Settling in

I’m getting better at finding my way around Delhi. I’ve been to a few of the markets more than once and things are looking familiar. I even asked my driver to go back to a particular market so I could buy a printer. I’ve been in the apartment 6 days now and I am finally settling in. I have a cooker (with 4 functioning rings, oven doesn’t work), a fridge, a microwave, furniture (not much but enough for a year), air conditioning and a water purifier. I even have a washing machine which got it’s first use on Sunday. It was something of an event to get the washing machine working. It stands on 4 legs in the shower area of one of my bathrooms (I have 3). There are 2 tubes – one for water coming in and one for water coming out. While attaching the one for water coming in, I accidentally broke the fixture however it stayed in and unless it stops working I guess it will remain that way until I leave. By pressing various things turning on and off water at various times, I successfully washed the clothes. Quite how clean they really are is another matter. I only have cold water for the washing machine and during the final spin cycle there was still some soapy water leaving the machine (it might be better if I could not see the water leaving the washing machine). Anyway there are done and drying on the balcony as I write this.

I still don’t have internet or phone service at home so I will probably post this at work. There are rumours I may have phone and internet by Wednesday. I seriously doubt it. Watch this space for more information.

Today I am stuck at home. I live on the second floor and there is a terrace above me (Potential visitors don’t get too excited about the terrace – it’s more for drying clothes than having drinks while watching the sunset). My landlord has hired a company to put reflective paint on the roof. This reflective paint is similar to that used in space shuttles (allegedly). Its function is to reflect the sun thereby reducing the temperature in my apartment. In order to se if it works I have to record the temperature every hour. So I have shut off three of the rooms and have no air conditioning on in them and each hour I go and read the thermometers that are been placed in them. The same will need to be done on Tuesday but I’m at work so somebody else will have to do it. Even if I weren’t here taking temperature readings there’s not much to do anyway as my driver has Sunday’s off and there really is no other transport option. In a few weeks I might get brave and drive myself – not very brave as I will stick to residential areas and avoid areas with heavy traffic and cows. Such areas are limited in Delhi.

I also have cable television with 100 channels; more than I ever had before. Approximately 85 of them are in languages I don’t understand but on the remaining 15 there is at least enough to keep me reasonably entertained. I’m not watching TV today though because the TV is in one of the rooms where the temperature is being taken (hence no air-conditioning).

A colleague of mine is over from Germany so last night we decided to go to the cinema. We asked the hotel and thy recommended an area called Saket, so off to Saket we went. Unfortunately the cinema was full so we went for coffee instead and looked at the world passing by. We saw 3 other non-Indians for the entire 90 minutes or so we were there. I got quite a few stares from some of the Indian men. It’s very weird they completely look me up and down. I don’t like it at all. Fortunately it doesn’t happen too often. So it was authentic India – one surprising thing was that most of the women were in western dress but everywhere else Indian dress (saris and the like) is far more common. Indeed for the first 2 days in India I never saw any Indian women in western dress. There were bars and nightclubs, shops and coffee houses. Apart from the people and some of the food and the cows it could be anywhere in the world. I also saw a pregnant women – I mention this as she was the first pregnant women I saw and it struck me that to only see one pregnant women in 3 weeks was a little unusual. I’ll have to do some investigation into pregnancy and India.