Monday, January 09, 2006
The arrival
On the drive to the apartment from the airport I got my first glimpse of the city, which was fairly limited since it was dark and not too many people were out in the street. However, I already started to notice the incredible state of poverty that's so evident when you go outside here. When we got to the gates of the apartment complex the driver honked the horn and one of the guys sitting around a fire just inside the gates ran up and opened it to let the car inside. That's right, there were a bunch of guys sitting around a fire inside the gates at 2:30am. I later realized they must be security but at the time I just thought they were homeless, which may or may not be true as well...I think homelessness has a different connotation here since many people seem to live in little tents and shacks which are probably not much better than a cardboard box but are still better off than others who don't even have a tent to sleep in. In any case, I will probably have lots more on this topic later when it is more appropriate. However, on the way to the apartment my first night here I didn't get too good a feel for the living conditions of the local residents.
When I got to the apartment, my guides who spoke very sparse amount of English, led me to my final destination and told me the accomodations I was going to have are the best in Hyderabad. This may or may not be true, but as a result I was expecting a fairly luxurious, Western style apartment. What I actually discovered was a little bit different. I was going to be staying in a single room in a "flat" that had a total of 3 private rooms with one neighbor sharing the room on the opposite side of the living area and one empty room.
My room was on the corner of the building and thus had two walls with windows, but no curtains on either of them. I had a private bathroom but it was not quite what one would expect in the West. The toilet was a normal Western style toilet, though with the standard hand-rinsing hose attachment which the locals here use in lieu of toilet paper and which all the toilets I've seen here tend to have. The big surprise was the shower, which consisted of a shower head on the wall in the corner about two feet to the left of the toilet (and about 6 feet off the floor naturally) and absolutely nothing else. No shower curtain, no partition along the floor to keep the water contained in the "shower area". In fact the water drain was clear on the other side of the bathroom under the sink. When I attempted to use the shower shortly after settling in I discovered that it was also spraying water from the side of the shower head directly into the middle of the bathroom so the entire floor, toilet and pretty much everything else in there was completely drenched in water when I was done. While something as simple as a shower curtain would prevent this, it is apparently not widely used here since Indians don't bathe using a shower head but rather use a bucket of water they scoop up and poor on themselves. I assume that baths are completely unheard of though I'll be very happy to discover I am wrong. I found that it can actually be a bit dangerous to have the water all over the bathroom floor since it's very easy to slip but luckily I've avoided doing that so far. In any case, there was also no soap so I had to endure a soapless shower after spending more than 20 hours total in transit which was fairly disappointing.
The room itself was completely bare, besides the bed, the dresser and the nightstand it was totally empty and lacking in any sort of comforts. It was fairly clean, but definitely rough around the edges, with the bathroom sink area being the biggest trouble area. If I had to compare it to something I'd guess it was similar to a $30/night motel somewhere in the middle of nowhere, U.S.A. Needless to say it was hard to swallow that these were the best accomodations in the city.
I finally got to bed around 3:00am and passed out for all of 3 hours. I would have probably slept for 12 but at 6:00am the construction directly across the walkway outside started up when a truck full of metal pipes pulled up under my window. Did I mention there were no curtains? The windows also turned out to have zero sound-proofing which I discovered when a number of people started taking turns climbing into the back of the truck and banging the metal pipes against each other. I gave up trying to figure out what they were doing and began looking for ear plugs. My upgrade to first class on the Delta flight payed off again since in addition to all the other perks they provided everyone in first class with a little traveler's care package which contained, among other neat and useful things, ear plugs! Once I dug them out and stuck them in my ears the noise from the construction, while still clearly audible, became no match for my need for rest and I had about 3 or 4 more hours of low quality but welcome sleep. At around 9:00 or 10:00 the contruction noise, which by this point was in full swing, finally won and I had to get up. Without any curtains on my large windows, and being on only the second floor, I felt like a fish in a bowl with all the construction guys just outside my place with a clear view of the entire room. None of them seemed too interested however and I was able to get dressed and head out to find breakfast without too much additional discomfort.
I'll leave out the rest of the events of the day for another post in order to finish up my accomodations story. After I complained about the noise when I got to work later that day I was told I could move into a different room in a building farther away from the construction, but I wouldn't be able to do it until Sunday when somebody else moves out. As a result I would have to spend two more nights in this room with no chance for decent sleep. I also found out that it is quite possible for the construction to go all night so this room was definitely not an option. I also forgot to mention that they didn't give me a key for the apartment since they apparently only had one, so both the front door as well as the door to my room was never locked. When I got home from work I also discovered that this apartment was used as the staff "cafeteria" and there were people sitting around the floor of the living room eating. Everyone here is exteremely friendly as I said before so I did not mind at all, and since I had nothing to compare it to I didn't realize that finding random people in their apartment was not the typical experience of the people who stay here. That night I actually ended up crashing in another flat, at which point I also found out that it was not normal to have no curtains, no soap, and no shower curtain. But I'll leave that story for another post as well.
I'm not sure why but it turns out they just decided to put me in the crappiest room possible despite the fact that there were other rooms available in much nicer apartments. For some reason the room they were moving me to became available early on Saturday afternoon so my 3rd night was spent in a significantly nicer room, with no contruction noise, a shower curtain in the bathroom, soap, blinds on the windows, a TV in the living room, wifi Internet access and basically all the comforts of home, give or take a few. The shower gives very little hot water so you end up taking prison style showers more often than I would like, the water pressure is not ideal, and the shower curtain I have does a pretty poor job of keeping the water contained. However, all in all the room I ended up in is fairly nice and comfortable. If it weren't for the shower issues I'd actually call it relatively luxurious and it's definitely a huge improvement over my initial accomodations so things seem to have worked out OK on that front.
When I got to the apartment, my guides who spoke very sparse amount of English, led me to my final destination and told me the accomodations I was going to have are the best in Hyderabad. This may or may not be true, but as a result I was expecting a fairly luxurious, Western style apartment. What I actually discovered was a little bit different. I was going to be staying in a single room in a "flat" that had a total of 3 private rooms with one neighbor sharing the room on the opposite side of the living area and one empty room.
My room was on the corner of the building and thus had two walls with windows, but no curtains on either of them. I had a private bathroom but it was not quite what one would expect in the West. The toilet was a normal Western style toilet, though with the standard hand-rinsing hose attachment which the locals here use in lieu of toilet paper and which all the toilets I've seen here tend to have. The big surprise was the shower, which consisted of a shower head on the wall in the corner about two feet to the left of the toilet (and about 6 feet off the floor naturally) and absolutely nothing else. No shower curtain, no partition along the floor to keep the water contained in the "shower area". In fact the water drain was clear on the other side of the bathroom under the sink. When I attempted to use the shower shortly after settling in I discovered that it was also spraying water from the side of the shower head directly into the middle of the bathroom so the entire floor, toilet and pretty much everything else in there was completely drenched in water when I was done. While something as simple as a shower curtain would prevent this, it is apparently not widely used here since Indians don't bathe using a shower head but rather use a bucket of water they scoop up and poor on themselves. I assume that baths are completely unheard of though I'll be very happy to discover I am wrong. I found that it can actually be a bit dangerous to have the water all over the bathroom floor since it's very easy to slip but luckily I've avoided doing that so far. In any case, there was also no soap so I had to endure a soapless shower after spending more than 20 hours total in transit which was fairly disappointing.
The room itself was completely bare, besides the bed, the dresser and the nightstand it was totally empty and lacking in any sort of comforts. It was fairly clean, but definitely rough around the edges, with the bathroom sink area being the biggest trouble area. If I had to compare it to something I'd guess it was similar to a $30/night motel somewhere in the middle of nowhere, U.S.A. Needless to say it was hard to swallow that these were the best accomodations in the city.
I finally got to bed around 3:00am and passed out for all of 3 hours. I would have probably slept for 12 but at 6:00am the construction directly across the walkway outside started up when a truck full of metal pipes pulled up under my window. Did I mention there were no curtains? The windows also turned out to have zero sound-proofing which I discovered when a number of people started taking turns climbing into the back of the truck and banging the metal pipes against each other. I gave up trying to figure out what they were doing and began looking for ear plugs. My upgrade to first class on the Delta flight payed off again since in addition to all the other perks they provided everyone in first class with a little traveler's care package which contained, among other neat and useful things, ear plugs! Once I dug them out and stuck them in my ears the noise from the construction, while still clearly audible, became no match for my need for rest and I had about 3 or 4 more hours of low quality but welcome sleep. At around 9:00 or 10:00 the contruction noise, which by this point was in full swing, finally won and I had to get up. Without any curtains on my large windows, and being on only the second floor, I felt like a fish in a bowl with all the construction guys just outside my place with a clear view of the entire room. None of them seemed too interested however and I was able to get dressed and head out to find breakfast without too much additional discomfort.
I'll leave out the rest of the events of the day for another post in order to finish up my accomodations story. After I complained about the noise when I got to work later that day I was told I could move into a different room in a building farther away from the construction, but I wouldn't be able to do it until Sunday when somebody else moves out. As a result I would have to spend two more nights in this room with no chance for decent sleep. I also found out that it is quite possible for the construction to go all night so this room was definitely not an option. I also forgot to mention that they didn't give me a key for the apartment since they apparently only had one, so both the front door as well as the door to my room was never locked. When I got home from work I also discovered that this apartment was used as the staff "cafeteria" and there were people sitting around the floor of the living room eating. Everyone here is exteremely friendly as I said before so I did not mind at all, and since I had nothing to compare it to I didn't realize that finding random people in their apartment was not the typical experience of the people who stay here. That night I actually ended up crashing in another flat, at which point I also found out that it was not normal to have no curtains, no soap, and no shower curtain. But I'll leave that story for another post as well.
I'm not sure why but it turns out they just decided to put me in the crappiest room possible despite the fact that there were other rooms available in much nicer apartments. For some reason the room they were moving me to became available early on Saturday afternoon so my 3rd night was spent in a significantly nicer room, with no contruction noise, a shower curtain in the bathroom, soap, blinds on the windows, a TV in the living room, wifi Internet access and basically all the comforts of home, give or take a few. The shower gives very little hot water so you end up taking prison style showers more often than I would like, the water pressure is not ideal, and the shower curtain I have does a pretty poor job of keeping the water contained. However, all in all the room I ended up in is fairly nice and comfortable. If it weren't for the shower issues I'd actually call it relatively luxurious and it's definitely a huge improvement over my initial accomodations so things seem to have worked out OK on that front.
