4:50 A.M Dartmoor
Good Morning to you blog reader, its a bit early, I've been up since 3:30, I had to phone India to arrange the pick-up from the airport on Monday morning. Sometimes, even now it amazes me how easy it is to call someone on their mobile in India from here right on the edge of Dartmoor. Billions of pounds worth of technology, satellites, fiber optic cables instantaneously sending lots of ones and zeros at near the speed of light just to book a car for a 30 minute ride. It usually takes longer to get through to Oke Taxis to pick us up from the pub.
Before my birthday ramblings I had left our story with me on the beach last April listening to the Clash.
As I've got some time to kill before out neighbor takes us to catch the train I thought I'd try to bring things back up to date. i.e. the last 5 months in a single blog. Brace yourself... its going to be quick. A sort of readers digest version. It can be done e.g Hamlet in 14 words. Danish Prince deals with his uncle killing his dad and shacking up with his mom. (For full story with songs watch the Lion King). So here we go...
Kovalam Beach April 2013
Cutting our cloth
Firstly we added up the amount we spent getting to work. In our case 2 x 3.5 liter petrol V6 cars doing 300 miles per week each (OK i know this was a stupid waste of money but we loved them and at the time could just about afford to do it - lets just say they were our mid-life crisis indulgence), add in tax insurance etc. Then add all monthly credit card debt, inc the car loans. The kids were working, coming up to the last year at uni and due to start work in September and mid uni with 2 years to go respectively. There were other bits and bobs but by my calculations and once all the recurrent costs were removed i was actually working for £100 p.c.m (less than 1 random wander round Waitrose or 1/3 the cost of keeping me in cigarettes). Total and utter madness, both the waste and the still smoking at 51.
There were some things we would need to do to make life livable but mostly they were things we had talked about for years. 1) get the house fully insulated - we were literally as well as metaphorically burning money. e.g Replace the large single glazed windows with tripples as they currently bled heat out onto the moor. 2) swap the cars for a nearly new sensible hatch back, balance paid off from lump sum (Decided to share a Datsun Kumquat and have two bikes). 3) Sell the children on Ebay - we had to abandon this one as they didn't reach their reserve price.
The best bit was discovering we could still keep our house on the edge of the moor and move to India for the winter. You don't believe me? OK it breaks down like this, cost of LPG during the winter months £250 for 4 cylinders x 5 months = £1250, cost of renting a 2 bed villa in Kovalam £240 pcm. And then there's food, e.g. cost of a lunch in the uk, 1 Sandwich, a drink, bag of crisps £3 (meal deal), cost of a fish thali (Rice, veg/lentil curry, piece of fish, pickles) 80 p. Bottle of beer Kingfisher UK supermarket price £2, in Kerala 80p Of course you need to get there first but take out the cost of random breaks and holidays, time needed to recover from the time spent working. (last year >£3,000) and the flight cost disappears.
In fact living the dream and having time for us should be cheaper than working. I hate management speak with a vengeance but this really was a no-brainer.
Loosing friends
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| Fern, Hector & Maddie with Montie and Archie, it had been a busy day |
Renting a home
By the end of the first week in Kovalam an opportunity came up to trial our dream before we made the final decision. We had told Chris one of our Indian friends we were thinking about renting a house for the winter and as usual Chris came up trumps. we were going for lunch at his place, it was his youngest daughter's birthday and we had an old laptop which was no longer fast or big enough to hold our lives on. Photos, music, films etc so we had decided to give it to Chris to give to her. In typical Chris style he insisted it should come from us and we should pop over to give it to her. That morning he had arranged for Ravi our tuk-tuk driver to pick us up to take us there. We had a few sweets and chocolates for Jodie and Grishma, Chris's wife and elder daughter and were sitting ready to go. We piled into the tuk-tuk and headed off up the hill. Ravi then took a sharp right and parked up, Chris had arranged with him to take us to an apartment to look at with a view to renting it that winter. It was fine, compact but fully air-conditioned, 3 mins from the beach and they wanted £280 pcm for it, it would do nicely but Chris hadn't finished. we jumped back into Ravi's little tuk-tuk and off we went again.
This time we went a little further back, we had no idea where we were, as it turned out we were just an 800 meter walk from the beach but no longer in foreign tourist land. This was where the middle class folk from Mumbai and Delhi had their second homes. It was on a small back road, tarmacked but one lane, surrounded by coconut trees and banana plants, there was a small brightly painted kindergarten across the road. The house was a green walled villa, two stories high and very Keralan with its pitched terracotta roof. The lower floor was a self contained flat, obviously at some point it had been the servant's quarters, the upper floor apartment was reached by a wide staircase up to a large covered balcony veranda about three times the size of our lounge at home. In the corner a wicker hanging basket chair swayed in the gentle breeze to complete the picture a 1 meter crystal chandelier hung over the front door.
Chris opened the door, inside opened up to an "L" shaped double aspect lounge with views out over the road and off up the hill. the place wasn't air conditioned but a ceramic tiled floor, double and at some points triple height ceiling, with two massive fans made the place feel cool and airy even though this was mid day. to the left behind a curtain covered arch was a 5 x 3 meter dining room with a large family dining table and chairs and off that a large kitchen with fridge, gas burners sink and granite worktops. All the walls except the one with the window which looked out over the outside staircase up to the roof, were hung with large dark wood cupboards. Just off the kitchen there was a utility/drying room with a washing machine. We walked back into the lounge and from there into the two bedrooms both large with plenty of cupboard space and en-suite loos and showers.
This was cruel, it felt like Jim Bowen had popped up and done his "this is what you could have won!!!" routine. The owner had arrived, apparently Chris's uncle, i'm not sure if this was an actual blood relative or not. I may need to explain here, uncle is a variable term in india, as is auntie, its a sign of respect and is used all the time. In India I have more aunties, uncles, brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces than i do here. He had come to give us the once over and through Chris explained how the place had only just become vacant as a Latvian lady had rented it for the previous 8 weeks. She had been difficult and on leaving had taken all the linen with her. It had cost her, 90,000 rupees for the two months about £450 pcm at today's exchange rate, about £500 at the time.
I knew it, we couldn't afford this one... Chris saw my face fall, he grinned and turned to his Uncle.
"Of course Uncle, you didn't get that much did you not with booking and agents fees and cleaning ?"
Uncle wobbled his head... we were about to play the game
"And Uncle these people are my friends and want to rent for 5 months not 8 weeks, And... they won't be steeling your sheets"
Again the head wobbled.
There is no such thing as a fixed price in India, except in some department stores but even then i'm not so sure.
The Game.
Indians love to negotiate and Chris is a master of the haggle. Respect, disbelief, smiles, frowns, anger, humor all play a part in this game. The first thing i learnt is its not about winning or losing, its about reaching a price both parties can feel they are happy with. Chris may have started the game but I had to play this time, this was his uncle and it wasn't fair to ask Chris to go head to head. I knew he would step in if i was going to get fleeced but it was up to me. I came in at 18,000 rupees pcm pointing out there was no air-con, he came back at 30,000 saying he was going to put it in this year anyway, i went up to 20,000 saying i didn't need air-con and pointed out that the area was prone to drought and the well might dry-up, He said he was going to dig a new well anyway and moved to 25,000. I said I'd let him know in a day or so.
We went on to see an even bigger house, again just a little further back, 4 bedrooms this time and in need of a good clean but massive - £160 pcm. The decider was the fact it would have been a tuk-tuk ride to the beach, Ravi was keen on this one for some reason, maybe next year.
We then went on to Chris's for Anna's Birthday lunch and Jodie's wonderful home-cooked Keralan food.
Despite the higher price we had fallen in love with our little green house and gave Chris the news, so he rang his Uncle and said we were interested. We now had a house for the winter, and better yet as it was empty we got to "try before we bought" and moved in the next day staying there for the rest of the holiday. We met Uncle, shook on it and signed the agreement on the last day of our trip.
The five months between then and now have been a whirlwind of emotions and things to do, Sarah handing in her notice, seeing relatives and friends, saying goodbye to the dogs, beginning to move at a different pace.
So in short.
Sold cars, gave up-job, re-homed dogs, packed, moved to India for the winter. (14 words) As yet no Disney movie alternative.
7: 30 BST - Noon in India - Time for coffee and see you in Kovalam.
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| Not for us, not this year anyway.... |
Kevin
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