MUMBAI

 

29th July

Something I should have mentioned about my grandparents village is that communication with the outside world is an issue. There is no mobile phone signal so I couldn’t text or call from my phone. There is no internet. In theory there is dial up but it is the slowest internet on the planet. It takes 20 minutes to load a page on google. Also if you do ever get on, many sites, including facebook, are censored. So essentially, there is no internet. It is a weird feeling as in the UK internet is so present as a part of day-to-day life and I am so used to checking my email twice a day, so it was strange to be without it. I wonder how many places on earth are really like that now. Last summer when I was in Ghana, I stayed in quite a remote campsite where I would never have thought there could be internet, but managed to pick up WIFI on my phone! Anyway, there is a landline in my grandparents’ house, so I tried using this to get in touch with my two friends Duana and Mona who were already in India travelling the Golden Triangle. I was due to meet up with them in Mumbai, but I couldn’t get through to them. Turns out they had both got Indian sim cards and had texted me their numbers but due to lack of signal I did not receive these texts. Fortunately at the airport I received a text from Duana with the address of the hotel at which they were staying, so when I arrived in Mumbai I got a taxi straight there. It made me feel very independent. I had never arrived in such a foreign land somewhere so completely different to the UK and had to get somewhere by myself. It was daunting but I managed just fine! Unfortunately, Duana and Mona had already gone out, as due to our lack of communication, they had no idea when I was going to arrive. I was feeling a bit blue at this point, having had no sleep for well over 24 hours and I was missing my family. So I was very disappointed they weren’t there. I decided to use the phone at the hotel to call the Indian number I now had for them, and I called and called but to no avail. So I came up with a new plan, to send them messages by email and facebook to let them know I had arrived! So I changed out of my clothes wet from the Mumbai monsoon rain, wrote a quick note to them in case they arrived back whilst I was out and set off to find an internet café. At the reception desk, I asked for directions and they informed me that there was in fact WIFI at the hotel! Excellent! Something was going right! So I headed back upstairs and retrieved my laptop from its bag. Now, I have never taken my laptop travelling before, however, myself, Duana and Mona had been planning for ages to do some research whilst on our placement in the hospital in South India, which I will explain properly later. So it was after much thought that I decided the laptop was essential for this and that I would bring it. However, I realised that in my hurry to pack my things in Iran, I had forgotten my laptop charger. Disaster! Now not only did I have my valuable laptop to carry around India and have to worry about it, but it was useless without battery! I faced a difficult decision- take a nap and have no laptop for the trip? Or set out into the rain in a completely unknown city on a hunt for a Sony Vaio laptop charger?

THE HUNT FOR THE LAPTOP CHARGER

Ten minutes later I found myself in the back of a little yellow tuk-tuk. And so the hunt began. I had never been in a tuk-tuk before. Had you asked me a week before if I could see myself taking a tuk-tuk alone my first day in Mumbai, I would have laughed. Even had you asked me less than an hour before as I gazed in wonder at the strange things in the taxi from the airport! I didn’t even really know what they were. Some people call them tuk-tuks, some rickshaws and some auto-rickshaws. I heard them being referred to by the locals simply as ‘autos’. For those who don’t know what they are like, I think the best way to describe one would be a cross between a motorbike and a carriage! The driver sits at the front and the steering mechanism is like a motorbike, but there is a bench behind that can seat three. And there are three wheels. Not a great explanation…sorry! Anyway. First stop was an electronics store not too far away. It looked promising. It was big, it said megastore on the front and I could see laptops through the windows. Super. I paid the lovely tuk-tuk gentleman who clearly had no clue what I was saying as I tried to ask him the price of the fare. With hindsight, I significantly overpaid. Unfortunately, within ten minutes I was out in the rain again, trying to hail another tuk-tuk to get to the ‘Sony service centre’. Just over half an hour later I was back in the same spot, soaked through and no closer to finding a charger. Instead of finding said service centre, I had ended up at a car-servicing workshop. Dismayed and very lost, I had to simply take the same tuk-tuk back again. Suffice to say, the driver found me to be a very strange individual and simply shook his head at me as I handed over my fare.

I took a deep breath and headed back into the megastore. They were confused to see me again and proceeded to give me the same information as they had before. I was not prepared to try the ‘service centre’ for a second time, so they instead instructed me to go to the ‘Infinity Mall.’ There was a Sony store there, I was told. They would help me. So off I went, all the time thinking what a crazy situation I was in. I considered giving up, but the thought of being in a remote part of South India (to which we were heading early the next day) needing a laptop and having a laptop but not being able to use it, spurred me along. So ‘Infinity Mall’ it was. It was quite a way across the city, but I told myself I was getting to see Mumbai in the process. Although the majority of what I saw was rain and multiple tuk-tuks. And rain. But eventually I found myself crossing the threshold of the Sony store. I was drenched, tired and must have looked pretty awful by the looks on the faces of the two staff sitting behind the desk. But all around me were Sony laptops and a sign that indicated the store to be the flagship Sony laptop store of India. I grinned. They would definitely have one here. I explained my predicament to the two guys whose politeness pleased me immensely! I love being called ma’am! Which was good for me as that was how most people addressed me everywhere in Mumbai. However, my happiness was short-lived. As I pulled the laptop from my rucksack to demonstrate the charger I would need, they shook their heads. Apparently my laptop was both too small and too old and needed a 16-volt charger, which were hard to come by. The 19-volt ones that they stocked would not work. They could order one, but it would take at least a day or two. I stood, aghast. I was going to have to abandon the mission after I had come so far. I must have seemed very upset as I was quickly offered a chair and a toffee sweet. ‘Don’t worry ma’am, we will see what we can do.’

Literally 14 phone calls later, (I counted), my hero, from the Sony store, Infinity mall, Mumbai had secured me a charger and was having it couriered over. I was happy (although still tired, wet and friendless). They gave me their number so I could call at intervals to check if it had arrived, so I decided to head back into the rain in search of a cyber café and an Indian sim card in an attempt to contact my pals. I managed to secure both so I messaged Duana and Mona and I called back my friends at the mall. The charger had not yet arrived but they had my new number and would telephone when they had news. I decided to head back that way anyway in the hope that it would not be too much longer. Who knew what a trek it would be. Whilst I had been facebooking, it had been raining harder and harder and within a second of stepping out the door I was soaked through. It had also got dark. There was also much more traffic than there had been before. All the tuk-tuks were full and none were stopping so I had to walk back. On the way I almost drowned in a puddle. I’m exaggerating slightly, but it did come half way up my calf! But my biggest challenge was yet to come…the crossroads by the mall. It was impossible to cross the road. The cars kept coming and the rain kept falling and there were puddles everywhere. These were no longer the main problem; I had already resigned myself to wet, wet feet. But I just couldn’t cross! It was so frustrating as I could see where I needed to be…it was so close, yet so far! A car and then a tuk-tuk almost hit me. In the end I ended up praying that I wouldn’t die and running across at the same time as a local man, hoping he knew what he was doing. And YES! I had made it! I was about to step onto the curb when a tuk-tuk pulled up at speed and I jumped…straight into a pond. Well a puddle. But it was practically a pond. I felt my body vibrating and figured I was shivering from all the rain and adrenaline. It took a few seconds before I realised it was my phone. I picked up, dazed. ‘Ma’am? Ma’am? Hello, ma’am? Your charger is here.’

Well thank goodness for that.

I walked into the hotel room to the stunned faces of my friends. I looked pretty bad. I was very wet and was still a bit in shock from the minor tuk-tuk vs. motorcar crash I had just been in. I don’t want to go into that too much in case my parents read this and freak out. But I was fine. Just a bit traumatised from my day. I couldn’t really make words. I headed straight to the shower to wash my very, very muddy feet and accidentally turned it on at the coldest temperature setting at full power all over my fully clothed self.

What a day.