Chapter 1/3
They say there are two types of people who visit India - those
who can't wait to come back, and those who can't wait to go home. I'm suspending my judgment until I get back
on the plane. There are lots of
guidebooks and articles written about visiting India, believe them all.
Mumbai must be climbing the international charts as the
armpit of the world and I wouldn't recommend it as your introduction to India. It certainly hit the top of my personal list
as the most depressing place I've ever seen.
The slums and squalor are unbelievable.
I was going back through my photos and don't have one that does it
justice. It seemed like the ultimate
humiliation for a westerner in business casual to step out of a hotel car with
a uniformed driver and take a photograph of someone's misery then get back in
their air conditioned comfort and drive on, so I don't have pictures of
anything close to the worst areas.
The traffic is insane and it can take you 2 hours to go
anywhere - the car horn rules in India. I saw a runaway horse in downtown Mumbai - a
little surreal actually, a bit reminiscent of the wild-west or something. I felt bad for the horse since it was
obviously running scared from far away getting more and more freaked out by the
traffic honking at it. It ran of sight
pretty quickly, I was glad because I didn't want to see what was going to
happen.
My glands got so swollen in Mumbai that I felt sick enough
to call one of our company people since I was convinced I had dengue
fever. The blood hasn't started to come
out of my eyeballs yet, still waiting. They have a lot of ad's promoting dengue
awareness in Singapore
(that you should call a doctor at the first sign etc) which made me paranoid -
wait a minute - don't the malaria pills make you paranoid to begin with? So who's on first?
Do's & don'ts I learned in Mumbai:
- don't wear shorts or sunglasses in an Indian city when
you're Caucasian unless you want (more) attention, especially if you are doing
both. Most Indians still wear long pants,
long sleeves, and have polarized eyeballs.
T-shirts don't turn heads much.
- if you want to blend, do your best to look like you're a
hippy foreigner.
- apparently walking down the street and drinking a soda is
fascinating to the locals since I actually got some amused stares and even a
couple of chuckles. I think the locals
go and hide while they drink soda or something.
I stuck the bottle in my bag and shuffled on.
- soda bottles are worth money and you actually get your
deposit back if you return the bottle to the store, or just give it to a kid.
- take your shoes off before going into your hotel room and
the slippers are there for a reason.
The Hyatt Regency Mumbai is located very close to the
international airport, in fact you can watch the planes take off and land. It is quite possibly the most fabulous hotel
I have ever stayed at - contemporary to the extreme and George Jetsonesque with
huge sunken showers, white marble & chrome, glass bathroom sinks, and dark
hardwood floors. The gym rivals Sports
Club LA (but on a smaller scale) with your own flat panel TV mounted in front
of each treadmill. The service is outstanding and the hotel immaculate
surrounded by high stone walls & gates with guards. To step 15 meters outside those gates you
enter the garbage and raw sewage running down the street from the rains.
The curious thing is that for the most part people in Mumbai
seem at peace with their lot in life. My
"driver" openly talked about the fact he lives in one of the slums
(one of the nicer slums he added) - sitting there dressed in his neatly pressed
white uniform & cap. Indians are not shy to talk about how much they make
or how much they pay for things - I tipped him half of his monthly rent that
day. All in all Mumbai is a deeply
upsetting and disturbing place, and it's not because its people aren't full of
life, quite the opposite.
There's an actual "expressway" from Mumbai east to
Pune. I left in the morning and going
against the commute we were hitting 120 kph in this little piece of shit car
with no seat belts. When all of the cars
were pulling into the hotel to pickup business travelers in the morning, I was
thinking “Please don’t let it be that one, please don’t let it be that one…”
and low and behold it was. As we passed
wrecked cars and head-on collisions just sitting there on the road, obviously
not recent. I wondered if the bodies
were still in there.
The countryside on the way to Pune looks a lot like Arizona, a little
greener. Pretty in many places, it was
good to get out of the squalor. Pune was
nicer than Mumbai. Hyderabad nicer than Pune. Pune has a
brank-spanking-new mall called "Pune Central". Brightly lit and very modern. The first time I saw the mall there was an
elephant ambling carefully down the street - that was pretty cool. Many people in the mall weren't familiar with
escalators and whole families were hanging onto each other and jumping on,
almost like timing jump-rope or something.
Indian men (young and old) hold hands and walk closely together as a sign
of friendship, very cute but can catch you by surprise if you're not expecting
it.
Indian domestic airlines run remarkably well, I was
amazed. I ate what looked like a green
bean on the plane which was strategically placed on top of a side salad. It was an Indian hot pepper. I shit you not, I was in so much pain I
couldn't stand it and it took forever to die down. They took off both ends when they were
preparing the salad so it didn't look like a pepper, by the time I figured that
out it was too late.
I sincerely thought I was going to get flattened crossing
the road in Hyderabad,
I'm not sure how I avoided it. I wonder
if Indians are like bats - with some type of sonar emission that stops them
from bumping into each other as mopeds, three wheel taxis, trucks, & cars
scream through the streets with miscellaneous livestock and pedestrians
scattered everywhere. Apart from the
expressway, I have seen not one accident in any city. Indians don't really hurry up when crossing
even in the face of imminent death. I
don't have those kind of balls.
Hyderabad
is a historical city with some cool stuff including a 600 year old fort and a
Crunch gym. I was driving (meaning being
driven) back from a meeting when I barked to pull over when I saw the sign.
It's a Crunch knock-off (obviously?). I
came back later to workout with the local Indian muscleheads - Indian gym
culture is kinda interesting. That can
be another essay. It was a good decision
since many of the guys introduced themselves and were very pleasant and I got
to "hang" with some Indian "homies" - that's homeboy not
homo. Apparently they don't see westerners in that gym - not sure what that
means about me. I was also the only one
in shorts and a tank-top. Everyone else had t-shirts and sweats - sweats? Did I mention that India is hot?
My initial enchantment has somewhat worn off since I feel
like I'm getting ripped off more and more. I find myself second guessing
people's sincerity by wondering if they're just angling for money. That is
unfortunate, since that is rarely the case (I think). Being an obvious westerner you immediately
become the primary source of revenue the minute you set foot anywhere - hotel,
street, doesn't matter. If someone does
a small thing then a tip may well be expected. Did I mention that the division of labor in India
is pretty excessive? They have people
for everything - with a tip for each one.
I've only had one sketchy moment when this drunk guy grabbed
a hold of me when I was touring these Muslim tombs and he wouldn't let go. The more I pulled away the tighter he grabbed
me. I wasn't scared, I just annoyed. Maybe I should have been scared. He wanted a picture taken so I could pay
him. The hotel had deliberately told the
driver to walk everywhere with me while I was out looking around, he saw what
was going on and didn't really know what to do either. But once he started heading over the guy
backed off and we got out of there.
Apart from a day in Mumbai when it rained big time (but that
was kinda cool) the weather has been great (comparatively compared to all the
warnings I got about travelling in June).
I could go on for days.
I just got to Goa, so that
chapter can write itself later. Sufficed
to say, I've been through two hotels and three rooms since I got here 9 hours
ago. Am I high maintenance? Nah....
Last thoughts: - western business type hotels are outrageously priced. Unbelievable actually. And when they're nice, they're pretty darn
nice.
Other observations:
- Being called "Sir" gets old fast.
- Then there's the Indian version of Britney, wish I could
remember her name.
- There are an inordinate number of commercials and ad's for
men's briefs (as in underwear) with buff Indian models - some buff in the wrong
places. Did I mention that most people
wear long sleeves & pants everywhere?
Still puzzling the underwear fetish.
- If you want a "non-veg" meal on an airline you
typically need to specify it since the default is often "veg". Makes sense.
They serve a hot meal on almost every flight, even on a short regional
hop.
- Having a driver sounds ridiculous, but it's the only way
to make it work. If you get someone from
the hotel that they trust who can show you around you'll be in great shape.
- It's all about Restoril.
Ambien is for kids.
This is Colin Smith reporting live, from an undisclosed Park
Hyatt somewhere in India.
P.S. Singapore is
the biggest mall entirely surrounded by water I have ever seen in my life.
I was under the idealistic notion that I wasn't only coming
to India
for work, but also to explore the local environment and get to know the people
& culture. I quickly realized that
this was a lofty goal and pretty overwhelming all-in-all. I have spent most of my time within walled
hotel compounds or technology campuses with guards. Not only is this due to the
limitations on my time, but it is pretty exhausting & often frustrating to
try & navigate a major Indian city on foot.
I did pretty significant walkabouts in Mumbai & Hyderabad with a
small walkabout in Pune to the mall. I
didn't venture outside the resort at all in Goa,
partly because it was huge and I was continually lost trying to find my hotel
room.
Chapter 2/3
Arrival in Goa
To complete my Goa story that I started in Chapter 1, I
arrived at the Goa airport after a short fight
on Sahara Airlines in a small Canadair regional jet. The monsoon comes in from the west and
frequently starts further north towards Goa & Mumbai. The pilot announced that we were coming in to
land and that we would be passing through some monsooon cloud and that we
shouldn't be worried since severe turbulence is normal. Damn, I was ready for this, it sounded
cool. I strapped myself in and prepared
to assume the brace position at a moment's notice - picturing old movies like
Airport '77 and the stories I would tell about my near death experience. I was disappointed and felt cheated since the
landing was pretty uneventful.
"The Coach"
After collecting my bags in Goa
(faster process than SFO by the way), I headed outside to the throng of drivers
and people waiting for their friends looking for my ride. I caught sight of someone from the hotel and
he escorted me out to the curb and said that the coach would be there shortly. I looked at him inquisitively and said
"Coach?", almost like I'd never heard the word before and that he was
speaking a foreign language. Is that
some form of "Public Transit?".
I pictured a 17th century London
hackney carriage drawn by bullocks (it was actually an air-conditioned hotel
bus). I'm sorry, waiting with my bags
outside in monsoon humidity waiting for my fellow passengers to collect their
gear and wander outside to wait to be loaded onto a hotel coach for an
excruciatingly slow ride to the hotel (over an hour) was more than I could
bear.
Hotel A
Cabs were called and bags were loaded, and off I trundled to
Hotel A - not to tarnish it's good name or spare someone else the experience!
One bumpy cab ride later I arrived at the hotel - on the approach I became
skeptical. Upon seeing my room I became
pretty disheartened. I came back down to the lobby to find out what I could do
and noticed an interesting sight outside on the beautiful beach. There is a cargo ship the size of a small oil
tanker (no exaggeration) stuck on a sandbar a few 100 meters from the beach. I had to do a double-take. Funny they don't
have that on their website.
At this point I called the Park Hyatt - I saw a billboard at
the airport and knowing that many hotels were already sold out I gave them a
shout. Yes! They had a room (I was soon to find out
why). After a frustrated conversation
with the manager as to why I was immediately checking out, cabs were called and
bags were loaded and off I trundled back along the same road to Hotel B - The
Park Hyatt. He couldn't understand why I
was leaving, I didn't have the heart to tell him his hotel was a dump. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture
of the ship on the beach.
Side note - for those who don't know, Goa
was a Portuguese colony until 1961 and is in the running for the Guinness Book
of World Record's award for most churches per square km. My cab driver was a fine Indian man by the
name of Mr. Hernandez. He was a fun guy
and shook his head about the hotel - apparently I was not the first to bounce
in and out of there. He told me that
Hotel A was about 30 years old, the bedspread in my room looked original. He also told me the ship has been there for
over 5 years and there is a scandal about the local guy who owns it and why it
is still there. Apparently they can't even give it away. I hadn't noticed, but
he said that the hotel had no walls or guards and that they "welcomed everyone".
He said it in quotes.
Hotel B - The Park Hyatt
The Park Hyatt is very nice, it's about 5 years old and the
rates were great since it is off season.
$114 for a huge room with the biggest sunken roman tub I've ever seen
and two showers, one an outdoor private tropical shower. By the way, as much as I wanted to use it, I
was too scared to be outside dripping wet in the middle of tropical foliage
potentially with mosquitoes. Did I
mention I have dengue fever?
They have the largest pool in India (apparently so they said) on
three different levels. It rained a
couple of times but was partly cloudy otherwise, pretty nice. Indian sun can quite possibly burn a hole in
you and has been known to cause spontaneous combustion in Scottish tourists,
even through clouds. So, the reason they
had rooms is because they were getting ready to have an Indian wedding.
De Vedding
I got there on Friday and the wedding started on Sunday so
guests were trickling in all weekend, they basically had the place booked solid
from Sunday onwards (I was warned). New
Money Goa is sort of the equivalent to
Martha's Vineyard or the Hamptons
for people from Mumbai (just north). I
am probably about to offend somebody, but whatever...flashy new money is hard
to handle. Period. It doesn't matter
where it is or who has it, flashy new money is a pain in the ass and this was a
flashy new money Indian wedding.
Ask an Indian about an Indian wedding, they will tell you
that it is nothing to be underestimated.
Trust me when I say this - if you hear the words Indian-Wedding-New
Money in the same sentence, run for your life.
I bumped into more and more guests throughout my stay and was asked
frequently "Are you here for de vedding?" To which I politely replied "No",
and each time I got a new piece of gossip about who was coming, who designed
the dress etc.
Sufficed to say, they were all arriving as I was checking
out and what a spectacle it was. Amex
Gold Cards were flying, flashy jewelry was glinting & shimmering in the
breeze, designer sunglasses & tight designer clothes were worn, cellphones
were clogging the transmission towers (no wonder I couldn't make a call), and I
felt sorry for the hotel staff.
The Flight Jet
Airways is an Indian startup airline and they kick ass. I was in Coach but was called by name (Miss
Thing) and served a fabulous Indian meal with silverware and cloth napkins that
I could have been served on Singapore Airline's Business Class. I was in heaven. Fortunately the flight was not taken over by
terrorists with butter knives.
Bangalore
Ahoy
Everyone warned me about Bangalore, and I was prepared for the worst.
I guess after Mumbai there's only one way to go and that's up. The approach to Bangalore airport allows a view of mile after
mile of green farmland and neatly planted fields, irrigation systems &
small rivers. It is quite amazing, I was
surprised. The closer we got to the
airport the more commercial it got (obviously) but as we were coming into land
on the runway up popped this neat & tidy little village with dirt roads and
ambling cows, totally out of context with it's surroundings but very cool.
Stay tuned for the next and final chapter, including the
exciting conclusion. This is Colin Smith
reporting live from a "soon to be disclosed hotel", somewhere in Bangalore.
Chapter 3/3
Since I've been back from India for a couple of weeks (this
is late I know), I've had the choice the contemplate the question of whether or
not I fall into the category of "can't wait to leave" or "can't
wait to go back". All will be
revealed.
I Love Colonialism
After arriving at the airport, which is remarkably
rinky-dink for the technology capital of India, I went through the usual
ritual of being met and loaded into some kind of automobile (this one wasn't
one of the more glamorous). Within
literally 4-5 minutes we were pulling into the driveway of the hotel. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that
since airport hotels are usually either dodgy or remote. Well, I have to report that this one was
neither. The Leela
Palace in Bangalore gets the trip-prize for most
ostentatious and over the top, not in a gawdy way but more colonial fabulousness. The lobby is this huge marble cavernous thing
and the bed in my room was about the size of entire bedroom in San Francisco. The spa was pretty fierce and the gym quite
good - what more could you want. I came
to realize that The Leela is one of the primary western business hotels and it
was teeming with miscellaneous Euro-types & Americans.
The least politically correct prize also goes to The Leela,
whose bathroom products are called the "Colonial Line" - seemed odd to
me, but I stole them anyway.
It's the Traffic Stupid
I had stopped paying attention to our near misses in the car
by this point and had settled down to aimlessly peering out of the window. Bangalore seems to have
lots of prim & proper schools with many neatly uniformed kids milling
around on their way to school, quite cool actually. Given the poverty & grunge you see, it
was interesting to see these pristine brightly colored English style school
uniforms bobbing through the crowds. I
also came across an interesting article about some concerned mothers who were
lobbying the local government about road safety around their schools. Good for them, but a tough battle to
fight. The same paper also talked about
the traffic growth in Bangalore,
and although I don't remember the numbers the conclusion was that the entire
city was going to grind to a halt within 5 years. I believe it.
There is no public transportation to speak of in Bangalore, the buses are spotty, unlike other
cities.
It's the Pollution Stupid
Bangalore
was by far the most polluted city I visited.
On my last night I was determined to take a walk somewhere and strode
off down the street to find this coffee place called "Cafe Coffee
Day" which is their Starbucks kind of place - the name seems so odd to me
- "Cafe Coffee Day". Anyway, I
literally gagged on the way there since it was rush hour and the fumes from two
buses going past, over and above the general fume level, almost sent me over
the edge.
There was jogging route around the hotel grounds (tells you
how big they are), but I can't imagine jogging outside, your lungs would be
black!!
I Love the 80s
One my drivers that I had for a couple of days asked me if
I'd like some music on one of our excursions to and from "Electronic City" where many of the technology
firms are located. I said
"Sure!". Well, we proceeded to listen to (what I assumed to be)
"Great Accordion Hits of the '80s" which included timeless accordion
remixes of hits like "Agadoo":
Agadoo-doo-doo, push pineapple, shake the tree, Agadoo-doo-doo, push
pineapple, grind coffee, To the left, to the right, jump up and down and to the
knees, Come and dance every night, sing with the hula melody. Or how about "The Tweety Bird Song"
(I don't know the actual name), or perhaps the timeless hit
"Macarena"!
The next day he asked me again and promised something
different, but we finally got back to Agadoo.
He was a nice guy and seemed to like the songs - or perhaps he figured I
looked like a honkie and that's what we listen to here in Sunny
California. I will never know.
Coffee?
On my last morning I was dead tired and absolutely needed to
get caffeine for the ride to my meeting or I wasn't going to make it.
Apparently the western style coffee place doesn't open until after 10am (go
figure) so the driver asked if Indian coffee would be OK, I went with it. I pictured running in, grabbing some yummy
Indian java in a paper cup, and jumping back into the car to make our
getaway. No such luck. My driver's preferred roadside coffee
establishment ushered me to a table and a coffee was ordered - I decided to go
with black since asking for a custom order of 2% milk wasn't going to fly.
Well, I'm not sure how often they wash the coffee cups but it appears they
recycle them a few times first, I did my best to look like I was enjoying it
without actually drinking any since I didn't want to offend anyone.
Only a Matter of Time
Funnily enough, I often wondered why I never saw any
accidents, but then two popped up in one day.
In the morning the traffic was at more of a standstill than normal and I
was told later that there had been an accident with one of the employee buses
that the tech companies run to Electronic
City, I didn't see it so
I hope it wasn't bad. What I did see was
us crossing the median in the Bangalore
version of a dual carriageway and heading into oncoming traffic on the other
side to get around the traffic blockage.
I couldn't figure out whether we were supposed to do this or whether my
enterprising driver took the matter into his own hands - you decide.
On my way back to the hotel that night we were sitting at
some traffic lights when one person jumped the light in a car simultaneously as
another person on a motorbike ran the light - boom - head on. The motorcycle went flying and the rider
sailed through the air. Yuck I thought,
this was going to be ugly. But
nonetheless, the rider hit the ground with a thud and jumped right back up,
walking wounded. I was quite
amazed. The car looked more the worse
for wear. A very large crowd soon
gathered and we left before the road got blocked so I don't know how the drama
ended.
As we were getting close to the hotel I heard what sounded
like a car alarm that just kept going off.
Turns out it was an ambulance! Apparently the ambulances in Bangalore are kitted out
with (what I assume to be) left-over car alarms as sirens. I assumed someone was actually in the back of
this thing and that they had some kind of serious ailment, that worried me
because it was going NOWHERE. I think
the combination of people who won't and people who can't get out of the way due
to the impossible traffic means that you could quite easily die. That was sobering. I pictured myself on the back of a medivac
scooter.
I also asked some of the guys I was meeting about fire
trucks, since I hadn't seen a one in my entire time there.
I told them that you heard them all the time
in San Francisco,
they apparently seemed to think we were a clumsy lot and that the reason you
didn't hear them in Bangalore
was because they weren't needed, people don't set fire to stuff.
Seemed logical to me, but I didn't believe
it.
Apparently the nearest fire station
to their offices is probably 15 km away.
Can you imagine how long it would take to get to a fire?
Maybe they don't bother. I actually have no
idea.
Chilly
Everyone warned me about the weather in Bangalore.
It was remarkably pleasant during my stay! In fact one night when I went out to an open
air restaurant for dinner I was actually cold and needed a jacket.
Closing Thoughts
I was happy to go home, I'd been in India for 10 days through 5 India airports
and countless traffic jams. Does that
mean I hated it? No, not at all. Although these e-mails might be dripping in
sarcasm, they don't intend to convey dislike or disdain. I had lots of cool experiences and my eyes
were opened to many things I'd never even thought about. I came back with an appreciation for my
Indian colleagues that I could never have achieved from San
Francisco, even when they visit the US.
I will go back to India
(someday, maybe), but there's no rush for me to jump back on a plane. Did I mention that it is a damn long way?
India
is for all intents and purposes a 3rd world "developing" country (or
whatever PC term you care to use), and my first. Doing stuff in India
is obviously harder than here in the US, often confusing and frequently
mysterious. I think that would be true of any developing nation.
The people in India are for the most part very
nice and mostly well intentioned. I met
many bright eyed and bushy tailed young people in the technology companies who
are just brimming with enthusiasm and who want to make a difference. Just like us veterans of the dot-com bubble,
they will also be able to say "I was there!" when they tell stories
of the Indian techno gold rush - and I will too.
This is Colin Smith thankfully reporting from San Francisco.
The End
