Its Ground Hog Day! (But not here)

"It's ground hog day!" I proclaim to Sudesh and Rajiv after they come into my office. I can tell immediately that they have no idea what I am talking about and are humoring their slightly insane American guest. After a couple of minutes of explaining the holiday, they now think all Americans are slightly insane. Hard to disagree with that.



After a weekend of sight seeing, it's back to work today. Office hours are 9:30 to 6:30 generally, so I schedule my cab, grab some breakfast, and after 45 minutes of weaving through traffic (I no longer white knuckle the overhead handle), I arrive safely at 9:30 AM. Good day at the office today - a lot was accomplished. We hammered out the High Level Design, finalized our inital draft of the Roles and Permissions (and shared with the team), wrote up some documents for Sant, and got some outstanding stuff updated and posted to the Sharepoint site.


Had an excellent traditional Bangalore lunch at the office. See below:



(Yes, that's a Dominos box). This is the "Golden Gourmet" with corn, and barbecue chicken. You can have any kind of meat you want in Bangalore, so long as it's chicken. Breakfast features chicken sausage, chicken ham (I swear that's what its called) and several other various chicken dishes. I have seen pigs a few times in Bangalore, but evidently that is only to tease the foreigners. Cows, of course, are sacred here so red meat is not found.



After work tonight, I had dinner with Kris Niar, CEO of Bangalore India. He is a fascinating guy and we talked for a couple of hours as we dined on some real Indian food (chicken and fish dishes) that he recommended, with a couple of Fosters and whiskeys mixed in. I learned a lot of really interesting stuff about India and its culture tonight from Kris, including (but not nearly limited to) tea, cobras and snake charming.


Tea it Up


Orthodox tea consists of the two freshest leaves from a tea plant, dried in the sun and put whole into a tea pot to brew for three minutes or so. This is evidently the finest tea and cannot be purchased at a store or restaurant - you must get the leaves directly from a grower at a cost slightly more than gourmet coffee in the US. After Orthodox tea, there is Partial Orthodox which is the same as Orthodox, except the leaves may be broken and not whole. Lastly there is CTC (Cut, Twisted, Curled) which is the lowest form of tea (read Lipton) that comes in bags and is very strong.


Charming snake you got there, pal...


Evidently, cobras are relatively ubiquitous in these parts. Kris told me that his dog has killed several in the garden of his house. That pretty much ends any idea of ever living here, as my wife would rather lay in a bed of muddy salamanders than to be anywhere around snakes, much less deadly ones. They only come out at night when people are not around, but that will make no difference to her. I also learned that snake charming is a kind of trick - first, the snakes are defanged and not dangerous, and secondly, the charmer makes the snake weave by weaving back and forth himself. Snakes have extremely poor vision (it's sounds they are sensitive to), so the weaving charmer appears as moving blur of light that the snake is trying to see, so it follows the same pattern. Still - I would love to get a picture of a snake charmer doing this.


We lost power a couple of times at the office today, and twice this evening here at the hotel. Evidently not uncommon, but first time I have experienced since I have been here.


It's now 11:05 PM and I am late to bed, so... blog to you tomorrow!

Lions and Tigers and Bears... and Shrines!

Sunday in Bangalore was my day to go sight seeing on an official site seeing tour around Bangalore. This was offered by the K.S.T.D.C, the tourism branch of the government here. I opted for the all day tour, which covered "new" Bangalore. It departed from downtown at 7:15 AM and was due to return at 8:00 PM (but never made it back... read on).

Our first stop was Sri Radha Krishna ISKCON Temple, which was impressive. No shoes allowed inside, so we were made to walk barefoot from the bus across the streets and sidewalks to get to the bridge that takes you. No cameras are allowed inside either - we checked those at the gate (where we could have also checked our shoes - not sure why we had to remove them on the bus). You climb several terraces of the temple, each with different shrines and incense burning, until you get to the top. The top most temple was fascinating. There were hundreds of people singing the Hare Krishna mantra to music (there was a small group playing music and singing over the microphone). The people in the temple were laughing, jumping, and singing to the music in a semi-organized way (kids were pushing each other in good natured slam dancing). Picture of the outside of that temple below (shamelessly stolen off the Internet, I did not take my own picture here).

I also had a breakfast of spicy spring rolls sold at the temple and served on big leaf (I have been told this is very common). When in Rome... It was good, but kind of strange to have as a breakfast item:

From there, we proceeded to Sri Raja Rajeshwari Temple which is a Hindi temple. Again, no shoes or cameras in the temples. Another barefoot walk across the street, but I brought my camera. I did not take pictures IN the temples, as I understood that was the rule, but I did take pictures on the grounds (later learning that was taboo as well - sorry!). These are beautiful, ornate buildings and I wished I had brought my "real" photography stuff (polarizing lens, tripod, monopod, zoom, etc.). Pictures below of this temple:

After the temple, we went to a tourist trap, Cauvery Handicrafts Emporium, where I bought a small gift and shirt for myself (very inexpensive compared to US prices). I am saving my rupees for Mysore next weekend which I understand is cheaper and better selections for sandalwood and other handicrafts.

After the shop, we made our way to Bannerghatta National Park, which worth the price of admission to the whole tour. We took the "Grand Safari" where we climbed into a bus covered in chain link fence (with small holes in the windows to take pictures) and off we went into the park. We saw lions and tigers and bear (oh my required here) and deer and owls. The animals were loose, so we could have reached out and touched them through the windows of the bus if we were interested in loosing our arms to them. I have been to tons of zoos, but never been where the animals come up to you (or sit near you). It was a lot of fun. I got the "American" treatment on the safari bus, which was the front seat and someone pointing out all the animals to me (in exchange for tip later, which proved to be quite excessive). Even with the tip rip-off, it was still well worth it to see. Pictures below:

From here, we stopped at a local restaurant for lunch. I am sure they had a deal with the tour operators, but it was not a bad place at all. Open front with tables and fans. They had a very large menu, of which they were out of most everything, so I settled for noodle and vegetable spring rolls which were tasty (and safe being deep fried). Spring rolls seem to be popular here.

Next stop was the HAL aerospace museum. Having been to Wright-Patterson and the Smithsonian, I was more interested in the setting than the planes, which was very garden like. I took some pictures of flowers, etc.

Our last stop was the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium. The program was about fireworks in the sky and covered meteors, comments, and the life and death of stars. It was done in native speaking English (the defacto International Language), and was interesting and very well done.

From there we were supposed to go the the musical fountain and art museum. Everyone got on the bus and after a couple of minutes, the operator got on and said something in Hindi and people started drifting off the bus. Thinking he said we were going to wait a few minutes longer, I elected to sit on the bus. Eventually the bus driver said, "You can go now, please". Evidently, they were tired of doing the tour so just decided to end it here instead of going on to the next place! I got off the bus and called the hotel who sent a car for me, but it took 40 minutes. While I was waiting, I enjoyed my celebrity status as the only Anglo around. A lot of people stared and one little kid with his family pointed at me. He gave me a hesitant wave and I smiled and waved back. He got a huge grin and started talking excitedly to his family who all smiled at me. I guess I am repairing our national reputation one smile at a time.

A bazaar day

Hello again from India! Sudesh took me out on the town today and we had a good time. We first went to make my reservation for tomorrow's guided tour of Bangalore. It's an all day tour and should hit the major sites in Bangalore, so rather than seeing those, we went to Commercial and Brigade Streets to do some shopping. To get there, we went through what Sudesh said is called a "Gulley" which is basically an alley. He said these where "real Indian roads".

On the main streets, the traffic was horrendous yet again - even Sudesh said that it was strange for a Saturday. I also learned that "auto-rickshaw" is Hindi for "fume spewing suicide go kart with 3 wheels". OK, I made that up, but that is what it should mean. You can barely breathe riding behind them, and they are everywhere, passing you on both sides of the car and merging in front of you. Driving hear is like an arcade game - it really is.

Once we made it to the tour place, I bought my ticket and then we were off to do some shopping. Commercial St is like Time Square in NYC - packed with people and shops.

I bought some pants at a men's store (I could not get to the dry cleaners before I left because of the snow) and Sudesh and I then took an auto-rickshaw to a nice restaurant, Eden Park, for lunch. This was a welcome break from the noise and chaos of the shopping areas - it was very quiet and lots of trees and plants.

Lunch was a 4 course meal - french fries as an appetizer, then Chicken Manchuri (a little spicy, like buffalo wings) and Hariyali Kabob (not spicy) then a bread and sauce dish. Add in a few Kingfisher beers (a local Bangalore beer and very good) and it was a meal. Total price came out to 22.00 USD - quite a bargain.

After lunch we went to Brigade St. and walked around the shops and so forth. It was very much like commercial street. BTW, even in down town bangalore, there are still cows wandering about.

Here is a tip on shopping in India - the brand names there cost as much as they do in the US. I went to a Levi's store looking for a pair of jeans and they were $110 USD. If you are looking for bargains, stay away from the name brands.

By this time I was pretty touristed out for the day, so Sudesh kindly drove me back to the hotel where I decided to lay down for a few minutes and woke up three hours later. I am freshly showered, called home, and now blogging. And now... bed. I have to get up early to take a car into town to meet my tour tomorrow at 7:15. BTW, did I mention how much this all day tour costs? It's $7.00. Gotta love that.

Stay tuned - tomorrow I am taking my good camera (the previous photos are from my iPhone) so I hope to have some more "scenic" shots for you tomorrow.

Saturday Morning

I got up this morning around 7 AM local time, feeling well rested. Showered, dressed and started creating this blog. I am now in real time blogging, so I will try to keep up with it as I go. I also realized I have not provided any pictures of my hotel room, so here you go:

Time to go and meet Sudesh. More to follow!

First Day at the Office and Back to the Hotel

The Ascendum office is also in a gated property with security. This seems to be the norm. The building is very nice and I am greeted by Anunda (who arranged my travel) and Sudesh, the PM. I get my badge (Employee 007 - look out!) and am taken up stairs. The put in me in an empty office and I protest that a cube is fine, I am not a big wig, but they insist. I am later thankful of this as it is air conditioned in the office and rest of the office is relatively warm.

The office looks like a western office - nice cubes, conference rooms, etc. Sudesh, Rajiv, and I have a conversation outside my office and all of a sudden the whole team of 13 is standing around and we are having an impromptu meeting. We adjourn to the conference room to not disturb the others.

What can I say about the people in the office? Gracious, generous, hospitable, and polite is not enough - they are absolutely wonderful. I can't so much as say I am thirsty without several people offering to bring me a drink. They have a young man whose job is basically office concierge/server. I am told to just dial him up and ask for something (a drink from the fridge, etc.) if I am thirsty. I could not bring myself to do that, so I walked down to get a diet coke out of the fridge (plentiful here, thankfully) and he insisted upon putting it on a tray and delivering it to my office for me while I walked next to him! I hope I did not offend him. I just feel a little wierd being served upon like that. It's nice, don't get me wrong. I am concerned that they are simply expected to offer these things and I am expected to decline and by accepting their generous hospitality I am inadvertantly taking advantage. I don't want to offend either.

Sudesh and Rajiv are determined that I am going to have a good time here. Sudesh is taking me out Saturday morning and arranging a tour for me on Sunday with a western tour group that is evidently an all day thing. They are also going to take me out next weekend to Mysore, which is near here, and a national park that has wild animals (like elephants, etc.). I am very much looking forward to this and their generous hospitality is astounding.

At the office, we talk about the agenda for the coming weeks and then we go to lunch. Lunch is Domino's Pizza, a short walk down the road and around the corner. It's my first time out walking and I get a lot of people staring at me. They don't see many fat, bald, reddish haired caucasians in this area evidently. The weather is wonderful! In the 80s with no humidity and a nice breeze. Very, very nice. Later, back at the hotel, I see I am a little pink from the sun for about 20 minutes walking in semi-shade. Sunscreen is important from now on. I also pick up a six pack of diet coke in cans to take with me back to the hotel. I go into a local vendor with my guests and purchase it. There are little shops everywhere that are open fronts and I think they just roll down a metal door when they close, like a garage. Most are the size of a one car garage and packed with stuff.

I also had a chance to speak a bit to Kris Niar, the CEO of the Ascendum India. He also is a very gracious and generous person. We talked business a bit, about the project, etc. He seems to be a very saavy business person, like Mahendra, and I am looking forward to working with him. We also talked about photography and we both have digital Canon cameras. Since I brought mine with me, he as offered (and I accepted) to borrow his nice zoom lens for my weekend sight seeing.

Back at the office I am gettting a killer headache and am still pretty tired. Rajiv has to leave early, so we call it day and I take a car back to the hotel. I crash and burn for a couple of hours and then get up and work until about 10 PM writing up a new version of the FSD for Sant, sending out the database design to Sant for review. I play a little bit of Crayon Physics (very fun game - google it and get it). Then it is off to bed - Sudesh is supposed to call around 10 AM and pick me up around 10:30 to go see downtown Bangalore and do some shopping.

Jan 30 - First Day in the Office

I woke feeling relatively good at 7:30, showered (making sure not to get water in my mouth), brushed my teeth (bottled water), got dressed and went to breakfast. My car is scheduled to pick me up at 10 to take me to the office.

The grounds of the hotel are very pretty and tropical. There is a court yard with a huge tiki bar in the center (with moat no less) and a swimming pool. You pass through this court yard to get to the breakfast.

For breakfast I had an omelet to order with cheese and veggies. I figure since it is cooked, the veggies and cheese should be safe (I hope so). I also asked for a bottle of water (I had to pay 180 INR, about $3.50 so I will bring my own from now on). I also had Poori Bhajji, which is like fried bread with thick vegetable soup poured on it, and was very, very good.

The drive to the office is one I will never forget for a myriad of reasons. The traffic was horrendous. Gridlock is everywhere and motorcycles and pedestrians shoot through between cars. Cars come from all directions into the intersections at once, no one stopping. There are simply no rules of the road here except "Don't die, don't hit cows". Only when my hand was almost numb did I realize I had a death grip on the overhead handle. It literally took an effort to uncurl my fingers from it. The only thing that slows traffic are speed bumps. These are not like speed bumps in the US. Imagine a telephone pole partly buried in the road and you have a good idea of what these are like. I am told that most of these are home made by the people who live near by to keep traffic down and slow on the roads in their area. I can see that some look professional, and some look very home made, and all scrape the bottoms of the cars that go over them even at slow speeds.

The other part I will not forget was what I saw along the way - my first daylight view of India outside of the hotel. We have all seen the pictures of poverty on TV for missionaries soliciting money for Africa, etc. They are hard to look at and used to joke about Sally Strothers, at 350 lbs., talking about starving people and that she could feed a village with what she ate. There is nothing funny about poverty, period. I got to see it up close and personal and it's stunning. What we call poverty in the US is not even close to what they have here, by a long shot. I am not going to keep harping on this, but I would not be honest in this blog if I did not mention it here. I did not take pictures out of respect for the people - how crass would it be for a "rich" westerner tourist to take picture of these poor people that others might find "interesting". Enough - it's said, and it's burned in my memory, and I will not keep dwelling on it here.

Jan 30 - India First Impressions, Hotel

My first impressions of India, at the airport, was that it looked/felt like Florida in the winter time. It was relatively warm (though the locals were in coats), there was a nice breeze, palm trees swaying in the wind, flowers blooming on trees and shrubs, etc. I almost expected to smell the ocean, but the scent was more NYC than West Palm Beach.

My second impression of India was that travelling by road is a harrowing experience not for the faint of heart. Under no circumstances should a westerner attempt to drive in Bangalore. Simply put, what we consider traffic laws in the US are merely suggestions, mostly ignored, in India. Stop signs are used to indicate an intersection and are summarily ignored. Trucks don't have side mirrors, and so say "Honk Horn" on the back. Every time you pass another car, truck, motorcycle,auto-rickshaw, bicycle, person, cow, pig, or pedestrian, you honk your horn. The honk seems to signify that "I am coming so get out of the way or die". Coming to the hotel at night, it is very dark and I can't see much besides palm trees blurring by and the colorfully decorated back ends of trucks as they blur by as well.
We reach the hotel and it is gated and guarded. The driver pulls in and I tip him 200 rupees (about 4 USD). I later learn that was very excessive, 50 rupees will do if you think any tip is necessary at all - its not expected.
The hotel lobby is dark and I have the distinct impression that the manager was asleep somewhere, which is fine. I sign in and I am shown to my room on the 3rd floor.
The room is relatively nice. Certainly bigger than I had in Paris (i.e. not a closet) but not what I would call plush. It is comfortable though, the bed is good, it has A/C, TV and a fridge, and a private bath with a toilet and shower. I have a view of the city (and billboard) from my window.
I unpack and by 3:45 I am crashed out.