Return to Udaipur
.. After 7 months of plying up and down the A1 for work, I have at last returned to Udaipur, and will recommence the blog. Flying out by Emirates from Newcastle to Mumbai . mercifully cuts out Heathrow but does ruin any chance of sleep by landing in Dubai at midnight and boarding a 4 am onward flight. Dubai airport is more of a cosmopolitan 24-hour shopping mall than an airport, and the flashy shops where the nouveau riche and nouveau riche wannabees , browse for bling and fashionable are a depressing reminder of how shallow and materialistic the world is becoming. I had been warned that leaving a 3 hour transfer time at Mumbai airport was cutting it fine , and so it proved. An hour to clear the depressing immigration queue, where grumpy clerks “welcome” you to India with a suspicious look, another hour to get through to the transfer bus and be transferred to the domestic terminal, where other major world airports . might have special trains, monorails etc Mumbai deems a half-hourly coach sufficient for the task. By the time I had managed to work out the departure gate ( helpfully excluded from the display) I walked straight through to the plane. Perfect timing as it turned out but more than a little stressful at the time .
I am staying in one of the flats in the NMM campus . Working out which parts of the plumbing leak , how to make the toilet flush , and improvise for the lack of a geyser with kettle and bucket were the first challenges . The campus itself is eerily quiet as most people are away at Navapur, and there is no 5 am bell !! ,but of course there is the constant tooting of horns, howling dogs, prayer calls from the local mosque etc to keep one entertained and make sleeping an interesting challenge.
Obtaining a SIM card and an internet dongle proved even more challenging. An 1 1/2 of an officious clerk inspecting my signature on copies of passport , visa and driving licence , whilst Debidutta patiently tried to give references for me. The paan-wallah who sold the SIM card was more accommodating , but then had to summon us to sign a form in a slightly different way.
Despite the frustrations which will be familiar to any India traveller , it is good to be back. Working on the financial projections for the microfinance scheme, it is really encouraging to see the potential for growth. This year’s pilots have gone well and there is more funding available than we projected last year, so I am feeling very positive about the potential for the company
( see the I-connect blog tab opposite for more about the microfinance scheme)
