A New Adventure - India!

Last Updated: July 25, 2005 1:30 AM India Standard Time (EDT + 9:30)
July 24, 2005 4:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Indian Flag

We're Home!

7/24 - Two updates.  First, I've added a link to the Gandhi house in Mumbai which I visited on June 26.  Also, I've been reading a book I picked up in Bangalore called "Shantaram", by Gregory David Roberts.  It's an autobiography of a man who escaped from prison in Australia and lived underground in Bombay for a decade.  He was a published author prior to his heroin problems and captures the essence of Mumbai in words much better than anything I have put together in these pages.  This link goes to a literary site that has some most excellent excerpts from his book, including a paragraph from Chapter 1 that covers Mumbai perfectly.  Check it out.   This is that paragraph: 

The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air. I could smell it before I saw or heard anything of India, even as I walked along the umbilical corridor that connected the plane to the airport. I was excited and delighted by it, in that first Bombay minute, escaped from prison and new to the wide world, but I didn’t and couldn’t recognize it. I know now that it’s the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it’s the smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It’s the smell of gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. It’s the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the Island City, and the blood-metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and loves that produce our courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and mosques, and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers.

7/6 - I did the final update on the trip, including our trip home on 6/29 and, due to popular demand, an additional special page called "Toilets".  Thanks to everyone who wrote us during the trip and said they enjoyed the story - it was a lot of fun to tell. 
6/30 - Got back yesterday on schedule.  Have not been feeling super since then so further updates will have to wait.  But we're home, and thankful for it!
6/28 - Final update from Bombay.  We're leaving late tonight.  See you soon - quack!
6/27 - Finished our final company review, we're now basically chilling out until our flight.  A few small updates of misc things on the day page. 
6/26 - A tour of Mumbai.  Two more things - I'm including a link to Rachel's blog here and at the bottom so you can see what the other half of your intrepid adventuring team has been saying.  Also, I've included a link to the statistics page for this site so you can see how the hits are working out and how many times people are watching the videos from work...  I also updated the June 18 page after figuring out what lake we went over in Turkey (Lake Van)
6/25 - Final day in Bangalore, trip to Mumbai.  Also updated the Money page.  More updates later after some sightseeing in Mumbai.  <cough>
6/24 - Updates from Bangalore.  Off to Mumbai tomorrow, our final stop on this trip.  See you from there.
6/23 - Updates for our trip to Chennai and a beachfront resort and the hop over to Bangalore.
6/21 - Got some more stories from the Hyderabad area, including close encounters with tut-tuts, buffalo, and your next customer service operator.
6/19 - We made it!  So far so good - the people have been great, the food has been spicy and "compatible" (you know what I mean) and we're more or less adjusted to the time zone change.  The first four pages have been updated.

A business trip is taking me and Rachel, my coworker, to four cities in India.  We're leaving Friday night from Hartford and will get to Hyderabad Sunday morning.  We'll post more at that point.  Wish us luck!

We will be visiting Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, and Mumbai (Bombay).  Here's a couple of maps to put this in perspective.  Maps and Flag courtesy the CIA.  Note that India is 9.5 Hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time and is all in one time zone.

World Time Zone Map

India

Page-A-Day (tm) Tandy Corp

Trip Day

Brief Description of Activities - Check each page for more detail!

Last Revised (in IST)
Friday, June 17
 Departure Day.  JFK to Frankfurt.
 06/20/05 11:45 AM
Saturday, June 18
 A noontime departure from Frankfurt to Hyderabad.
 06/26/05 11:13 PM
Sunday, June 19
 A very early arrival at Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad.  A very interesting tour of the city and some of its sights in the afternoon.  You want traffic?  We got traffic!
 06/20/05 11:45 AM
Monday, June 20
 Visit one of the companies we're assessing.  See some more of the city during the always-fun drive to work.
 06/20/05 8:55 PM
Tuesday, June 21
 Visit another company and drive around and around.  Please don't eat the buffalo.
 06/23/05 9:15 PM
Wednesday, June 22
 Morning flight from Hyderabad to Chennai on Jet Airways.  We're staying in an absolutely beautiful beachside resort hotel so we're really looking forward to this stop.
 06/23/05 9:15 PM
Thursday, June 23
 Visit the Chennai company and leave late afternoon for Bangalore. 06/23/05 9:15 PM
Friday, June 24
 Visit the Bangalore company and some leisure time. 06/24/05 7:15 PM
Saturday, June 25
 Visit another company (yes it's Saturday) and a late afternoon flight for Mumbai. First experiences <cough> of Mum <cough> bai.
 06/25/05 12:00 PM
Sunday, June 26
 A day at leisure.  Take a tour around this city of 18 Million and see some of its ancient history. 07/25/05 1:30 AM
Monday, June 27
 Our final company assessment, then get some sleep prior to our late night pickup.
 06/27/05 9:50 PM
Tuesday, June 28
 On our way home!  A 2:50 AM flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt.
 06/28/05 8:50 PM
Wed., June 29
 A 10:00 Am flight gets us into JFK at 12:25.  Should be home 4-ish.
 7/6/05 3:15 AM

Other Miscellaneous Pages:
Traffic
 Some highlights specific to travel by road.
 06/21/05 7:00 PM
Money
 What the money looks like, how it works.
 06/25/05 12:00 PM
Rachel's Blog
 See what she's been writing - the other half of the story
 Ongoing
Statistics Page
 The count, the Ks, the hits, the faves.
 Daily Automatic Updates
Toilets
 What everyone wants to know about Indian Toilets
 7/6/05 3:15 AM



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