But the smells, the colours and the crowds are all there. As is the "Indian way", i.e. nothing goes as you had planned it...
As some of you know, we are in India this time to decide whether we could work and move here. There's an opportunity for me to join the Hay Group practice in India and this trip serves to meet my future colleagues and get a sense of how we would live in either Mumbai or Delhi. We arrived in Mumbai last Friday evening and have spent the weekend exploring this vast city. So far we've had a truly Mumbaiker experience, including a city tour, several Bollywood film shoots, lunch at the Cafe Leopold, a car accident and a mugging attempt, which saw me lying face down on the pavement, but thankfully nothing robbed due to my yelling out for help and undercover police being nearby. This city is INTENSE. But given the right accommodation and work conditions we can actually see ourselves living here!
And that's where the issue lies at the moment. We have been taken around yesterday for some apartment viewing and the rental cost here is astronomical. All we could get for our current budget was some crummy flats of roughly 80 m2 with old and dirty bathrooms. This afternoon we'll be shown what's available on the market for double our budget amount just to get an idea. Hopefully it'll be more in style of our Indian dream...
Tomorrow morning we're off to Delhi. We'll be staying with our good friends Tash & Colin and be doing the same thing regarding my getting to know the colleagues and viewing potential living accommodation.
In any case we'll have a lot to reflect on again after we return to Belgium on Monday. Watch this space for an update!"
- Rein checking out
