Bye bye Bombay

And wait.
And wait.
There was a bit of a monsoony thunderstorm going on: lots of lovely sheet lightning, like the previous night. The captain told us that we wouldn't be able to take off until it calmed down a bit so instead we were going to sit around on the tarmac somewhere (inside a nice metal box in the middle of a big open airfield... hmm. Hope that rubber tyres are insulation!)
ETD was 02.35am, actual time of departure was 04.30am. At this point I had been over 20 hours without sleep and would have perhaps managed to doze and sleep, if they hadn't tried to stick to the Plan and turn the lights on to feed us, show us the safety briefing, give us drinks, hot towels etc. etc. Anyway, sleep eluded me. The seats aren't comfortable at the best of times, but with my height they didn't offer much support (although there was a bulky 7' chap from Chicago in the row behind me who must have been much less comfortable than me).

I came to a calm acceptance pretty early on that I wasn't going to make my 1-hour connection at Heathrow: quite a relief really as otherwise I would have been stressed by every 5-minute delay that came along. At the time they will have been calling my name "Final call for passenger Dyckhoff. Please make your way to gate 8c where you are delaying this plane's departure" we were doing loop-the-loops over East London.

At Heathrow I followed Flight Connections: there's a longish queue for the security scanners (evidently they don't trust the security standards of other countries) and then I had to get my ticket changed. I'm glad I was up the front as I heard later about a passenger on the standby list for my flight, so if I'd been a bit later that could have been me.

Then through the UK immigration desk. There were two channels: UK citizens and everyone else - no queues at either, but as I got to the front and waited a moment for one of the UK desks to be free, I was beckoned over to the Everyone Else desk (slightly queue-jumping someone coming up on the inside lane) and when I commented on this to the officer, he said (very kindly) "no, you're British, you come first, this is your country after all"! He said it like he honestly meant it, but not in an anti-foreigner way. Ah, bless. Welcome home.

Then another long walk to domestic departures, a visit to Costa coffee and a shortish wait for my flight (watching big planes take off). I met Ruth and Andy again (I'd lost them when I went to change my ticket), only to discover that they'd been in the Business lounge - I didn't know that you could get in there with PoshEconomy tickets: must try that Next Time.

Flight home was totally full (mostly with Elderhostel pensioners - all from Southern USA) so I got my eye mask out and pulled the blind down and tried to sleep (without much success). Touched down at 12.30pm BST (at this point I've been mostly awake for 33 hours) and was met by Someone Special, who drove me home via M&S and cooked me lunch (I realised it wasn't too safe to combine electricity, boiling water, gas and sharp knives in my condition!) then left me to try to recharge my batteries before the concert in the evening. I slept within about 10 minutes and woke up just in time to go for the bus. After the concert (singing in the choir of Dido and Aenaus) I kept going through dinner and conversation until making it home at about 11.30pm, then fell asleep in moments despite loud party noises coming from upstairs. Home.

Mumbai Airport

Help on leaving:
Make sure you have the proper means of payment (hotel doesn't seem to like several sorts of debit card - I was OK with a credit card though).
Allow 15 mins or so for check out - if you are leaving at the same time as a bunch of cabin crew (there can be 15-20 on a single 747) it can take a while!
It's only 5 mins to the International airport by hotel car.
You don't need to book the car in advance - just go to the travel desk and say "car for the airport please" and there's usually no more than a couple of minutes' wait.
The driver asks which airline you're flying with: this isn't politeness, there are two entrances and he takes you to the one you need.
At the airport, I got politely accosted by a chap with a trolley asking if I was for Delta airlines (I wasn't), so he ignored me and I headed off dragging both of my trolley suitcases. I wish I'd found a trolley but I somehow forgot to look for it!
To get through the entrance doors into the airport you need to show your ticket or e-ticket confirmation to the security guards.
I was a bit disturbed that BMI wasn't listed on the "airlines from this door" list: but they've only been going to Mumbai for a few months and the sign looks a bit old. Anyway, the driver got it right so trust him.
Inside, follow the crowds. First you have to get your hold baggage x-rayed and sealed (they put a security tape around mine with Air India BOM on it). Then you go and check in.
There was a HUGE queue that the baggage handlers who attached themselves to me (irritatingly) told me was the BMI queue. Having spotted at Edinburgh airport that there was a priority queue for Business and (crucially) Premium Economy customers, I decided to go and investigate this one. So I waltzed confidently past the queue and right up to the front, and lo, there was indeed a priority lane, just for me. Fantastic! This saved at least an hour's worth of queuing.
I checked all the way through to Edinburgh - they forgot to give me my baggage sticker (we were busy discussing if I would be able to make my connection at Heathrow) - but it turned out OK in the end.
I encountered a couple of colleagues who had been in Pune for a tour of duty, who had been waiting in the long queue, and told them to go and queue-jump to the front, for which they were grateful.
If you want to stock up on sweeties or last minute presents, now is the time. Beyond security the shops are more "duty free" type ones and quite expensive. I bought a couple of boxes of Haldiram Indian Sweets, using up the last of my big Rupee notes.
Next step is to go through Border Control. No problems: queue moved efficiently. Remember to keep hold of the immigration form you get on the inbound flight - they take it off you when you leave. Not sure what happens if you lose it but it probably involves paperwork and/or bribery.
Then you settle down in the Departure lounge for a wait. I had a while there: probably an hour or so. There are some comfortable loungers you can lounge on. I kept a look out for Kirsteen and Francis arriving (the arrival corridor is beside the loungers) but the plane arrived at a gate at the other end of the terminal, alas.
After a while they open up the final stage in your progression towards the flight home: the security scanners (hand baggage) for the lounge by the departure gate. This involves scanning your bags and also a full body scan and boarding card check & stamp for everyone. Ladies one way, gents another. They also put a "checked" label on your bags too.
Then more waiting in the final lounge. There was a big screen TV with France v Togo.
When the plane opened for boarding, there was a mass rush for the gate, despite exhortations from the ground staff for everyone to stay seated until it was their turn. Wheelchairs and babies were allowed on first, then they started to board by row number (from the back) but they said that Business and PoshEconomy travellers could board at their leisure so I pushed my way through the crowd. One chap in front of me doing the same fell off-balance as a wheelchair (returning empty) went past, and landed on an English woman who muttered pointedly "I'm Business class too... there's no point pushing" - which I thought was terribly funny - how long exactly had she been in India?! The only thing that works is pushing!
Anyway, another boarding card & passport check and then onto the plane.

And wait.

Last day at work

Friday.
Work as normal - well, sort of normal. Mostly it was spent saying goodbye to people. Hemal (the senior person there) gave me a present (a small wall-hanging with a wooden frame and little paintings of farm scenes), and Shagufta (one of the recent trainees) gave me some Indian snacks (like chick-pea noodles and Bombay mix (naturally!)) and a CD she'd put together of Hindi music which was really kind of her. I'm listening to it now. It's modern music - sounds like what the car radio played most days on the trip to work. I can just imagine doing the lightbulbs dance (imagine replacing a lightbulb with each hand whilst shrugging your shoulders).

Anyway, all good things must come to an end. I left at the usual time and went back to the hotel (sharing a car with Imran, one of our migration managers, but none of my "regular" colleagues, who were all going out for a night out that night). Final bit of packing, dinner, internet chatting, a brief visit to the spa (slightly disappointing: the hot tub wasn't up to the proper temperature and I couldn't be bothered to get the assistants to crank up the steam room or sauna). I didn't plan to leave the hotel until about 11.30pm (flight at 2.30am) so I filled the remaining hours watching DVDs - very keen not to fall asleep and miss my flight! In retrospect I wish I had managed a couple of hours of sleep - didn't get much of it later! I also passed a bag of goodies & leftovers to Nicola to give to Kirsteen (due to arrive shortly after I left).

So, I checked out (a couple of minor errors on my bill - always worth while checking!) and decided that it would be appropriate to hand out a few tips in my departure so I got reception to change 100Rs into 20Rs notes. The door man got one, the bag carrier got one, the driver got one and a chap at the airport who shifted my bag around got one just to get rid of him.

Here comes the rain!

We've had a few sharp downpours over the last few days: usually mid-morning, then it clears up. Yesterday (Thursday) was pretty grey all day, but didn't get Interesting until about 8pm. Then I noticed some rumblings (my curtains were closed) and only realised after a few minutes that they were practically continuous. Opened the curtains and looked out on a fantastic thunderstorm. There was sheet lightning every few seconds, brightening the whole sky. There was torrential rain (it doesn't hit the windows because of the construction of the balconies) and the wind was whipping the palm trees around like crazy. Fun!

So I sat and watched that for a while, until I realised that the exciting storm had had a rather tedjus consequence that the internet connection had died. The IT spock (that's the term they use at the office: not exactly sure of the derivation but I hope it's something to do with Star Trek and having a guy around who knows everything) came and looked, denied all involvement ("it can't be our server because you can ping that OK") and went away to get his laptop to check it. And didn't come back. When I called to ask where he was I was told that he was dealing with a big problem with the server. So I had dinner (with a great view of the storm lighting up the pool area) and watched the West Wing (season 6 DVDs) and had a relaxing bath (it's huge - I didn't feel quite as guilty about using all that water given that nature was refilling the reservoirs a bit as I lay there) and eventually got back on the internet near 11pm. They are very nice about wiping charges from the room bill though, so it has the positive result of an extra day's internet use.

Today is my last day here: at 2 am tomorrow I'll be on a flight back to London, then a short dash through Heathrow to make the connecting flight to Edinburgh.

Dinner

Time is accelerating: only two nights left before I come home.

Had a good day at work today: monitoring two of the trainers in process training. One was an experienced trainer and excellent in class, the other is more of a novice and still had some rough edges but got all the info across so that's what matters most. I realised half way through that the photocopying had gone seriously wrong somewhere and two pages were missing in action. So afterwards I emailed the document to someone who had printer access, they printed it out, then I passed it onto someone else who had a photocopy code and eventually got it back (a couple of hours later though).

Last Friday (when I was in Pune) Pallavi and Shalini had phoned me up to invite me out on Saturday to go shopping, have lunch, see a real Indian home. With great regret I had turned them down as at that stage I was still expecting to be part of a group going out to Elephanta caves. By the time I knew that I was alone on the trip (midday Saturday) it was too late to make plans to meet up. Which I am really sad about. However, in moderate compensation we agreed to go out for dinner one night this week, and tonight was it.

We left together after work and drove to Bandra (where Shalini lives) and went to a restaurant just down the road from her apartment. It was called Trafalgar Chowk and was mainly a Chinese restaurant but also had Western dishes. There was a big screen showing a football match in the smoking room (with actual doors to keep the smoke in!) but we were in a quieter area. We all ordered together and shared the dishes. The starters were excellent (spicy chicken in a BBQ sauce and Malaysian veg pancakes), the main courses good too but a bit blander than I expected.

Topics of conversation ranged from their time in Edinburgh (March), castes in India and the strange phenomenon that some people from higher castes are now "converting" to untouchable castes to take advantage of the perks on offer like protected jobs in government.

It's odd to think that on Friday when I leave it may be the last chance I ever see these good people. When you train someone you spend a lot of time in their company, and usually you then see them around the office for the following years so if you get on well then you keep in touch. In this case I have to get my head round the fact that work here will continue without me, and I'll go back to work in Edinburgh and apart from the odd email I won't really be a part of it any more.

I was thinking earlier that the project is a bit like the Royal Engineers: we go to a blank field and start setting up all the infrastructure - physical like PCs and phones and intellectual with all the training and support - and then we clear off and let the rest of the army get on with the real work of fixing accounts. Just hope it doesn't all get swept away in the monsoon... (thunderstorm earlier today).

Random Musings

Things from the news:
Girl killed by lightning at Chowpatty beach (she was holding a cluster of mobile phones for her friends)
Amitabh Bachchan aka Big B – cross between Harrison Ford and Chris Tarrant (hosts Indian WWTBAM?) ill in hospital
Rahul Mahajan, son of late leader of BJP party caught with drugs and his father’s ashes. Went to hospital, went to court, very big scandal.
Articles on bird flu (H5N1) focussing on compensation payouts to farmers who have destroyed their birds: was going to be based on electricity consumption per farm, but given multiple power cuts that wasn’t accurate enough so now it’s going to be based on floor area (0.8 cubic feet per bird).
Articles on poverty: apparently 80% of Mumbai’s population live on less than $2 per day.

Poster ads
Ads for Aamby Valley City – the place I saw up in the hills near Lonavala with its own private air strip.
Ad for some insurance company: manager, father, pillow (very sweet photo of baby sleeping on father’s chest)
Ad in the newspaper for European holidays, with (honestly!) a mention of the Leaning Tower of Pizza. Lovely image that conjures up…

I’ve noticed today that buses (usually) have drainage gaps at floor level inside – perhaps to also allow for draught to seep around your ankles when travelling, but probably mostly to let the rain out when carried in on people’s shoes and coats during the monsoon.

Are we too overprotective of our children? Or are the Indians not protective enough? Every day I see babies and small children being carried in their mother’s arms on the back of motorcycles (no one wearing helmets of course) or playing on the central reservation of highways of 3 lanes of traffic, or running around between cars at traffic lights to ask for money from car passengers.

People are eagerly awaiting the monsoon (looking forward to rain? “Yearning to feel the kiss of sweet Indian rain?” Sounds a bit batty to me, especially with the floods they had on July 26th last year, where people were trapped in the office for 2+ days.)

Road construction: there seems to be a lot of it going in on Mumbai. Noticing some of the construction techniques is amusing. They lay a thick (6”+) layer of concrete, in a perfect rectangle at some random point on the road they think looks as if it needs to be filled in, then make little paddy fields on top with some crumbly walls, then fill the wells with water. I presume this is to stop the concrete drying too quickly and cracking; the water perhaps is absorbed as it dries out and makes sure it’s smooth.

They have very few formal signs to warn of road works. The road we take to work is having drains fitted at the side of the road, and none of it has anything like cones, barriers or lights to warn you that there’s a 3’ hole in the road. And even more disturbing they have a nice bit of road at the side, which then stops suddenly with no warning. I don’t have photos of this (don’t take my camera to work as a rule) so don’t ask!

Bandra Shopping

Today I took a half day holiday and went shopping in the morning with Adam, Rambill and Craig (who were hunting Levis).

I found shoe stalls (nothing I wanted in my size though... people with size 9s obviously don't want sparkly shoes here. Alas!)

I also went into a covered arcade of clothes stalls - they were rather pushy and the clothes weren't as pretty as the tops I saw in Delhi. Ah well.

Then I decided to head out and follow the gentlemen of the party to the more Western shops and see if I could find any bargains, but outside the arcade I discovered the weather had deteriorated: So I got back in the car and we went back to the hotel. (We only had a limited time anyway before work).



Work was as per usual: although had moderate frustrations getting my password reset (again - I've fallen into a password vortex I think: they all get sucked away from me) but it's working now. Cross fingers.

Big announcement today to colleagues about the project's future: put it this way, I will be continuing on the project for a while longer.

Lonavala

Photos only now: I can upload these in my room but don't have time for the text bit. Come back later for narration (maybe)!

En route (from car - action shot)

Bhushi Dam (nearly empty reservoir)In the monsoon, water cascades down these steps and you can sit on them with the water pounding your back. Sounds fun!A waterfall (again, rather low power) with people enjoying a shower.

View downstream from the waterfall.

View Left from Lions's Point

View Right from Lion's pointCorn-on-the cob stalls (obviously the snack of choice around here)
Chikki & chocolate fudge sellers in LonavalaTiger Valley (big cats not in evidence you'll be glad to know)
RTO stands for Regional Transport Office!

Elephanta Island

Why is it sometimes that even things don’t go the way you’d planned, they turn out for the best? I had planned to go to Elephanta Island today with two colleagues, at about 10.30 (timed to make the most of the day: it’s a 6 hour round trip to the Island, what with car to Gateway of India (a good hour), queueing for a boat (30 mins) two 45-minute boat rides and a couple of hours on the island). Anyway, 10.30 came and went, with no sign of them. However, in that waiting period just after the “ETD”, Sam made her final appearance as she headed off to the airport. Had I left at 10.30 I’d have missed her. And lucky that I didn’t, because the hotel realised that they don’t take Debit cards, so she was left with no way to pay other than jumping in an auto-rickshaw and visiting a bank to take out some cash. So I was able to flex my plastic and pay her bill (Sam… remember I’m from the call centre that does debt collection! [I’m sure she’ll be a good credit risk though]). Turned out for the best!

Anyway, then as Sam was leaving, two of the SMEs from Pune turned up (Shabana and Chetna I think…) who had come over for the weekend to see Maneer and Asad. In a moment of weakness they said they’d join me on my day out (foolish people!) so I said I’d wait for them. When we eventually all met up (including Asad and Maneer) it turns out that they wanted to go shopping rather than sit on a boat (understandable), so I decided to be bold, brave, independent etc. and just go alone. Confidence! Goes against all the company guidelines but I reckoned that I’d be safe as I was going with a driver in a pre-arranged car, I had a mobile and when I got to the Gateway of India I’d be going on a paid trip so it was unlikely that the whole boat would be hijacked or anything tedious that involves the British Embassy.

The trip down to the GoI seems to be longer each time. Just as I start to think “we must be nearly there now” we turn a corner onto a landmark that I recognise, that’s still miles from the destination. It took a good hour. I bought my ticket from a vendor (they all cost the same and all the boats are run communally so you don’t have to shop around) – Rs120 return – and then went to queue up for a boat. It was about a half hour wait until I got to the head of the queue.

Just as I was nearing the front, I was bemused / embarrassed by a group of seven Western tourists who barged or were pushed to the front of the queue. I don’t know if they promoted themselves, or whether some fixer moved them up the line, but anyway, it didn’t look good: white people pushing in front of locals. I stayed my ground in the queue very smugly. We ended up on the same boat.

The boat trip was pleasant: the water wasn’t too bumpy and although the boat looked as if it was held together with the pitch between the boards, it made the crossing at a good pace. It’s about 6 miles. I made sure to sit in the side that was away from the sun – luckily this also gave better views of the sights and the island.When we arrived at the island, I walked along the long pier to dry land. There’s a little train that does the same trip, for Rs4 (5p!) but I enjoyed stretching my legs – there’s not much opportunity to walk here without bumping into people, except on a treadmill in the hotel basement. It was hot, very hot, although there was some wind from the sea to cool things down a little.

As I stepped onto dry land, I started to realise exactly how hot it was. Very. And a humid heat too. There had been a torrential downpour around breakfast time (bouncing, bubbling raindrops and large puddles forming) – however rather than clearing the air, it just gave the sun some water to evaporate and make things even more humid. I went through the tourist tax barrier (you have to pay about Rs25 I think – or was it Rs5? I can’t remember. Small change, anyway).

I used a public loo (Rs2) which wasn’t terribly pleasant (a hole-in-the-ground squat with no loo paper: lucky I had come prepared for such eventualities, including some anti-bacterial hand gel given to me by Meg at New Year), but better than walking around crossing my legs (not physically possible anyway). Then up the hill to the caves.
The climb is quite tough – not particularly long or steep (although it starts gentle then increases), and there are good steps all the way, but because of the heat and the traders. They have stalls set up all the way along the path, with tarpaulin tents over the path (which does keep it a bit cooler). On the way up it is nice to loiter a little to avoid getting too pink and puffy (there are sedan chairs you can hire for about £4 return, but I spurned them utterly) and I have developed a nice smile and “no thanks” for the traders. If I wanted to buy a wooden box / alabaster elephant / bead necklace / t-shirt / statue of Siva then I’d buy it back on the mainland for half the price and not have to lug it up the hill with me.

At the top I paid my entrance fee (Rs10 for Indians, Rs250 for foreigners: seems fair enough! I wish they did that at Edinburgh Castle!) and went inside. I had bought a guide book from a chap on the pier. The Lonely Planet guide book warned me not to pay Rs250 that they ask for it at the Gateway of India, that it only costs Rs50 on the island. So I managed to haggle the trader down from his asking price of Rs150 down to Rs60. Then I got all guilty-feeling and paid. I could have easily paid him the Rs150 he asked for; I was only haggling out of principle. Anyway, the guide book eased me past the locals who were offering their services as a guide (I’m sure they are interesting, in fact I chatted to one later as I was sitting watching some monkeys – as was his customer – and he spoke good English and could have shown me around properly if I’d paid, but I prefer to go at my own pace: and with a guide book you always have the information to refer to again if you need it!) and into the caves.

They are dark inside (well, naturally!) so I didn’t get any good photos of the main statues. But the overall feel of the place was pleasant: cooler, quiet (didn’t feel busy, although there were lots of people around on the island).

There are no actual elephants on the island (sorry) – there was a statue of one but the Portugese used it for target practice in the 17thC and then it eroded away a lot. What there are, are caves with huge Hindu carvings. It’s actually a World Heritage site. See some pictures:I like the way the columns seem to bulge at the top under the weight of the rock!)The Westerners I’d seen on the boat turned up and further distracted me by their inappropriate clothing (mini shorts and sleeveless tops: have they no respect??!!! – obviously not been through Lee’s Cultural Training ☺).

After exploring the caves, I took a walk around outside and discovered an “off road” path around the back of the hill, which was marked “Shortcut to Cannon Hill”. So I followed it: a rough path and quite steep in places (would be tricky when wet) and eventually worked my way to the top of the hill. Beaten to it by the Westerners. Anyway, I ended up close enough to be within earshot of them, and realised that they were all Yanks (actual ones, Meg – I spoke to one eventually and found out they were from Noo Joysey). So that explains that then. “It’s not that they’re wicked, or naturally bad, it’s knowing they’re foreign that makes them so mad”. Only joking. Honest. I think. And they are students too, so even more reasons to be sorry for them. I’ve probably just offended half my readership now so I’ll stop picking on the nice Noo Joysey students and move on.

From the top (well, I call it the top, there was more up above me but I managed to ignore it very efficiently) I went down a different way (the wide, gentle path that I presumed was the long way around) – to find when I got to the bottom that there was a sign confidently announcing that this was the Short Cut. No idea where the main track was: the only other paths I saw had been made by cows or goats or monkeys. I saw this inspiring flowerbed en route! Anyway, I was delivered back to the top of the “main steps” so it seemed appropriate to descend and head back to the boats (last one leaves 5.30pm). It stayed hot. I bought myself a cold drink from a respectable-looking stall (there was one woman with a milk-can full of water who was offering to top up bottles, but I decided to be cautious and pay 35p for a bottled drink.

The Americans found their way onto my boat too (I think they were following me: either that or there is an “average” pace at which one sees the island and we both kept to it). And I sat with my legs in the sun (still no tan) and sipped from my drink and ate a couple of biscuits (no lunch today) and generally had a pleasant trip. At the far end, I moseyed gently from the boat to my car (driver was half-dressed and just waking up from a nap when I got there: poor chap looked very stressed to have me arrive and see him all unprofessional like that) and was whisked away. Luxury!

Back to hotel, shower, change, found some friends in the bar and had a quick drink (plans for tomorrow look as if it’s only me+1 going to the hill station. Oh well) then supper, then back to room to update blogs, chat on Skype (disturbing echo effects so I could hear my voice played back 1 second after I’d spoken. Horrid! Don’t like listening to myself). It was also quite choppy & staccato so not easy to chat properly. But it was nice to be in touch with home none the less. Life keeps going on without me of course!

Pune

On Friday I went on a road trip to Pune (pronounced Poona, not Poon or Puny, or so I'm told) about 150km away from Mumbai – just under 4 hours by car). Early start - dawn! There’s an office there that some of my colleagues are based at, and I had some trainers to monitor and a graduation party of some trainees to attend. I was picked up at about 7.30am by Hemal and Anumita and Matthew the driver (he had a great big smile when he saw me: he drove us last Saturday and we all got on well). We stopped off en route for breakfast at a roadside service station. No McDonalds (phew!) but just an Indian diner place. I had Idli, which are a sort of rice cake, with some runny sauces to dip them in. Plus a sweet lime soda, a nice refreshing drink that you find a lot out here.

We drove through / past Lonavala, the hill station that we’ll be visiting on Sunday I hope. The mountains look very scenic: I didn’t take any photos of the views on this trip on the assumption that I’ll be able to stop and get better ones on Sunday. However, having now looked at the weather forecast for the weekend (cloud, rain, poor visibility) I wish I’d snapped a couple on Friday.

We got to the office by 11am (the roads were very good and not too busy). Pune (from the bit we saw driving through) seems much tidier and smarter than most of Mumbai. There didn’t seem to be nearly as much in the way of slums or “ongoing renovations” or digging up roads and forgetting to put them back. We went past the barracks of the Bombay Sappers. Sounds like a good name for a project team! The SAPpers!

The office in Pune is 10 years old, but is currently getting refurbished. Cameras are not allowed inside (although I forgot, and it wasn’t spotted in my bag check: but I was honourable and didn’t take photos when I’d realised my mistake). I met up with some of my ex-trainees (who are now training their own staff) and observed some training. Some constructive feedback & training tips given but generally they were doing just fine! And I got talking to the trainees and did a bit of floorwalking of them doing some Siebel training.




After a late lunch we got back in our car and went over to the Graduation venue: the Athena. It has a good size room for the event and was in a nice part of town (actually quite near the apartments that some of our staff are staying in). The senior manager had organised an elephant to greet us and throw flower petals at the guests! Unfortunately just as I arrived it started to pour with rain (not the elephant, the weather!) so I scurried into the porch to avoid a soaking.











The event was fun: There were pretty decorations: this WelCome is made out of coloured sands on the floor! There was also a greeting party who smudged ochre and rice on our foreheads as we arrived. Waiters came round with interesting coloured drinks: pink (lychee and cranberry), blue (blue Curacao) and green (kiwi fruit). Then the event started with the usual speeches and thanks and so on. The Academy trainers got several special mentions, which I hope I’ve recorded some of on my little video camera to show colleagues later. I hadn’t actually been directly involved with training this bunch so my presence was purely symbolic of “the Academy”. I felt slightly out of place too because everyone else had come in traditional Indian dress, even the British staff, who had been out buying pretty pink (etc.) saris (or sarees as it is often written on shops here). But I wore my company badge with pride (under my pashmina – it was very cold in there! Air conditioning is a marvellous thing). Afterwards there was chocolate cake, champagne and a finger buffet and loud music and dancing. We left at about 7pm to return to Mumbai.

The sun was just setting as we were leaving, with some gorgeous colours in the sky. Then the rest of the drive home was dark. We stopped off at another service station for a quick bite of dinner. I had a deep-fried potato thing in a roll (a Vada Pav), which was tasty and quite spicy.

Home, phoned a friend, wrote up my journal (to be published next time I go online) and took a photo [censored] of my mozzie bite - well, one of them: the score is rather disappointingly now standing at mosquitoes 3: Livia 4. I know I’m still ahead, but it’s a high-scoring round and actually the first bite I had has now been discounted as it was tiny and not itchy at all, the 3 new ones (acquired in the night – so much for my theory that mozzies don’t get into hotel rooms because of the distance from the front door and the macerating effect of air-conditioning systems) are large and pink and hard and really, really itchy. This is even after I’ve taken anti-histamine pills and smeared it with cream and cooling sprays. Ow. OK enough feeling sorry for myself!

Foopball night

Thursday – worked. I joined my colleagues in the hotel bar (with big screen TVs for their foopball enjoyment) for a couple of drinks. Adam, Rambill, Nicola and Craig sat up front in their foopball jerseys (mostly) looking terribly keen and intense, and Sam, Tom and I sat on the sofa at the back and managed to prove our general ignorance of foopball in general and the current competition in particular. I almost impressed the other two – they thought I was pointing out the England captain, but turns out that they couldn’t hear me properly and what I actually said was “he’s congratulating them” not “he’s the England captain”. Sam tried to describe the offside rule but I’m still in the dark and probably always will be. All I know about is being a lacrosse goalie, which means I get my own magic circle and no-one is allowed even one millimetre inside it. Mine. Out! People seemed fairly pleased on the outcome of the foopball match: even Adam who missed the first goal by seconds having just left the bar to take a short break in the Rest Room (they don’t let you rest in there… perhaps it should be named the Relief Room or something). I bowed out and went to my room just after the end of the match to make a phone call to wish Someone happy birthday.

Week 2 at work

I’m a bit behind in blog updating, so I’ll do a quick canter through the news / activities of the week. I’ve been a bit under the weather (many little things all hitting me at once) so I’ve been coming back to the hotel, checking email in the lobby (where it’s free, but you only get about 10 mins before it forcibly disconnects you for 5 minutes to prevent you monopolising the PC), watching a DVD in my room then falling asleep after a cup-a-soup (very glad I brought them with me). I’ve managed to make phone calls home on Tuesday and Thursday, which recharged my batteries. It seems like a long time since I’ve been at home, but on the other hand it hardly feels as if I’ve been here any time at all. I’m full of respect for my colleagues who have made the commitment to come out here for three months at a time: I don’t think I could do it as there’s too much I’d miss at home.

Monday – worked. Watched Monsoon Wedding this evening (it’s brilliant! – incredible to see the backgrounds as they look just like what we see every day. And I can even understand a tiny bit of the Hindi (it’s in Hindi with subtitles and English all mixed together). The wedding planner kept saying Kaam karo to his team: “do some work”!)

Tuesday – worked. Watched some of Gandhi this evening.

Wednesday – worked (earlier shift than before – even less time to sit in the sun: my tan is totally non-existent!). Finished watching Gandhi. I remember watching it in the New Picture House at a very young age (I must have been 9 or 10 – probably counts as child abuse) and being traumatised by the massacres and nasty things happening to good people and their children. It’s still moving and emotional but I understand the politics better now. It’s sad that, in a film about Indian independence from Britain and racial divides, they couldn’t find an Indian actor to play Gandhi! Ben Kingsley is very, very good, but he’s still a white man doing an Indian’s job.

Sunday Shopping

In “The Princess Bride” we learn of several classic blunders: never get involved in a land war in Asia [hmm] and never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the cards. However they missed out the most important blunder to avoid: never try to plan a nice early start to a day trip (like, say, 12pm) when England have been playing in the World Cup the night before.

Out of 10 possible participants in our expedition today we ended up with 6, although to be fair one of the cancellations wasn’t football related. And of the 6 we did have, one was woken at 12.05 by a polite wake up call: “Good Morning, or should I say Good Afternoon…”. Names have been removed to protect the innocent. And the guilty of course!

Anyway, 6 people meant that the two cars that were booked weren’t stuffed full (we did have another 4 seats available between the two, but it would have been very intimate). So we drove down into Mumbai again (I ended up seeing some of the same sights again, but it was new for some people so that’s OK). We stopped at the Dhobi Ghats, and then from there went to Central Cottage Industries Emporium, a government shop that stocks traditional products from all over India (in practice this means that it has the same stock as the one in Delhi). It’s a good starting point for nervous (and confident) shoppers in Mumbai as it gives you a chance to see the sort of things on offer, and if you don’t want to haggle and buy on the streets then in the CCIE you get a fixed price and they wrap it up prettily. I bought a few things to give to people as presents (har har har) but no one else got anything.We went back to the Gateway of India for Sam's benefit. And Rambill got "got" by the Jain priest again:

Then we went out into the Mumbai equivalent of Janpath in Delhi. Janpath is a bit nicer, I feel, as each trader has their own little shopicle (a shop/cubicle – I’ve just made that name up by the way) and they have quite a lot of stock stored in the upper storey. Here, they are just stalls by the side of the road: on the “shop” side are proper (bigger) shops. They have tarpaulins stretched over the pavement, to keep out some of the sun (and some of the product of the dripping pipes from higher up… I don’t want to know what was dripping from them).
The stalls all sell similar things: there’s a shawl stall, a sunglasses stall, one with watches, one with sunglasses, one with souvenirs, one with shirts, one with compasses and telescopes and lanterns, then they start to repeat themselves. We walked quite a long way down, but there wasn’t much alteration to the products on offer. Most of our shopping party bought something from at least one of the stalls. (like odd shoes, Sam). And all the way (from the moment we stepped out of the car) we were trailed by two guys selling drums. And beating them. A lot. Very annoying! But it seemed to work as they sold 3. And then started trying to persuade the purchasers to upgrade from the basic model to the deluxe model! Without success, that time though.

A view of the dome on the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower (posh hotel).

A street scene: (Bata shoes on the other side of the road is like Clarks of India)

We also met three little children, Pooja, Poona and Rahel: Pooja spoke quite good English (enough to hold a basic conversation) and eventually persuaded Rambill to buy them some milk. Of course as he got to the milk shop all their friends turned up out of the woodwork too, but he stood firm and only bought “our” three some milk. I handed out a biscuit each to a couple of street children who were making the “feed me” sign (bunched fingertips towards the mouth) and they seemed quite happy with that. However we were in the car at the time and about to head off so they didn’t have the chance to get all their friends together to extract further largesse.

On a completely separate note, I have decided that Auto-Rickshaws need to be imported into the UK, as a fabulous shopping tool. They’re easy to drive (several SMEs have at one point managed to persuade the Auto-Rickshaw driver to let them have a go) and one would probably only need a scooter licence to drive one. It is protected from the vertical weather that we get in the UK (although not the sideways rain or the cold of course) and would be better around town than a proper car (I’ve seen the size of gap they can get through). I think mother would like one to get from The Wood to Invergarry. Doesn’t need to be fed & watered like a pony, easier to get the hang of than a car. According to our car driver, they cost less than £1000 each and are probably very cheap to run. You can even get LPG versions (or CNG: compressed natural gas, probably very similar. Don’t ask me, I don’t know about that sort of gas). Anyway, if anyone knows where to find one, let me know.

That was Sunday.

Monday was work. Just like normal. With several new people in the office this week I spent a bit of time getting things sorted out like making sure they could log in, and ordering access badges (you really don’t want to have to wait around for someone to let you through a door when you’re still adjusting to the local cuisine…), and trying to help sort out a new IS fault reporting procedure. And to top it off, at the end of the day our car was 45 mins late because he was dropping off an earlier batch.

Nice dinner (buffet again) then back to the room to write this up (will post on Tuesday though) and then bed...

At half time, the score remains at Mosquitoes 1: Livia 2. I’m relieved (so far) to find that the mozzies aren’t really putting out a full squad and can be apparently deterred by a forceful application of Deet 50%. Squishing them puts them at a disadvantage too. Of course they have the psychological edge in this match. They don’t fear my presence, or even the very suggestion of my presence, whereas I can become quite twitchy and convinced that they are At This Minute settling on my skin and starting to nibble. Psychosomatic. Definitely. Excuse me, I have to go and scratch.