Gadgets, gear and mobile phone service you will not believe.

Let’s start with gadgets I wish I had with me. I wish I had my condenser microphone, my phantom power supply, and my trrs adapter with me. I have a side business where I live stream Yoga classes. I left that stuff at home because WireCast, the live stream software I use, has an app for an iPhone now. We tested it before we left and it worked fine using the built in iPhone mic. You know here this is going right? India is wicked noisy. Like really noisy. Mostly horns and people yelling. So when we tried to live stream our first class not only did we have issues with wifi, power (220 vs 110), voltage converters, batteries, etc. but you couldn’t hear the audio clearly. No problem right? Just go buy a new condenser mic to work with an iPhone. Problem is the closest decent condenser mic and adapter is a 7 hour drive each way. I tried to order it online several times but they only take Indian issued credit cards. I tried to buy it on Amazon but it’s weeks and weeks to get it here  because it’s actually shipped from the U.S. So we’ll be back in New Delhi on 12/19 and hope to get the new mic and adapter then. Stay tuned.

Other gadgets we’re glad we brought are the Steripen, a water purifier. This is a cool UV treatment is proven to be safe and effective, eliminating over 99.9% of bacteria, viruses and protozoa that cause water-borne illness. That’s good enough for me. Heck 95% would be OK. We’ve taken water we would not normally drink and used this thingy. In fact the first week we were here I even used it on bottled water. Just to be certain. It gives me peace of mind.

Other gadgets that we love are the plugs, chargers, and powers strips. We have two 220V plugs that have a USB port. This eliminates the need for a voltage converter or as they say in Hindi voltata kanvatar. This can charge our 4, yes 4, mobile phones along with our personal hotspot, and our backup battery. More on the phones and the personal wifi later. We brought a power strip from the U.S. with us on the trip. Plug this into the voltage converter and you can recharge a lot of things from home. We use this less and less because we found out that MacBooks can run on 100 or 220. Did you know that? So we bought an adapter, not a converter, for $1.50. One of the reasons I love this place is that it’s really a bargain. We looked at a HUGE 2 BR 2 bath apartment last week. $390 a month. Go figure.

OK, OK, the phones. We kept our U.S. phone numbers and switched over to Republic Wireless. Republic is not for everyone. It’s for cheapskates like me. The have an app that allows you to make phones calls while on wifi. We bought 2 Motorola phones from republic and off we go. We figured we’ll have wifi occasionally while travelling so we’ll call and text people and vice versa. We were paying $140 a month to Verizon. Republic is $30. (That’s $1320 saved or 6 months of rent at the place we’re currently staying. And yes it has a regular toilet, a shower and a king sized bed.) Granted we can’t make calls anytime we want and it doesn’t work 100% of the time. But remember I’m a 95% kind of guy. So it’s fine. We’ve texted, called and video chatted with friends and family on a regular basis.

Now onto our Indian phones. We took our Verizon phones and brought them with us. We bought Indian SIM cards for them. Total cost $22.50. That includes 1 GB of data for each phone per day for approx. 2 months. I’m not kidding. We added texting to both phones. That was extra. In order to add texting you go to some hole-in-the-wall place and someone dials a number, types your phone number into their phone (they are the dealer) and they press in a code. You pay them 54 cents and you’ve got a month of texting. Again I’m not kidding. The phones also work well as a personal hotspot so we’ve been using them as our wifi. We do have an additional wifi hotspot that has 1GB per day for 2 months. That was quite a bit more money. Almost $6 for the 2 months. So total for 4 phones, 1 personal hotspot, 180 GB of data for 2 months somewhere around $60. There are some queer side notes. Everyday the Indian phone company robocalls calls us and tries to offer us a “deal”, in Hindi no less. Plus every time I send a text to one of my Indian friends I get a text back telling me how many text I’ve sent, how many I have left, and do I want some incredible deals for another 67 cents or something.

I’ll leave you with this unbelievable story about customer service at Raj Musicals in New Delhi. I called them about the condenser mic and adapter. I couldn’t get through. A woman called me back just minutes later to follow up.  I was surprised because the call never went through and I didn’t leave a message. She spoke in Hindi until I asked to speak to someone who spoke english. Without missing a beat she switched to English and helped me figure out what I needed and how to do it and what they had in stock. She informed me I needed to order online. The next day when my order would not go through because I don’t have an India credit card (yet) she called back to follow up, explain why the order didn’t go through, and try to help find a way to fix things. This sounds similar to mobile phone and cable TV customer service in the U.S. right?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist 🙂