Hey All-

Unfortunately, my email from the second flight didn’t send, so you get a two for one deal! That’s right this email contains both rants/raves about the flight from Frankfurt to Mumbai and my Mumbai experience as of 4/8 – 6:00pm!

Let’s start with the whole I need a ‘cell phone’ in India concept.. (since this is what is currently on my mind) I knew I would need a phone, but I didn’t realize how dependent you get with it and NO I don’t mean the kind where I like to just talk to people.. I’m talking about using a cell phone as a means of meeting people and more importantly informing your driver of your whereabouts so he can find you in the onslaught of the bajallion other brown people in india. Then one must ask the question.. how did we do it before? Since I didn’t have a cell phone today, I decided not to meet up with some friends (yes that could have been a stupid mistake.. but I just didn’t want to deal with the idea of going to a place.. and then have to frantically look for the person until we met.. I can say.. that even with having a cell phone.. meeting up with people isn’t ideal.. so now add in the fact that I’m in india, going to a place I don’t even know how to get to, and then expecting to meet a person.. I’m going to wait for my cell phone!)

So I thought I would be smart and ‘buy’ a cell phone ahead of time via Craigslist.. we all know you get some deals on cell phone or whatever you want on Craigslist.. so I used that to my advantage.. or so I thought. And became the happy/proud owner of the Samsung T809 - http://samsung.com/Products/MobilePhones/T_Mobile/SGH_T809OKATMB.asp. When I get to the phone store in India.. which by the way.. you need to have your Passport, VISA, Passport Photo, and proof of residence in India, before you can even get a Phone CARD!! I get to the store and find that the phone I purchased, albeit an Indian model, is not that much more that what I paid for, I then felt scammed to use Craigslist.. the Moral of the story.. if you’re going to go to India ‘Motherland’ don’t buy a cell phone (its nice if you already have one) and don’t buy voltage converters ahead of time .. there is just no need and India is very reasonable in terms of its pricing!

At any rate, I finally got a Hutch Chip with the number:
India Mobile Number: 9-83399-0277
India Country Code: 91
To call from the US Dial: 011-91-9-83399-0277

Now that the whole ‘Phone-Issue’ is out of my mind, we can continue from where the previous email left off.. enjoy

Setting: On the airplane from Frankfurt to Mumbai
So I’m currently on the plane from Frankfurt to Mumbai and yes folks your prayers were answered, I have my normal window seat but this time around no one is sitting next to me!! Woo hoo, yes there is a god! There is an older man sitting on the aisle, but I don’t mind since I actually have shoulder room! I’m now half way on my journey to India (I fell asleep) The Frankfurt airport is quite nice, I just wish they had more power outlets! Why is this a huge problem everywhere! San Jose Airport, I’m sure because of Silicon Valley have installed numerous power strips, but everywhere else.. you have to go scouting.. Whenever I’m looking for power outlets.. whether it be JFK, SFO or anywhere, I always feel that I’m scarying everyone else.. cuz when I’m at the airport, I’m normally scrubbed out, haven’t shaved, totally chilled out, and of course when people see me looking for something.. they get all weirded out.. they could be thinking ‘what is this guy doing? He looks like a terrorist!”

I finally found my plug in Frankfurt, it was next to the Info booth, and I paid my 10 euros to use the internet for 10 minutes and yes I’m addicted to being connected.. I needed to download the latest news to my feed reader and I needed to sync up with my mails. I did the need be and checked in with work and I was good to go. Couple of things I’m a fan of. 1. Ipod Shuffle. Please get one if you don’t, they last for 12 hours with one charge, sound incredible, and are so damn small. Apple is definitely ‘cool’ but again I only agree with their hardware design, everything else I can argue for using the PC. The other big thing is laptop battery.. yup I got one of those monster batteries which enable me to use my laptop for 12 hours.. pretty damn crazy.. aights.. ill take the nerd had off

So at Frankfurt I was walking around and found most people to be happy.. I couldn’t stand the smoke.. why the heck are people smoking everywhere? Its like I’m in Vegas with the constant cloud of smoke everywhere! At any rate, I went shopping and bought a couple of things: a hindi phrase book, sunglasses (woo hoo I finally got some ‘edgy’ yet performing sunglasses, since they have to be polarized!) nothing beats a pair of maui jims, for those that don’t know.. they are probably the best sunglasses out today in the market based on their lenses.

When I first arrived to the airport, they told me that my flight had moved gates, so I actually went (took the railway) to the other terminal, after hanging out in the other terminal to boarding time, I find that my original gate was correct, I then move out to the other terminal and find a huge line in front of my gate. I think that this means its boarding, BUT NOO. At Frankfurt airport, each gate has their own lobby if you will. People were waiting in line just to get into the lobby of the gate.. yes this was quite weird for me and I didn’t understand why you would want to rush just to get into a lobby? I couldn’t figure it out. It was finally time to board the airplane.. and OMFG! It was chaos, everyone in the lobby jetted towards the door.. it looked just like we were all little cars driving in India, I was like peachie, I’m not even in india yet and its crazy! I boarded and as you know got my lucky seat.

I didn’t do much work on the flight and they didn’t play any good movies, I ended up sleeping and reading books.

After landing, I get to india the motherland! Mumbai was fairly efficient and the next thing you know I get my luggage and two Indian officers approach me.. they are trying to tell me that they will help me out provided I tip them.. they were trying to tell me that when I get to customs I’m going to have to pay some kind of tax which will be expensive.. I pretty much ignored them, because they just wanted money! Thank god I had been through this before.. the best thing to do is just walk and ignore.. until you get to gates or points where you have to stop. I finally get out the doors and find my hotel driver holding my name on his sign. I get greeted and 15 minutes later I’m at the hotel, all in all pretty sweet experience in Mumbai.

I get to the hotel and its beautiful, one bedroom spot with kitchen and living room. I unpacked and of course, I was trying to be smart so I bought a voltage converter.. little did I know that it was going to end up short-circuiting my floor! Yes that’s right I have just reaffirmed that the employees at Fry’s are beyond retarded, they need to be institutionalized. A fry’s ass sold me what he believed was to be the perfect way to convert the voltage in india to American 110v. I plug the device in and it makes a hum noise and proceeds to short circuit.. WHAT THE EFF man! Not only does it weigh like 5 pounds it doesn’t even work, I was pretty pissed! I then wait for them to fix it and of course I play innocent, the fix it! I unpack and pass out!

Today, I woke up did the whole brush my teeth with bottled water, which wasn’t so bad.. put the mosquito repellent on and took the malaria pills and relaxed for a while and checked out the complimentary breakfast which was south Indian food and it was so damn tasty! I felt bad because I couldn’t have the fresh fruit juices, fresh fruit bowls, and other non-cooked snacks.. it was tempting,.. but I resisted… all in all it was good with an amazing experience

I decided to tour my place and found that it was quite beautiful, I walked to the Marriott hotel and made a reservation for the spa and checked out some more spots. I had some good chicken tikka just protein and some water. I ordered a drink and eesh! Drinks in india are way weaker than what we expect. More or less you end up spending about triple of what you would spend if you were at a bar in California, but I will add that to my mental note.. but I’m going to stick with water for a whiles ;-)

I went for my spa treatment for 2 hours and out of 1-10 I would give it a 3. I don’t recommend getting spa treatments from india PERIOD. They don’t believe in female-male massages and more importantly the guys that massage you… give you a weird look.. lets just say I didn’t enjoy the massage at all. And we’ll end it at that..

I got my phone set up.. as previously posted and I was all groovy.. next I went shopping around and found/realized that its beneficial to have a thing or object that your shopping for as opposed to just walk the streets .. its fun and all getting immersed in the experience.. but I then decided to shop for my dad as he wanted a comfy pillow.. which I found for him.. hopefully he likes it..!

I came back and found my driver there just chillin and we got back to the hotel. I just relaxed and am now going to check out whats going on for dinner. Prep for work tomorrow and hopefully get things moving in India without being stressed out!

Stay tuned for the insight from tomorrow

One

Vishal Gurbuxani