India - Friday

Made it here after flight up from Bangalore.
Hotel said they had no rooms for us as the Manger had apparantly miss read our boking letter. This caused a bit of a fuss !! as he was a serious "jobsworth" who came very close to getting a smacking. However he gave us all double rooms at single rates, so my room is about 40 feet long - just a bit OTT.
Have heard that he wants to move us later on - but only if he can find us.

We were then collected and taken to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, which sounds a bit posh, in reality, pleasant as it was it was a bit dated and folks there seem to revel in living in the past - however, putting it in context with the place it is certainly a haven to retreat from the constant hurly burly. Napkins were distributed only after a couple of the company had spilt food down their shirts ! and the cutlery lay out was incorrect ! ( just a casual observation)

The roads are a nightmare, just dug up all over, left lying, and makes Edinburgh look brilliant. Cars double and treble park, stop anywhere, etc.

The electric train runs with bodies in and on it, last week four youths were killed when sitting on the roof and as the train ran from one power source to another they were blown up in the air and "fried".

Late last night, or 1 a.m. I was outside the hotel, and within a radius of about 30 yards from the front gate there were at least 20 people sleeping on the pavements. Across the road was a family of four with a new baby, they eat, cook and sleep under the tree. The luckier ones round the corner beside the railway line have pieces of tarpaulin to make their houses. Every so often the Police come along and pull down their huts , but they just pick up the bits and build them somewhere else.
At the Yacht Club, the off duty staff were sleeping in the car park at the back yard, while round the corner the biggest Hotel was going like a funfare with the rich and pretentious just totally ignoring what was going on. BUT if you did take it to heart you could not get by !!1

Another long day ahead of us, out in the town, all day then collected at 4.30 p.m. for the "big" meeting and another dinner. Seems that we will all be taking an active part in the installation.

Breakfast time now.