India Trip (Part 2)

In part 1 of my India trip report I kind of jumped right in with the air travel and the day-to-day itinerary. I want to start part 2 with some more broad observations about India and how it differs from life here in the U.S. of A.  The most striking difference is of course the vast difference between the haves and the have nots. The caste system is very much alive and well in India.  Service workers are definitely treated as servants and not equals by their Indian customers.  I witnessed several instances where Indian restaurant patrons very sternly scolded a server for a mistake or perceived slight. Our Indian counterparts also chastised us for tipping a little too generously for their taste too.  They said the norm there is to tip 10 percent at the very most.

There were also the very poor neighborhoods you would expect to see where people have constructed homes with whatever materials were available to them.  This was far more evident during our very short stay in Mumbai than in Pune, but it was still present.  As you traveled through the city it wasn't at all unusual to see a fairly modern building next to an empty lot filled with garbage.  There were also stray dogs everywhere.  They were just part of the landscape, but it was weird how the people and dogs never interacted with each other.  The dogs ignored the people just as much as the people ignored the dogs.

I also saw cows just wandering free on two different occasions. Once there was a group of three of them ambling down the street in the wrong direction while traffic just went around them.  Another time they were all grazing in the grass just outside of a tennis court that looked like it was part of some kind of sports club.  A co-worker saw two camels being led down the street one morning.  On a different morning we spotted somebody leading a herd of about 20-25 sheep down the side of the road in rush hour traffic.

And the traffic...that's a whole other subject.  Where we were, the mix of vehicles was about 35 percent cars and small trucks and 65 percent motorcycles and scooters. Except in the busiest of traffic the signals, signs, and road markings were mere suggestions.  Two lane roads were usually treated like they were 3, 4 or 5 lane roads.  They would fill every available space at an intersection while waiting for a light to change.  The 2-wheeled vehicles went wherever they wanted. They traveled between cars, on the sidewalk, through small openings in the medians, and even crossed to the wrong side of the road traveling against heavy opposing traffic. I also saw a few instances where there were 4 or even 5 passengers on one motorcycle. There would be a toddler sitting in the very front, dad driving, another small child behind him, and a mom riding side saddle holding an infant...none of them wearing helmets.

All vehicles on the road honk almost constantly, but unlike here it isn't usually angry honking.  They honk as a form of communication to say "I'm going to pass you" or "I'm next to you, so please don't change lanes and obliterate me" or to indicate to a pedestrian that they were not going to stop for them.  Since they are a former British colony they drive on the left which caused some comedy when my co-worker accidentally started to get into the driver's seat when we were being picked up after work one evening.  Here is a picture from outside the mall I mentioned in part 1 that shows the traffic.  I'm not sure why, but there is an over abundance of cars in this shot.

Lastly they are crazy for cricket there in India. It was on the TV every single time I entered the break room at work and there were at least 4 to 5 channels showing it each night when I got back to the hotel. I got one of the locals to explain the rules to me and I now have a pretty good understanding of how the scoring works and the format of the games.  I actually found myself enjoying the games and it was something with which to connect with my Indian co-workers.

The last day I reported on was Tuesday when we went to the Hindu temple. On Wednesday the jet lag and work was catching up with us, so we slept in and grabbed lunch at the hotel and went into work. I just realized I never really mentioned our work schedule. The group of people we were meeting with and training work a schedule that matches up with the regular day shift back here in the states.  Since there is a 10.5 hour time difference this means they work a 5:30 PM to 2:30 AM shift.  We typically worked 3:00 PM to about 2:00 AM each day.

On Thursday we went back to MG Road for more shopping because one of our group realized they needed to buy a couple more items for friends back home. We then grabbed lunch at TGI Fridays in the mall near the office before heading into work. Here is a shot of the view from the Fridays patio and a picture of the "scarf guy" that I found in my collection of shots.

On Friday we went bowling in the mall before grabbing lunch at Chili's.  We ate at a lot of American places at the behest of my co-workers who didn't have the most adventurous palettes.  If I had my way we would have eaten a little more local cuisine and gotten a little more spice in our diet.  Here is a shot of the lanes where we bowled.  It was a bowling alley and karaoke club all in one.  We stuck to bowling though.

As we made our way up to the Chili's from the bowling alley there was a large crowd gathered that all seemed to be standing back and looking at something in one of the stores. At first we thought maybe there had been a shoplifting incident or some other kind of problem, but it turned out the large crowd was checking out the cricket team from Kolkata that was making an appearance at the store.

We worked a slightly shorter day on Friday in order to have a few hours back at the hotel to clean up and pack prior to our very early flight on Saturday morning.  The flight departed at 5:25 AM which required getting to the airport to clear the multiple levels of security at the Pune airport.  The extra security didn't make me feel much safer since it was mostly for show and almost all of the measures could have been easily defeated by somebody with a desire to do so.  I really think the point is that personnel is cheaper there, so they hire more people and add extra levels of checks just to justify having more people. I had to show my passport and itinerary just to gain access to the airport and then showed my papers to not fewer than 12 people before finally boarding the plane...and this is a pretty tiny airport.

There was increased security everywhere you went. You had to go through a metal detector and possibly send your bags through a metal detector to enter most malls and large public buildings.  When our cars would return to the hotel at night they would roll a large mirror under the vehicle, check the engine compartment, check the trunk, and swab the steering wheel with a cloth that detected explosive material. (I shared a car and driver with one of my female co-workers and every night when the guard would reach into the car to swab the steering wheel he would greet me and ignore her. Just another cultural thing I guess.) My Indian co-workers were amazed when I told them that I could saunter into any mall without as much as a pat down. They were under the impression that the U.S. was much more secure.

On the way home we spent the night in Frankfurt, Germany. We stayed at the Sheraton that was attached to the airport and four of the six people in our party decided to just eat at a restaurant in the airport.  I talked another co-worker into braving the train system to go into the city for dinner. I withdrew 50 euros for the express purpose of indulging in a few German beers, but discovered at dinner that my co-worker doesn't drink.  Like at all.  Ever.  So I got one very delicious German hefeweizen with a head so thick it was like whipped cream with dinner and that was it.  Here are two shots I took while we were in Frankfurt.

I got a good night's sleep in Frankfurt and then forced myself to not nap on the flight from there to Chicago to ensure I wouldn't have any problems sleeping Sunday night.  I went to bed around 8:15 PM Sunday night and made it to work early Monday morning and suffered pretty much no ill effects from jet lag.  I think it made a big difference that I was maintaining essentially the same work schedule as home while in India.

Sorry this was so long.  I probably could/should have split it into three parts. If you lasted this long, thank you for playing along.

India Trip Report (Part 1)

I've got a lot to share, so I'm going to divide it into a couple of posts just so this doesn't turn into an epic RobVegasPoker style post. (I figured he wouldn't mind the ribbing as long as I gave him a reference link.) Just returned from India and wanted to share some anecdotes, insights, and observations.  It was a long and eventful journey to reach India.  I was initially scheduled to leave on April 9th, but some of you may recall that was the day there were some pretty serious storms in the Chicago area that spawned at least one deadly tornado.  Since our initial flight was from Des Moines to Chicago we had to reschedule until the next day.  Work didn't come into play until Monday, April 13, so that delay just cut one free day off our trip.

It also altered our travel itinerary.  The initial plan was to fly from Des Moines to Chicago, Chicago to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Pune, India.  Since the Frankfurt to Pune flight only runs three times a week we had to find a different option.  We finally settled on Des Moines to Chicago, Chicago to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Mumbai, and Mumbai to Pune. That added about 4-5 more hours to the travel, but hell what are 4 hours when you've already been traveling for 30+ hours?

I was booked in business class for the entire flight, but due to rescheduling had to fly economy on the Des Moines-Chicago and Mumbai-Pune legs.  Neither of those flights are very long, so I sucked it up and took one for the team.  It was so much nicer in business class for those longer flights.  I didn't drink all that much, but it sure is nice to be pampered.  I snapped a few photos of the food and drink options on the first long flight. 

Warm nuts and a very stiff bloody mary.

Braised short rib and a Chilean shiraz

Salmon appetizer with fresh green salad and German riesling.

First here is a look at the amount of leg room I had in my seat.  The flight was on a Boeing 777 and I had what seemed like acres of space.  The seat reclined fully and had a leg rest that elevated.  You could lay the seat completely flat, but I didn't dare or nobody in my section would have gotten any sleep thanks to my snoring.  This flight also had a really great selection of recent movies and hit TV shows.  On the way I watched Big Hero 6, Birdman, and Whiplash.

Dessert was a simple ice cream sundae.  I didn't remember to snap a picture of it before I dug in, but it was nothing unexpected in either flavor or presentation.

The second long leg was a Lufthansa flight on an older Boeing 747.  The seats were way better than any economy seat, but after flying on that more modern 777 the day before they were a disappointment.  They didn't lie all the way flat and if you reclined it as far as it would go it felt like it was trying to dump you onto the floor.  I didn't take any photos of the food this go around, but the courses were a seafood appetizer, leg of lamb main course, and a pass from me on dessert.  The movie selection on this flight was also lots worse than the earlier one.

We arrived in Mumbai at about 12:45 AM local time.  The others in my group that have been to the Mumbai airport in the middle of the day said it was much more bearable in the wee hours of the morning.  I wanted to snap a picture of the massive immigration area, but was afraid they might not take kindly to me snapping photos. Four of our group of seven had cleared immigration when it became apparent that something was up. One of the other guys in our group appeared to be having a fairly animated discussion with the Indian immigration official.  They called the other two from our party that were in line to the counter and they got in on the hand waving and passport pointing. 

I won't go into details as to why, because I don't honestly know all of the particulars, but suffice it to say that one of our party wasn't allowed to enter India and was put right back on the very same Lufthansa airliner we had just exited for a return trip to Germany and eventually the USA.  I can't imagine doing that trip both directions over the course of 3-4 days.

We finally made it (down a person) to Pune at about 5:00 AM Sunday morning.  We checked into the Hyatt Regency and made our way to our rooms.  Here are a few shots of the room:

I took a shower (using great care to keep the water from getting into my mouth) and after 36 hours traveling it was heavenly.  If I wasn't terrified of the bacteria in the water I would have stood there for 20 minutes. After getting connected to the hotel WiFi and chatting via text with my family for a little while I hit the sack and slept like the dead until about noon.

After waking we went to lunch at a local micro-brewery called Independence Brewing.  We got a quick tour of their brewery and, believe it or not, they make beer exactly the same way we do in the USA.  Here is a shot of the brewery.

After a lunch of chicken chendatta and 3 of their house beers we headed down to MG (Mahatma Gandhi) Road to do some shopping for souvenirs for our families.  We went to a couple of shops that specialize in Indian knick knacks called The Bombey Store and Heritage. The proprietor of Heritage spotted me as a sucker and talked me into going into the room where all of the scarves and high end cashmere pashminas were displayed and sold. He showed me several items and there were a couple in particular that I thought my wife might like, but others from our group had told me about this amazing scarf shop we would be going to later.  I convinced the shop owner that I wanted to comparison shop and would return.  He dropped the price several times, but I held out.

After that we went around the corner to a local grocery store so one of the girls in our group could purchase some local tea for her dad. It was very interesting to see the difference in products and selection at a grocery there as compared to here. We then made our way to the local Nike store so I could by team India cricket jerseys for both of my boys. They are big sports fans and are more into soccer, but I wanted to get them something that had more of a local Indian flavor. The two girls that had been to India before wanted us all to experience what they referred to as "the scarf guy," but unfortunately his shop was closed on Sunday. (I later found out the scarf shop in question was called Guru Nanak's Cloth Store.)

After that we went over to the modern mall in town called the Phoenix Mall.  It was pretty much identical to any mall in the USA with a few exceptions among the stores.  Stores I saw that were familiar were Apple, Sunglass Hut, Forever 21, Sephora, Bose, JBL, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Papa Johns, , and McDonalds. (The only difference is that all of the beef options are replaced with chicken and veggie options and anything that would normally be beef is actually water buffalo.)

After that we went back to the hotel to rest and clean up for dinner that night.  Dinner was at a place called Exotica. It was on the top floor of an office building and was sort of indoor-outdoor.  The restaurant was indoors, but there were screens they could roll up to let the breeze in.  Here is a picture overlooking the road below over the balcony.

It was a package deal that included an all-you-can-eat buffet with unlimited beer or wine.  A dinner like this in India is a very social and relaxed affair. There is no hurry to eat and leave. We probably ate appetizers and sipped drinks for a good 80 minutes before somebody finally suggested we go get main courses off the buffet.  I honestly didn't know there was going to be a buffet and thought the many appetizers we ate was all we were going to have and would have been satisfied with that.

There were a lot of Indian options on the buffet, but everyone in my group from the USA except me opted for the made to order pasta so they could control their Indian spice intake...chickens.  I went through the buffet line with an Indian co-worker and he told me what each option was before recommending whether or not I try the dish.  The only surprise I had was that the lamb in the lamb biryani was not boneless (discovered only after I shoved a rather large hunk of very bony lamb in my mouth).

The next day we went back to MG Road to visit "the scarf guy" and to pick up some items in the Indian souvenir shops that we missed getting the day before.  The scarf guy didn't disappoint. He was super personable and funny and just bombarded you with options.  There were so many scarves of different colors and qualities there that it made your head spin.  We all purchased an item or two and afterwards there were probably two or three hundred scarves and other clothing items strewn on the pillow they sell from.

After scarf shopping we went to the Hard Rock Cafe to get lunch.  The menu was pretty much the same as any other Hard Rock except once again the burgers would be water buffalo instead of beef. We then headed in for our first day of work.  I won't bore you with the details of training and dealing with the information security department.

Tuesday we went to a Hindu temple just as their pre-lunch ceremony began. You couldn't wear footwear into the temple, so the most exciting part of the excursion was the walk from the window where you had to leave your shoes and socks to the gate of the temple. The sidewalk and street were HOT.  Not like "Oh this is kind of warm" hot, but like, "If I don't get off this pavement in the next ten seconds I'll need skin grafts on the bottoms of my feet" hot. 

We arrived just as the ceremony was beginning which was signaled by the monk blowing a very loud blast on a conch shell.  Then there was about 15-20 minutes of singing and chanting while the monk waved various items first at the idols then at the worshipers. Two of the items were a bowl of I think burning incense and what I can only describe as a tiny menorah of incense. These were walked through the group of worshipers. I was busy paying attention to what the monk at the front of the room was doing, so I didn't see what was happening with the burning items behind me, so when the gentleman approached me with the bowl of burning incense and offered it to me I froze. I had no clue what I was supposed to do.  Luckily our host from Pune mimed for me that I was supposed to kind of collect some of the heat and aroma and sweep it over my face and head.  After they walked away he explained that it is a blessing...a collecting of positive energy if you will.

A short time later one of the parishioners at the back of the room urged us to move closer to the front to receive another blessing. The monk at the front started throwing what appeared to me to be handfuls of rice or some other grain at the worshipers. He was slowly working his way across the room from right to left.  I was the first of our group to be in the line of fire, so to speak, and didn't realize it wasn't rice until the drops of water hit me square in the face. I was positively douched with that scary bacteria laden Indian water.  Oh well...at least none of it got in my mouth.  As the ceremony drew to an end an adorable little Indian girl walked up to us with a handful of flowers and flower petals the monk had given her to pass out.  We each took one and the man with her (her dad I assume) mimed for us that we were to smell the flowers.  After that our guide told us that we were to leave the flowers at the foot of the idol in the back of the temple. 

Here are a couple of pictures I snapped of the interior of the temple.

Our friend told us that they undress and bathe the idols and change the clothes every day to a different colorful outfit. I didn't understand the meaning behind all of the rituals, but have to say I was moved by the fervor of the believers who were in attendance. They were singing and dancing and lying prostrate and generally just really getting into the whole ceremony. 

After the temple visit we headed over to a local restaurant called Prem's.  We shared a lunch of tandoori chicken, butter chicken, chicken biryani, prawns piri piri, some kind of kabob, and the most delicious garlic and cheese naan (Indian flat bread) I've ever had.  I would go back just to feast on the bread alone, but everything we were served was delicious.  It is an outdoor dining room covered by trees and these balloon and umbrella like awnings.  They also have misters spread around the dining area in case it is overly hot.  This day it was the perfect temperature for an outdoor meal in the shade, so the misters really weren't needed, but they fired them off once I think just to show off a little. Since we reacted to the misters they fired them off 4 or 5 more times I guess to kind of put on a show for the American visitors.  The only problem is that we had to assume they were now coating all of our utensils, cups, and food with more scary Indian water.  Here is a picture I took of the dining area at Prem's.showing the offending misters.

I'm going to leave it there for now and will do another post in a couple of days with more stories and pictures.

Indian Food Anyone?

I guess it's been long enough since I posted on this old thing.  I wish I was motivated to post more, but I just never am unless something big happens.  As it turns out something kind of big is happening tomorrow.  I'm leaving on a business trip that will take me halfway around the world. 

I'm leaving in the morning for a little over a week in Pune, India.  Pune is a city of about 4.5 million people in Southern India just southeast of Mumbai in Maharashtra Province.  I've heard the food there is spicy, but not as spicy as northern India with a little bit more sweetness thanks to their use of sorghum.

I'll be training a couple of people to provide IT support to our staff there in Pune.  We used to always fly them here for training but discovered that receiving training in the USA (no matter how lame or insignificant) made them so much more marketable that they almost always left for greener pastures soon afterwards.  So I get to go like 8,000 miles around the globe to train two people.  Training that would normally take 2-3 days.  Training that I now have to try to stretch to 5 days.  I guess we will go real slow and do a lot of review and repetition.

I was actually supposed to leave this morning, but my flight from Des Moines to Chicago was cancelled due to inclement weather in the windy city and we couldn't find an alternate that allowed us to make our international connections.  So I get to try again tomorrow morning to make the trip from Des Moines, to Chicago, to Frankfurt, to Mumbai, to Pune.  Leave at 8:00 AM CDT on Friday and arrive in Pune at 5:00 AM Sunday morning their time.  There is a 10.5 hour difference (yeah...ten and a half) so actual travel time in airplanes and waiting in airports is about 34-35 hours. FUN! 

At least my company was generous enough to book me in business class for the international legs of the flight, so I'll get a comfy seat that lays flat. (People sitting near me are going to have a long sleepless flight if I have a couple of adult beverages and start sawing logs in my lay flat seat.)

I'll be sure to come back here and post along with stories and pictures when I return in a couple of weeks. 

On the home front I have played a couple of sessions of poker at my home base casino, Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino.  Nothing all that exciting to report.  I had one  session where I got my money in good against a loose player with an overpair and he hit a two outer on the river to stack me. Another time I lost my stack flopping a full house and losing to a better full house on the turn.

My last session was an entertaining one, but I only left with a small profit of about $40.  When I arrived at the table there were two players with pretty big stacks for a $1-$2 no limit hold em game.  One was an elderly gentleman I had played with before and he was tight, but not nitty. The other was a guy I had never played with before, but he was very clearly drunk.  Like slurring and cursing drunk.  He was getting warned on about every other hand about his language by the dealers.  At first he was playing relatively conservatively, but then he decided he had a problem with a couple of the guys on my end of the table and started playing really loose.

If one of his villains from my end of the table entered a pot, when the action would get to him he would just pick up a random handful of red chips and splash it in the general area in front of his seat. It was usually about $40-$75 each time.  A lot of times he did this without ever looking at his cards first.  Then if people folded he would tell them what pussies they were and ask why they came to a casino if they didn't want to gamble.  At first the drunk was getting lucky and hitting weird two pairs or unexpected flushes, but eventually his luck started to turn.  It was pretty clear he was going to lose all of that money he had in front of him if we all just kept him happy and gambling. 

The old man to my left (different than the one with the big stack mentioned earlier) did not appreciate this style of play and started to loudly and aggressively tell the drunk how he felt. I started whispering under my breath to him to not tap the glass, but he didn't care.  Eventually drunk guy started to lose some significant hands and his stack that at one point had ballooned to almost $2,000 dropped back to just above $1,000.  The old man's needling, which didn't seem to bother him when he was winning, finally drove him from the table.  Myself and three others immediately cashed out and left.

I took a quick walk through the table games area before leaving and found drunk guy sitting at a $10 blackjack table betting $100 a hand.  Apparently he was determined to try to lose all of that money one way or another. 

See you back here in a couple of weeks.