Travels by tuk-tuk

On my first night out with the expat fraternity, I was unceremoniously hustled into a tuk-tuk to transport us to venue numero deux. Never one to shy away from an experience (especially after two gins) I nestled my ample behind into the seat and gaped in disbelief as another two people piled in after me.

I'd love to tell you that my first journey was an exhilarating roller coaster ride that left me feeling more alive than ever, but I was far too conscious of taking up three quarters of the backseat. As a result, I was clinging on for dear life with one ass cheek perched precariously on the seat and the other hanging out the door. Thankfully it was dark for the sake of all the pedestrians we passed at break neck speed.

The real revelation came when we went to pay; it cost us a mere 20 rupees. Whilst everyone else was scrabbling around for change, I was so shocked I paid in a gallant flourish and told the driver to keep the change. Please take note that this is thoroughly frowned upon, but I was overcome by the wad of Monopoly money burning a hole in my wallet.

Fast forward a week and I couldn't find a cab for love nor money after dinner in Powai. I'd had a glass of wine and lost my umbrella somewhere in greater Maharashtra earlier in the day so thought to hell with it, I'll get a tuk-tuk before I get soaked.

What followed was a bumpy adrenaline rush punctuated by incessant beeping. My driver wove expertly in and out of traffic, came to abrupt halts inches from the vehicle in front and occasionally swore (I presume) at other road users. I might write to Boris to suggest he bins the bikes and gets Barclays to sponsor a few London tuk-tuks instead.

I made it back to the hotel in record time for a fraction of the cost of a taxi. I long to travel by tuk-tuk every day, but unfortunately they're banned from central and south Mumbai so it'll have to remain a weekend treat. Anyway, I thought I would give you a little taster of the experience during a relatively gentle bit of the trip.

Chav Barbie to blonde bombshell

I felt a bit melancholy yesterday, so to avoid wallowing I stuck on a bit of Aretha Franklin and pulled my inner diva together. The only thing for it was to go and get my hair done. My locks were long overdue, as I'd opted for a myriad* of London leaving dos over basic self-maintenance and I was thus sporting roots that would've made Cruella de Vil proud.

I booked an appointment at Vanaddict after a spot of googling because it fulfilled the key requirement of being next to a major landmark in Andheri East (see my traumas with taxi drivers). The salon was positioned on the first floor of an average-looking apartment building, but I am learning swiftly not to judge a book by its cover.

Pushing the door open I found a little oasis of white walls, leather armchairs and forest noises with a massive queue in reception. I was ushered to a seat and the consultation commenced. I have never been very good at directing hairdressers at the best of times - I have a back catalogue of questionable hairstyles to prove it - and now there was the added dimension of my only knowing five words of Hindi.

Thank the lord for the receptionist and her perfect English, as my rather fabulous stylist  Mohad was soon toiling away. The highlighting seemed to go without a hitch. That was until he washed off the dye and I looked like this:
 

 

Pure chav Barbie with obligatory ginger hue and random dark bits. Mohad disappeared, I presumed to guffaw in the back room, and I just stared at myself.

Well I wanted to be blonde.

Could I get away with it?

No, you're not Lindsay Lohan.

This is actually hilarious.

No it's not.

How am I going to get it fixed?!

Just as I was concluding some basic arithmetic in my head to establish if I could afford to fly back to the UK for a day to get it fixed in Soho if I went on Jeremy Kyle, my delightful hairdresser reappeared with a little pot. I must have looked like I was going to cry as he went running off to reception to get our translator.

'Is it meant to be this...blonde' I whimpered. The irony of going into my Soho hairdresser for years and asking to be as blonde as possible was completely lost on me at this point. 'No' she said eyeing me warily, 'He still has to put the dye on.'

Hallelujah!

I'd clearly missed this stage at every other hairdresser for the past 10 years. This is the point where London hairdressers tactfully say that they are going to apply a 'toner'. What they actually mean is that you look like the offspring of Lily Savage and a zebra, and they are desperately trying to rescue the situation and possibly their career.

'Ash?' Mohad asked me pointing to the swatch that he'd quietly slipped into my lap whilst I was gaping open mouthed at my reflection. 'Yes' I gasped nodding vigorously.

*Further to a grammatical disagreement I had on Facebook the other day, for anyone in doubt, myriad is both a noun and an adjective so if I want to use it as above I damn well shall. To all those 'traditionalists' shaking their heads in disgust; language grows and develops with time otherwise we'd all be speaking like Chaucer and to be clear, the word in question was actually a noun in English before it was used as an adjective. I win.

Trials and tribulations with taxis

It never ceases to amaze me how taxi drivers in Mumbai have absolutely no idea where they're going. I realise that I was probably spoilt to death in London; being able to leap into a black cab and declare a relatively obscure destination with a cry of 'Tally Ho' and a wave of my less than manicured hand is definitely one of the things I miss most about home.

The amount of times I've got into a cab in Mumbai and the driver has known where to take me is definitely in single digits. Before you even think it, it's not the language barrier. Most of the significant places in this City are still referred to by their English names, post-Colonial renaming or no renaming. Plus I can parrot a formidable Hindi accent by which to pronounce them.

An average journey generally goes something like this:

• I approach the cab, state my destination and ask if he knows where that is.
• He nods, I get in and then we spend the first ten minutes driving around till we find someone who actually knows where it is.
• We drive around at high speed along a myriad of back roads until I've completely lost my bearings (as you can all attest with my sense of direction this doesn't take much).
• He then asks me for directions and I have to resist the urge to cry or beat him over the head with my Blackberry.

Anyway, when sharing this frustrating discovery with a fellow expat she calmly confirmed that it's true; the taxi drivers don't have a bloody clue where anything remotely useful is. She then imparted a pearl of wisdom, in fact it was more like a nugget of pure gold, that I have clung to ever since.

You have to give the driver's landmarks. Eureka!

And this is what I've been doing ever since. The only problem is, is that I then need to rely on my own appalling sense of direction to journey from said landmark to the real destination. I think this could finally be the moment I crumble to peer pressure and purchase an iPhone simply for its relatively infallible GPS system.

In the beginning...

Sunset from the Four Season's rooftop bar
 

And so begins the promised blog I vowed to write for my nearest and dearest before I fled London town to the wild east of Mumbai.

Over the last two weeks I've learnt five words of Hindi, accidently drunk tap water (and survived), been drenched in several monsoon downpours, looked at every available apartment in Bandra and been asked when I'm getting married more times than I care to recall.

Yet, I've only questioned what I'm doing here twice. The fact that Australian Masterchef and Grey's Anatomy are on every night probably helps.

The hardest thing so far has not been the language, the food or the sheer chaos; it's the fact that I am now solely responsible for my own office IT. Hell, it's taken me two weeks to work out how to get this blog up and running...