Gordy's World Tour - 1st Leg

I have never been to India before, and was very excited to be able to do so for business. I have only actually been to Asia once before many years ago, when I went to Indonesia. It is probably a horrible comparison to make, but it feels very similar. The contrast between all the new posh buildings and lots of construction, side by side with the tents and makeshift structures. The quite clearly very prosperous rubbing shoulders with the incredibly poor.

I flew out in the lap of luxury, business class on United and Lufthansa. Mike took a picture of me kicking back. Lots of space and chairs that recline and have foot rests, very comfy! The hotel is a marble edifice, a clear differentiator of the haves and have nots. There are some pictures of the hotel pool, and the vacant lot next door in the collection here. I think I was surprised by the western influences though, particularly on the women. In the city here, there are probably more women in western clothing than traditional.

Cows wander the streets freely, although apparently most are owned by individual families. They turn them loose during the day to graze and hang out, and then they return home at night to be milked. They are a sacred animal who typically are not harmed, although I am told more and more people are accepting that eating beef might be OK. I was particularly looking forward to the food, as I have not had decent Indian food since leaving the UK 18 months ago, and so far I have not been disappointed.

The traffic is fun, with lots of very mad drivers of everything from buses, trucks and cars to autoricks (motorized rickshaw) bicycles, horses, donkeys, camels and mopeds/motorbikes. Everyone uses the horn to signify that they are there, ie don't hit me, as they try to squeeze through a space about half the size of their chosen mode of transport. Charlie knows that if I am saying that, then the spaces must be tight. They will carry pretty much anything on anything, I have seen panes of glass on motorbikes, almost an entire household on a bicycle, and this guy is delivering washing machines, 8 of them to be precise!

There is construction going on everywhere, dozens of offices, new roads and hotels being built both for the big American and British corporates and also for the Commonwealth Games due here in 2010. Planning is seemingly quite lax too, as even the Radisson Hotel where I am staying has managed to build part of the hotel on government land and will probably have to tear that part down. Last time Mike was here, the government was tearing down a bunch of shops and homes that people just built, because they were built illegally. They often use newer more modern methods for building work, but sometimes still use the old fashioned ways, like bamboo this scaffolding.

On the Wednesday we went to local mall for lunch, and had some fantastic Indian food influenced by the Kashmir region. The restaurant was called the Chor Bizarre, quite literally, the thieves market. They have gone to great pains to chose furniture and decorations that look like thy have come together by accident from thieves. There are a few pictures in the general collection. On the way into the mall, I snapped this picture. It appears that Fat Macs is so popular here, they deliver, with Mc Delivery!

We went to see the Taj Mahal on Thursday for the day. It is an awesome sight. There are of course lots of Taj Mahal pictures here, and a post all about it here. On the way, there were many pictures opportunities and you can find them all in the general collection. We saw lots of overloaded "taxis" or autoricks; this particular one had to have had at least 15 people in it, a vehicle designed to carry about 4!

We finished the week with Diwali Festival. I have written a whole post about that over here. It is the festival of lights. Many gifts are given and families get together. Lots of lights and candles are lit and there are huge fireworks displays. This shot is of the guys and girls in the office getting dressed up for the event.

I almost forgot, the last interesting thing for this post, or some might say the first interesting thing, is that the Dalai Lama was on our plane coming over here. In town to chat to the Chinese and the Indian governments. He was just flying regular business class like the rest of us :-)

As always there are plenty of pictures available here.