of wakefulness.  When she's awake she's very alert. She follows us around, looks at fans and lights, loves making faces at us, and has periods of time where she makes all kinds of different noises and chats with us.  So far, she's said two words, "anh" and "geua".  So if she needs to say 'brother' in Vietnamese or 'salt' in Lao, she's all set.  She's had lots of squishy poops that have leaked out of her diapers, she's peed all over our bed, she's enjoying having showers with us instead of baths, and her feet have gotten a good airing out every night.

DAYS AHEAD

Tomorrow, Monday, we're off househunting.  Phet has a lunch meeting Monday and Tuesday.  Tuesday we're going to the British School (where I'll enrol Ji if things don't work out at the American School).  Wednesday is my appointment at the American School.  Thursday and Friday are set aside for more househunting if necessary.  And then, after Saturday night I leave in the wee hours of Sunday morning.  Until tomorrow, g'bye! Thaba

THE ROUND UP

So...Seung Yi and I are off tonight in the wee hours of the morning to come
back to Canada.  We are booked on the delightful 1:45 am flight.  Cause, you
know, any earlier would just be too relaxing.  Gotta make it at the very,
very complete end of the wakefulness spectrum.  Fortunately, with Seung Yi's
sleep schedule, I've been able to keep her with a round-the-clock waking and
sleeping plan.  And very luckily, as with Ji, I've found that I don't have
that big of a problem getting just four hours of sleep and then being
functional for awhile, so long as I eventually get another 3 hours of sleep
at some later time.  The night before last SY was rotten.  Up until 4 am and
then a short sleep until 7 am!  Oh goody!  Last night was better; up from
about 7 pm until 1:30 am with brief teeny tiny naps, and then sleep until
7:30 am!  Today the plan is to drop by a school, drop by a shop downtown,
and then take it easy and relax.

WINDING DOWN OF HOUSE HUNT

On our last day of househunting (Tuesday, I think) we saw a great place
first thing in the morning.  Beautiful 2nd floor apartment in a place called
West End near Vasant Vihar.  Gorgeous patterned marble floors, huge windows,
nice kitchen, central courtyardy thing, and so on.  We went with a new real
estate dude, having exhausted the resources of Amad
Paul.  The new guy told us the price was 2 lakhs, which was reasonable and
in our budget.  We saw a few other places but nothing that caught our eye.
Later that afternoon we had a meeting with the Golf Links owner, Mr. Singh.
He turned out to be relaxed and nice, with a beautiful wife and
marionette-like elderly mother.  It definitely looked like she runs the
family.  We had a long chat and agreed to his rental price if he'd have us.
He showed us around the neighbourhood a bit -- there's a little community
centre with a basketball hoop and badminton courts just nearby, which is
nice.  We told him NOT to show the house to anyone else, and that we'd like
him to put together a lease.

Then we thought we were going to see a place in Jor Bagh (just to be polite
to the guy who'd made the appointment), but actually it turned out we were
going to meet with the owner of the West End place.

It took AGES to get to her house.  The 'enclave' she was in was in lock-up
mode from 5 - 7 for some reason.  Like, no problem, but they just normally
shut up most of the gates at certain hours of the day.  Why 5 - 7, I have no
idea.  But there we were, endlessly trying this gate and the next.  Yawn.
When we finally got to the house, it was opened up by a servant, and we went
in to experience the most crazy/opulent place I've ever seen.  There was a
central spiral staircase, and then a sitting room beyond it.  The walls were
lined with paintings.  There were massive silver-framed photos covering
every surface.  We'd just sat down on the red silk furniture when the lights
went out!  Utter darkness until the generator came on.  The owner was a very
very odd lady.  Normal looking, middle-aged, but then was obviously a big
name-dropper and Richie richster.  She kept saying 'offhandedly', "I'm not
interested in money..." but then would tell us how much she'd sold some
paintings for, or how much land she had bought recently.  She said that we
were now 3rd in line for the house.  It appeared that she wanted us to raise
the price we'd pay, but we just smiled as we already liked the Golf Links
place better.  Before we left she showed us her crazy dining room (with
mirrored display cabinets for eight gazillion tea cups) and her crazy living
room (with some HORRIBLE paintings that were worth "a lot of money" but were
as ugly as sin, with a massive handcarved goldleafed coffee table from
Chaing Mai, and with about 4000 kilos worth of silver stuff).  Weeeeiiiird.
And she made the servants turn on the light switches!

Anyways, will keep y'all updated.  Must run and shower.

[Delhi-17-November-2006]