Letter to our Landlord

Dear ___,
We are enjoying our stay in your flat, but need to update you on a few things. First of all, I'm sorry our rent check was late last month. My mother arrived from the US on July 31st and with all of the excitement and activity, I forgot to stop at the bank and deposit our check for you.

Secondly, we have 2 maintenance issues. The first is that the hot water heater in the master bathroom has been leaking for the past month. I've made several calls to Maintenance and even written out 2 separate notes explaining the issue. It wasn't until I marched down there today and demanded action did the woman in the Maintenance office tell me that they don't deal with the Bajaj company, and I'd have to arrange and pay for any repairs "at my own risk". She said she'd get me the phone number to contact a Bajaj repairman. I will keep you updated on this.

The second and most eye-raising issue occurred on Monday evening. The door to the 2nd bedroom (facing the garden) has become increasingly difficult to open. On Monday evening, our nanny went into the room to freshen up before leaving for the day. When she tried to exit the room, the door would NOT open. I tried our 'trick' for opening it from the outside and was unsuccessful. I tried using the key and the key would not turn enough to unlock the door. She and I tried for about 20 minutes to pull, push, turn, and to open the door by any possible means. It was stuck stuck stuck.

By then it was about 7pm so I called Maintenance hoping that someone would be there. Their response: "Yes, Madame we will help" was followed by 10 minutes of nothing, so I went down to the office, wading through ankle deep puddles and dodging the monsoon rain to escort someone back to the flat with me. The young man who came carried only his cell phone, no tools. After a few minutes of trying keys and doing everything I had been doing since our nanny became locked in, he said he'd be back in 15 minutes. Knowing that "15 minutes" can often times mean "never", I refused to let him leave. He called down to the clubhouse and spoke to someone who was supposed to come and help.

Meanwhile, our nanny, Kamleen, had been stuck in that room for almost an hour. I slid her bible and 2 slices of bread under the door knowing that she would probably be in there a while. A little while later, another man came armed with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. He repeated the previous attempts at forcing the door open as well as trying the keys. Needless to say, he was unsuccessful. "The lock is broken Madame", he said. I told him "I knew that quite a while ago" and wanted him to call a locksmith. Instead of doing the sensible thing and calling someone who knew how to deal with broken locks, he proceeded to use his screwdriver as a chisel, pounding on the end of it with his pliers, chipping away the door around the lock.

Once he had sufficiently damaged the door, he realized that his method wasn't going to work, and the door was still not going to open. Kamleen, realizing that her fate might be better off in her own hands, realized that she could unscrew the window screen and the 2 maintenance men could enter the room by crawling onto the balcony ledge and through the bedroom window. Once the screen was off and the men were on the inside of the bedroom, the pounding continued from the inside. After more and more pounding, chipping, breaking, and 2 hours of entrapment, Kamleen was finally free.

Now comes the damge report: the metal face plate that the deadbolt goes into was broken and bent apart, the wooden door frame behind the metal plate was completely chipped away.


The living room side of the door around the keyhole was completely chipped away as well.
The maintenance men left the apartment with the parting words that a carpenter would come tomorrow (Tuesday) and make it all like new.

Today (Wednesday) I had to call the Maintenance office and they eventually sent a carpenter to evaluate what it would take to repair all of the damage and replace the lock. He quoted me 2200 Rupees (~$44). I have a few issues with this price. First of all, I'm sure they're trying to take advantage of the 'foreigner' and quote an outrageous price with the hope that I'd agree and pay it without question. My second issue is that my idea was to call a locksmith, not destroy the door. Third, the damage they inflicted on the outside of the bedroom door was completely unnecessary and did not aid in opening the door. I'd suggest that the Maintenance department be held responsible for some of the repair costs.

I went around town today and asked 2 different carpenters to come over and give me a quote for fixing the damage. When I get those quotes, I will let you know. Please let me know what you think should be done about the cost of the repairs to the door and frame as well as the cost of the new lock set.

Sorry to drop all of this on you at once.

I will keep you updated on the door issue as well as the water heater.
Best Regards,
Meigan Sullivan

Status Report: Our First 100 Days

The 100 day marker has passed for the Sullivans in India. Here's a quick summary of our time here:

Things we're not having trouble adjusting to and things we like:
New Friends
the golf course: Boulder Hills Golf and Country Club
having 2 pools to go to: one at the golf course, one at the apartment complex
Paying $15 a month for our 2 cell phones
Paying $100 for the YEAR for TV with DVR
Great restaurants
Great food
a maid
a cook
a driver
never having to park the car
tropical fruit that is cheap, delicious and readily available.
Inexpensive clothes and shoes

Things we're having trouble adjusting to:
the Indian way of saving face: saying things they think we want to hear instead of just the plain old truth
The lack of efficiency which occurs in an attempt to employ the masses (explaining this may require a separate blog entry)
not having good wine or paying a fortune for wine that is good
Having all kinds of stores sell squash rackets, but none of them sell the balls


Things we will never understand and can only laugh at:
traffic
cows, buffalo, and goats walking down the road
salesmen telling me that this "shoe, bra, outfit, whatever, etc is very comfortable Madame"
The Indian 'Head Bob' which can mean either "yes", "no", or simply "my ears have registered that a sound emitted from your mouth", yet all versions of the head bob look pretty much the same. I can't tell the difference yet, but I'm working on it.

Things that I acknowledge and then move on:
men peeing on the side of the road all the time
power outages (thankfully our apartment has a full power backup generator otherwise this would fall under a different category)
Not being able to drink or brush teeth with tap water

Things we miss:
friends & family
a good steak
Central air-conditioning
good cheese (although it wasn't as ubiquitous in VA as it was in Paris, we could still get it)
my garden
the independence of having your own car and driving it yourself

The Elephants We'll Never Forget

Leaving Kuala Lumpur, we headed Northeast to go to a Kuala Gandah an elephant conservation center. People at the center work to relocate wild elephants who are damaging crops and are therefore at risk of being killed by angry farmers. The center also takes in elephants who have been injured by other animals like tigers and other big cats. Elephants are relocated from different parts of Southeast Asia and are brought protected lands in Malaysia. At the center are several tame and working elephants that can be used to calm and comfort the wild elephants during the relocation process. The worker elephants can accompany and help move the recently tranquilized, dazed, and scared wild elephants, which can provide a calming effect.

I am pleased to say that I can now distinguish an Asian elephant from an African elephant. Probably the easiest way is to look at the elephant's ears. If the ears are very large, floppy and shaped like the continent of Africa, yup, it's an African elephant. If the ears are smaller and shaped like the Indian Subcontinent, yup, its an Asian elephant. Other differences are the highest point of the animal's body. For Asian elephants, its the top of the head, for African elephants, it's the shoulder. Another difference is the little finger-like appendage at the end of the elephant's trunk. Asian elephants have one appendage on the top of the trunk, while African elephants have 2 appendages on both the top and bottom.

Apart from the educational value of our visit, it was something we will never forget. While at the center, we were able to feed, ride, and bathe with the elephants. The elephants were led from their free roaming area to where us visitors were. The adults were led into the river for a little bath while the babies were given nice showers with hoses.

We were then allowed to feed the elephants an assortment of watermelon, papaya, sugar cane, and bananas. The elephants were chained in place so we weren't worried about being accidentally trampled. Sammy found her favorite big guy and loved placing fruit on the end of his trunk for him to eat.

After snacktime, the first 100 visitors were able to take a ride on an elephant. Sammy rode with Bill and he made sure that she wouldn't fall off:

While the elephant rides were going on, a young 4 year old female elephant was brought out to mingle with everyone. She and Sammy became good friends:
The last activity on our elephant adventure was 'bathing' with the elephants. Sammy chose to watch from the riverbanks while Cory and I climbed onto an elephant, it walked forward a bit, and a command was shouted by one of the staff, and the elephant dropped over into the water, depositing us in as well.



Our visit with the elephants at Kuala Gandah was incredible and it was something we will never forget.

http://www.pahangtourism.com.my/tropical/attractions/kgandah.html

Kuala Lumpur: If you build it, they will come

Our Malaysian vacation began with a very late night flight from Hyderabad to Kuala Lumpur. We had rented a car from Avis (automatic transmission) and found Avis counter deserted. After multiple inquires, rides up and down multiple elevators, a trek outside and into a parking garage did we find another Avis office. We loaded ourselves and Sammy's rented carseat into a silver Honda Civic and ventured out. We've always considered a Civic to be a small car, but for some reason, perhaps it was driving on the left side of the road, or because the steering wheel was on the right, it felt huge.

Very quickly we discovered impressive infrastructure, but with poor signage. Now, I am an intelligent person, but navigating is not my forte. When driving myself it's not a problem, but when Bill drives on vacation it seems to bring out a level of ineptitude or a mental block in my directional sense. This combined with some less than clear roadsigns led to some frustrating moments. In retrospect, I should have acquainted myself with the Malay words for "highway" and "road" beforehand, but hindsight is always 20/20. If we hadn't had Bill's Blackberry with GoogleMaps loaded up, I'm not sure how we would have made it anywhere.

We arrived at the Hilton Kuala Lumpur (KL) and were pleased to find that due to Bill's Gold status, we had been upgraded to a suite. It was a sweet suite! I guess that was our reward for having Bill be in New York every week for the first 16 weeks of 2009.

While searching through our guidebook for things to see and do during our 3 days in Kuala Lumpur, it dawned on me that this was our first vacation with 2 kids who needed to enjoy the vacation as well. So my initial list of things to see which consisted of a few temples, mosques, and other cultural things, was scrapped. Instead we went to an aquarium, an indoor amusement park, a huge waterpark, and made sure our hotel not only had a pool, but a waterslide as well. Gone were the good intentions of getting some cultural exposure, in its place was the 'entertain the kids' plan. Since this was my first experience only seeing the 'fun' places a destination had to offer, it felt strange, and left me with feelings of mild regret and guilt. The only thing must see thing for me were the Petronas Towers, which up until recently were the tallest buildings in the world. They're hard to miss:

I was able to take advantage of the girls nap time on our first day and ventured out alone to go to KL's Central Market. It's an indoor market place with shops that specialize in traditional Malay, Indian, and Chinese crafts, clothing, and general souvenirs. While it was interesting to browse, especially the batik paintings and jewelery made from coconut shells, I held off buying anything before getting an idea of what things should cost.

One of the funnier things we did in KL was go to a fish spa. Yes, a fish spa. This is where you stick your feet in a pool filled with Doctor Fish and they nibble, suck, and feed on the dead skin on your feet! Tickle-o-Rama! It was hilarious.

Unfortunately my new found addiction to pedicures didn't leave my feet with much snacking for the little fish and after about 15 minutes, there were only a few left nibbling away. They went on to greener pastures on Bill's feet:


KL was an impressive city which was clean & modern with lots of things to do. It's also a shopper's paradise, (especially between July 4th and August 31st, when all stores have massive sales). There were malls, after malls, after malls, most with upscale and luxury shops, along with the more typical brands as well. The next time I visit KL, I'm hoping to venture out and get exposed to more Malay culture but all in all it was a great visit.

Fix it and forget it

We have a furnished apartment here in Hyderabad. For the most part, the furniture is fine. Granted there are a number (or maybe I should say were) a number of glass topped tables whose days are most likely numbered, but overall it's a comfortable apartment. Although I still think that those who have glass tables shouldn't have kids:



One surprise was a broken couch whose huge sag in the middle was cleverly disguised with bolster pillows in the photos we saw. We emailed the owner about the couch and he wasn't really interested in replacing it unless we really needed it to be replaced. Now being frugally influenced by a number of friends, I could understand that, especially since the price of a new couch could be more than a month's rent.

During our short time here, we've already had a number of things repaired or replaced in the apartment. Our on-site maintenance staff doesn't charge for labor, only for parts. A pipe under the kitchen sink cost less than a dollar to replace, and to replace a part in a ceiling fan cost $1.20. If $1.20 could make our ceiling fan go from dead to super turbo again, I began to wonder how much it would be to fix the couch. We'd have to find a carpenter to find out.

On Tuesday the girls, their nanny, & I were doing some grocery shopping and we stopped at the fresh (still breathing when you order it) chicken shop. Conveniently located right next door was a woodworker's shop. My cook/nanny, Kamleen, and my driver, Prasad, went over to inquire about getting our couch fixed. Later that afternoon, two carpenters, master and apprentice I presume, came over and we haggled over the price. Keep in mind that these 2 men did not speak ANY English, and Kamleen served as my translator. Part of our haggling was over the cost to transport the couch to and from their shop, which, for the record, was around the corner. They were originally going to hire a cargo autorickshaw to transport the couch, but would use something else that would be cheaper, so that they could keep more of the agreed price. The apprentice returned with this:

A middle aged man with a three wheeled bicycle-rickshaw, drove our broken couch back to the shop and brought it back again, and all he got was $4.

I watched the couch be pushed up the hill to the main entry gate and then it disappeared from sight. I was secretly slightly worried that something would happen to it and I'd have to explain to the owner how I had 'lost' his couch. I shouldn't have worried. Not even 24 hours later, the couch was returned by the same middle aged man with the bicycle rickshaw and the carpenter's apprentice, completely repaired. I paid $64 total. Great price, great service.

Yesterday during my trip to the shoe store, a young Indian man came up to me and said:

"Hello. Where are you from?"

"The U.S."

"And what is your name?"

"Meigan."

"I am Shankar from India."

"Hello Shankar from India."

People certainly are friendly here.
:)

Just call me Sasquatch...

I did a little shoe shopping today. I found a cute pair that I wanted to try and asked the overly-attentive salesman if I could try it on in a size 8. Here is our conversation:

"We don't have any of these in an 8", he said, shaking his head sadly and waving his hand toward the ENTIRE back half of the store. "The only kinds we have in your size are Hush Puppies or Dr. Scholls."

Ok, show me something like this pair in an 8."

First pair was unsuccessful.
"Ok, show me everything you have in a size 8." I think I tried on 4 different pairs of shoes. If I wore a size 5 or a 6, I would have been golden and could have had my pick of the entire store.

Oh well, I did buy one pair. I'll just have to check with the other expat ladies who have sasquatch feet like me, where to buy shoes.