India - Day 0

My first encounter with a prehistoric animal. This thing was 3” long and about 1.5” thick and scared the fucking shit out of me. Not the most pleasant thing to see when sitting on the john with pants around your ankles....

Friday

Kunal picked me up at BOM, Mumbai International Airport. Although I arrived at 9, I wasnt able to pick up my luggage until around 10:30 because there were about 4 or 5 airport employees sifting through the airplane, looking for the red tagged “priority luggage” for the first class flyers. Not very efficient, as it took them an hour to finish finding all the pieces, but thoughtful nonetheless...

Also, the first gust of wind that hit me as I left the plane felt like someone opened the door to a sauna. Ive been constantly sticky ever since.

Afterwards, Kunal got me a nice beef burger and a Kingfisher Blue at the massive Marriot hotel, one of the few places in Bombay where you can find beef. It was delicious, topped with a latticework of bacon and a few slices of cheese. Just what I needed after being stuck in a 15 hour flight that had at least one 5 year old sitting in every damn row.

There were a few smaller well to do Indian families celebrating birthdays and middle school graduations, a few Indian businessmen speaking in English accents with the odd Hindi word thrown in, a posh young couple on a date, and some floozy looking hotties sitting at the bar waiting for the hotel club to open. 

We then drove to my apartment in Vile Parle West, which is just down the street from where Kunal lives with his family. They are moving into this apartment once its fully renovated. Although its kind of dirty and damp at the moment, its pretty nice. The apartment is huge and made very richly (the ENTIRE bathroom is marble, as well as all the floors), and it has tons of built in storage.

Here is the living room:

Here is the enormous kitchen:

This is the dining room (with my sustenances!):

My room (note the lightswitches, each one controls a light, fan, or outlet, and theres even one by my bed that rings a buzzer in the kitchen! And every room has at least 10 switches in it.):

The marble bathroom:

Unfortunately the shower doesnt work, so I need to use the pail. Luckily theres hot water. 

This is also where I encountered that beast of a cockroach. I was looking for TP under the sink and saw what I thought was a random pine needle wedged in a crack or something (I realize now how ridiculous a thought that was), and when I touched it, it actually turned out to be a 2” long feeler and the roach scurried away deeper under the sink. I yelped, slammed the cupboard doors shut and got the hell out of there! 

However, I soon realized that I couldnt fall asleep with this fucking thing in the same house as me, so I went back, armed with a camera and shoe, and chased it like it was a chicken (It was using its wings to jump around) until I finally smashed it. 

I wanted to cry.