Meet the Characters from the Stories in Before the Kids and Mortgage, Part 2 of 3

My book Before the Kids and Mortgage is an uncommon and inspiring memoir. 

If you like humorous interactions, whirlwind tours, and eye-opening revelations, then you’ll love my extraordinary trek.

As I travelled the world with my wife Odelia, we met all kinds of characters. 

Read my past blog posts about how we met Freddie the Belgian, Michael the Boss, and Muhammad of India.

Here’s the story of Noshad, our driver in the Indian Himalayas

We had a near-death experience in the Indian Himalayas. 

We drove from Leh in Ladakh to Manali in India and hired an Indian driver named Noshad.  

People told us it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but also a nerve wracking and breathtaking trip.  

Experiencing the trip was much different than hearing about it.

The road is unpaved, treacherous, and extremely dangerous.  

And so it takes 2 days to complete this nail-biting journey.

Noshad drives as if it were a European off-road rally.

And by the end of it, we needed a week of relaxation to calm our nerves. 

Here’s the story of Mustafa

In Singapore, one of the most expensive cities in the world, we ended up staying in a run-down, slated for demolition “hotel.” 

We had a long way to go on our trip and were looking for a budget hotel.

The guests at the “hotel” were pretty much only foreign nationals that were working all kinds of low-paying jobs.  

And there were no pre-assigned rooms or beds, we had to walk around and find an empty room to claim it for our stay.  

We realized quickly that each floor was “reserved” to specific nationalities (Indian, Thai, Iranian, etc).

The one person that could “rule them all” was a local by the name of Mustafa. 

Mustafa was the person that managed everything at the “hotel.”

Mustafa had the magic touch and could solve all disputes.  

In preparation for a government inspection of the “hotel,” Mustafa recruited a small group other “hotel” guests to help with a clean-up.

During the clean-up effort, we found some counterfeit Rolex watches.  Mustafa hatched a plan avoid any altercations with the Iranians who were running an illegal shop within the building. 

The plan was that we all had to agree to NOT talk about the Rolex watches at all to anyone!

We didn’t say a word about the Rolex watches for the rest of our stay.

Read about all the places we visited and the amazing people we met in my book Before the Kids and Mortgage, available here on Amazon.