Bad Day

Yesterday started out well, with us exchanging contracts for the house sale in the UK  Within an hour of this, I got a message to say that the rent of the property we had chosen in Bangalore had fallen through. This means that from the 29th June we are homeless.

The relocation agency told us some rubbish about the landlord refusing to sign a personal lease, and it had to be a company lease, but Jen's company won't sign company leases for tax reasons or something.  I suspect the property had been let to someone else before we visited it for the second time.  There were painters there, and the property would not be painted unless rent had been agreed.  I do not trust the relocation company since we have already caught them out lying to us.  They also stood us up in Bangalore one morning.  They just decided that they were not going to pick us up that day, but didn't bother to tell us.  I was really angry and composed an  email to Jennifer that started "It is difficult to convey how pissed off I am........"  Unfortunately I sent it to the manager of the relocation company by mistake.  Well, at least he knows how I feel!

On top of that we are getting messed around by both the pet relocation company and the import agents in India.  Nothing makes sense, so I have had try to sort it out mayself.  I seems that we need an Import Certificate for the three cats.  The Import Certificate had to be applied for in India at least 5 days before they travel.  In order to get the import certificate we need a No Objection Cerftificate (NOC) issued by Animal Quarantine.  In order to get the NOC we need animal health certificates issues by DEFRA.  They will only issue these the day before travel. 

Catch 22.

Arse!

This was all after I had followed the advice of the pet relocation company who told me to get certificates from my own vet.  So, yesterday I spent a not inconsiderable amount of time chasing three cats around the house, trying to get them into their carriers.  This isn't helped as they now know the sound of their carriers as soon as I bring them into the house, and run off and hide; or try to batter their way through the locked cat flap.  Thirty minutes, 20 scratches and a mouthful of fur later I then had to battle my way through the Friday afternoon chaos of the streets of Thrapston to the vets.  I was in the vets for over an hour and £151 worse off, but at least I have three certificates which I have now been told are of absolutely no use to me!!!

Double arse!

Anyway, here's a picture of a cat.  This is Mitzi.  Mitzi doesn't like her pet carrier.  Mitzi doesn't like the vets, and Mitzi REALLY  doesnt like being messed around when there are earthworms to be caught.

Our New Home?

We were provided with the services of a relocation company who showed us several properties which they felt might match our requirements.  While we did not intend to choose a property on this visit, the idea was to get a feel of what was available and what would be within the budget that Jen's company had set. 

We saw a few apartments in the centre of the city which we didn't really like, and a few houses in ex-pat communities which were just ok.  Lastly we went to Palm Meadows which is the premiere housing area of Bangalore and, we thought, well outside out budget.

We were delighted to be shown a really nice villa which would be within the budget.

Palm Meadows is a gated community on the far Eastern side of the city well away from the chaos.  It is quite big and is serviced by a "clubhouse" that comprises two outdoor and one indoor swimming pool, tennis, badminton and squash courts, a gym, an excellent restaurant and an Irish bar!  I hope we manage to get the property finalised.

The Dreaded 8th June

The evening before I could tell I was heading towards an "eye of a needle" situation.  I had it last year in Antigua and ended up on a drip.  I thought it best to intervene early to prevent having to spend the entire flight on Friday in some horrible British Airways toilet.  Luckily, Jennifer found out from the hotel reception that there was a hospital with a dispensary just around the corner and she was brave enough to take a walk over there. 

She spoke to the drug wallah through a small hatch in the wall, but he wouldn't give her any antibiotics without a doctor seeing me first.  He did however give her some cartons of apple juice as an interim measure.  After her return I thought I should really brave the doctor and so headed off to the aforementioned hospital.

A strange place.  On entering you feel like you are going to leave with more diseases than you arrived with.  An old 1970's style building - not exactly clean, and no soap in the toilets.  I was directed to room 4 and was seen within 10 minutes or so by a female doctor in a saree who looked more like someone's Mother than a doctor.  She was perfectly pleasant and sorted me out with a prescription of a cocktail of drugs.  The fee?  It was £3.25 for her and £1.50 for the tablets.

By this time Jennifer had followed me around to the hospital and we walked the short distance back to the hotel.  This is where things got worse. You think it would be a simple task to walk through the revolving door of the hotel.  Not so.  These things seem to have a mind of their own, coupled with some sharp metal edges.  As I went through the door with Jennifer behind me there was a bang and the door stopped.  I looked around and the bottom of the door had hit Jennifer on the foot.  She was wearing open sandals and the door had sliced into her big toe.  As she walked into the reception blood was pouring out everywhere, making a stark contrast with the beautiful white marbled flooring. 

There was some degree of chaos from the reception staff.  I could tell right away that it needed stitches.  I got some dressings from the staff and bandaged it up. So it was back to the hospital again.  Thirty minutes, five stitches and £20 later Jennifer was walking out of the hospital with her big comedy toe poking out from the front of one of my sandals.

The British NHS could learn a thing or two from this efficient and inexpensive Indian system.

First Impressions

Friday 3rd June 2011

Tomorrow we fly to Bangalore for the first time.  I'm not really sure what to expect, but am trying to be open minded.  This is supposed to be a pre-assignment trip for Jennifer, to see if she likes the country, the new office etc. etc.  However, she has already accepted the position, so too bad if we don't like it!  At the worst, it's a one week freebie at corporate expense for me.  We get the services of a relocation company for a day who will show us around the city, and expamples of properties which would be within our allocated rental budget, and the rest of the time we will be on our own, apart from the time that Jen will be visiting her new office.

Saturday 4th - Friday 10th June 2011

OK, well we had a good flight and arrived in Bangalore at around 5AM and the hotel had sent us a car to the airport.  This city is absolute chaos.  There is no traffic dicsipline whatsoever.  Obviously the most important item on any vehicle is its horn, which is used to mean "Look out I'm right behind you",  "You are in my way", or even "Can you hear what a great horn I've got - in fact it's SO good I'll just keep on sounding it for no reason whatsoever while I drive down this road. Can you hear it? Can you still hear it? "

The streets are full of people, wild dogs, cows, traffic, rubbish and general crap.  There is so much going on you would have to walk up and down the streets several times in order to see it all, and even then it is constantly changing.

As I walked through one of the more squalid parts of the town a young boy ran out from dark establishment and started jibbering on at me in Kannada.  He was pointing at my camera and trying to beckon me inside what looked like a dark workshop.  I thought "what the hell" and went in.  It was some ramshackle engineering type of shop; really dark, with tools and bits of metal lying all around.  In one corner was the above man.  The young boy jibbered on, pointing at the camera and at the man, obviously wanting me to take his photo.  The man was a bit embarassed and had this really serious Indian head wobble.  I managed to get him to keep his head still for a second while I took this pic.  I showed it to the boy who was delighted and then to the man.  His head started to wobble back and forward so much I thought it was going to actually fall off.  I had an overwhelming desire to clamp my hands on both sides of it to hold it still as some sort of bizarre new emergency medical intervention.

There are no public toilets so men just piss wherever they feel like it.  On the walls surrounding official government and military buildings there are signs to discourage this, but they are often ignored.

There are fruit sellers and stall holders everywhere.  They mostly seem to do good business, I suppose as there aren't too many Tescos here.  Produce to be washed well before consumption!

The ubiquitous two wheeled family vehicle.  It is not uncommon to see three, four or even 5 on one of these things.  Helmets are not so common.

The auto-rickshaws are everywhere, and can be seen packed with children when the schools get out.  It is difficult as a Westerner to the the rickshaw wallahs to turn their meters on.  They know they can get more money out of us, so you need to bargain hard.  Even with that you will get charged maybe three times what you should have paid.  Nevertheless,  for a journey that costs me £1.50, which in the UK would be £10-£15,  I don't argue too much.

At first glance you wouldn't be able to tell what this woman's occupation was.  She is actually a labourer on a building site.  She removes the soil that the builders have excavated and piles it up outside. 

Bangalore continues to develop its infrastructure in its own typical way.  This is the Central Metro Station at MG Road seen from across the military parade ground.  The Metro has not yet opened and is considerably behind time.  They did a test run and found out that the trains didn't go round the bends and so now they have to rebuild it.

This is UB City.  It is a designer shopping arcade with such shops as Dunhill, Tag Heuer, Diesel etc etc over three floors.  There are some nice cafe's and bars on the upper levels.  It is obviously only for the elite of Indian Society and Westerners.

This is Mahaboob Pasha, my Autowallah for quite a drunken ride back to the hotel one night.  He drove facing this direction for the entire journey.  He was great fun!