Arrived in Mumbai

We arrived in Mumbai a week ago and it has been non stop rain since then! The reason being of course that we have arrived in the middle of the monsoon season or maybe the city is protesting, both hopefully will end by September (see picture taken out of our hotel window).

Since we came we have been busy trying to get our apartment in order (still 15 days to go though), going between stores to see where we can buy necessities such as groceries, pots, pans, towels, etc. Believe it or not this takes a lot of time as no one store carries all items rather you have to go to many stores as they all specialize and usually only carry one brand or so. This is similar to the mom and pop shops that used to be lined up down Laugavegur, except here they are scattered all over. Given the incredible traffic in the city and the rain it takes hours to go between couple of shops. Yesterday (Sunday) we went to a mall, which is only 10,3 km away, and it took us 2 hours and 15min to drive back and forth! So you can just imagine how much is getting done every day J. As a result we choose the image of the traffic to represent our blog. No one who has not experienced this will believe the sheer number of cars, buses, trucks, autos, taxis, bicycles, people and animals on the road! It’s never ending!  Since there is still 15 days until we get the apt. we haven’t bought anything as it would be hard to fit us 3 and all the stuff into the hotel room. We will therefore try to contain ourselves until we move. This might be hard though as the monsoon sales are going on and some of the stores are offering great deals. We have also run into some of the bureaucracy of the country. We went to get a cell phone only to find out that in order to obtain a SIM-card you have to give 2 pictures, proof of residence (which we don’t have yet), passport copy, and authentication declaration form (???).  What a hassle!!! Not only that, it turns out that the address in the passport also has to match with the proof of residence in India! Come on…..of course we don’t have that as the passports have an Icelandic address in them. So the result is that we still don’t have a local number L Bala was cursing (silently) the whole way home J 

Well – it’s getting late so more later and hopefully also some pictures!

Athugasemdir

[Guðmundur A Kr (IP-tala skráð) 11.8.2008 kl. 16:54]

Hahah they have monsoon sales in India? Nice - weather controlled pricing!