Archive for India
March 15, 2009 · Filed under Entertainment, India
On our day off, we stopped and had lunch at a great Afgani restaurant in Bangalore called the Samarkand. 
Either Afgani cuisine is very similar to Indian cuisine, or they have a mostly Indian menu. In any case, I remember eating there on my previous trip, and the food was terrific. (They serve the best naan I’ve had. Ever.)
We each ordered, and I ordered the Chicken Tikka Masala. When the food came, the server elegantly slid up beside me and began to serve the food onto my plate as the always do in India, and politely spoke, “Your Butter Chicken, sir.”
“I’m sorry, I ordered the Chicken Tikka.”
“This is the Chicken Tikka, sir.”
Now, I do always take a few days to re-accustom myself to exactly which dish is which, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and let him continue.
Then they began serving my colleague, who had ordered the Chicken Kabab.
“Your Chicken Tikka, madam.”
Overhearing, I jumped in, “But you said this was the Chicken Tikka; she ordered the Kabab.”
“Yes, this is the Chicken Kabab, and you have the Chicken Tikka.”
I began to suspect that we were being held to very flexible and creative rules around what constituted each of our meals, but let the matter go since we were both satisfied with how appealing each of our meals looked, regardless of what we actually ordered. We enjoyed our meals and left the restaurant.
This afternoon – back at the hotel – I ordered a Vodka Martini. About 20 minutes later, my server appeared carrying a Manhattan on his tray. Being a semi-professional drinker, I know my alcohol and this was definitively not a Martini.
“Your Manhattan, sir.”
“I’m sorry, I ordered a Vodka Martini.”
“Yes, sir. Vodka Martini. This is a Vodka Martini,” replied the server.
“No, it’s not.” I showed him the menu and pointed at what I had ordered, the 007 Vodka Martini.
“Yes, Vodka Martini. Vodka.”
When traveling in foreign countries, sometimes you have to pick your battles. Besides, his logic that the drink contained vodka was armor clad.
As a matter of fact, I am quite enjoying my Manhattan.
March 14, 2009 · Filed under Entertainment, India, Photo Album
I’m back in India on business, but only for a short while this time around. One of my colleagues who accompanied us had not been to India before, 
so we had fun showing her around and watching her explore the city. It was fun listening to her get excited about traffic and cows and cows in traffic.
We had a big meeting on Thursday with a client and then took Friday off to see some sites. First, we went to Bannerghatta National Park. We arrived early, so we passed the time wandering through the local zoo.
Then we boarded a bus to take into the wildlife preserve in the hopes of spotting elephants, tigers, lions, or cheetahs. The bus was a rickety old thing that looked like it would topple at the slightest hint of a curve or bump, but that didn’t stop our driver from careening around a bumpy and rutted road that had all the passengers hoping for a quick death. On more than one occasion it occurred to me that should the bus roll over, it was not in a condition to protect us from the elephants, tigers, lions, or cheetahs which we were so hopefully to see.
We did manage to survive and we did manage to see lions and tigers, including some white tigers which were, not surprisingly, white. Tigers look surprisingly cuddly, but my recommendations to my colleagues to go pet one went unheeded.
The next day we jumped in the car and headed out to the Dodda Aalada Mara, or Big Banyan Tree. This is the fourth-largest tree in India, and covers over three acres. The tree is inhabited by wild monkeys who are alarmingly comfortable with human presence and are perfectly willing to let you get close enough to take photos of them. There were babies who were trying to escape their mothers, youngsters picking fights with elders and everything else that would demonstrate we did, in fact, evolve from these smelly, furry little honkers.
September 23, 2008 · Filed under Entertainment, India
I’m not sure if I’ve made it clear in the last post, but I’m back in India doing a project review in Bangalore and preparing for a sales call in Delhi. 
It’s been pretty busy but I feel like we’re making lots of progress towards tackling the problems we’re encountering and making effective changes moving forward.
This whole thing is nowhere near as glamorous as it seems, though. Being in India has seriously hampered Birth Month. And that’s a major problem. I’m working on a strategy for making up for lost time, but all my requests to the U.S. Government for “Free Money For Being Awesome” are getting rejected saying they’ve given all their free money to “Wall Street”, whatever that is.
There has been some time for relaxing, though. My birthday was Saturday, and together with my coworkers who are here in India with me, we headed off to one of the old British Hill Stations, Ooty. The British used to call it, “Snooty Ooty” but I have no idea why, aside from the obvious rhyme. There must be another reason because most British quips are clever enough that I don’t get it, and I’m assuming this is the same. It probably has something to do with Cricket.
While I’m on the topic of crap I don’t understand, what is the deal with Cricket? I’ve watched at least three dozen games during my two visits to India, and I have absolutely no idea how it works. I keep waiting for the guy to hit a “homer”.
Anyway, the road to Ooty is the worst I’ve ever been on. Potholes you could loose a herd of Mongolian antelope in. I think I might be done with road trips in India. On the other hand, the road passed through a wild-life sanctuary where we got to see monkeys, elephants (captive), buffalo, and peacocks. The journey concluded by passing over a mountain pass that was remarkably steep and twisty. If not for the certainty of death by motor-vehicle impact, it would be a perfect road for riding. What was really freaky for me is that Ooty is so far south that the tree line is crazy high. The pass was somewhere around 2600 or 2800 meters, and we were still well below the tree line. In France, the roads we ride have the tree line around 2000 meters; at 2600 meters, you’re on some of the highest roads in Europe and riding through glaciers.
Ooty itself was beautiful. Nestled into the valley, it has a very strong Tibetan presence since the government of Tamil Nadu has given Tibetan refugees permission to live and work in Ooty. Between the scenery, the usual Indian city energy, and the Prayer Flags hanging from most buildings, it was an amazing place to visit.
May 23, 2008 · Filed under India, Photo Album, Trips
Kerala has a democratically-elected Communist government which means it’s the first Communist society I have visited.
I was surprised to find that the communists didn’t have horns and weren’t green and hairy or anything like that. In fact, we didn’t notice much difference at all except that Kerala is much cleaner and well organized than Karnataka.
I didn’t notice much difference, that is, until I was walking to my airplane on the last day. As I walked across the tarmac, I noticed that my plane was a rickettey old prop plane which looked like it was held together by masking tape and chewing gum. Wanting to take a picture of the contraption which would surely lead me to my death, I snapped a photo of it. Within seconds, three police officers with machine guns grabbed me and threw me up against a wall. Two of the officers held me at gunpoint while the third took my camera and sifted through my photos and deleted everything he felt was inappropriate for me to have photographed.
Kerala was amazing. The drive to Thekkadi was stunning. We drove through mountains in the jungle, through tea and spice plantations, and through rubber tree farms. We saw people commuting by elephant.
Our hotel in Thekkadi was on an island which we could only get to by boat in the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary which was originally the hunting grounds of the Maharajah of Travancore – and the hotel we stayed in was the palace where the Maharajah stayed while hunting. I can understand why he choose this place: the area was crawling with wildlife: wild boars, deer, buffalo, elephants, tigers, monkeys, eagles, vultures, birds, you name it. We saw no cobras, but we did spot a small water snake. It was quite far away, so it could have been a stick or a weed, but I’m pretty sure it was a snake. Probably poisonous.
We went on a long hike through the jungle where we were followed by monkeys who were trying to get some insider tips on how to be more human. It turns out I am not very good at keeping secrets. By the end of our hike, two of the monkeys had laptops.
Michelle and I rode an elephant called Akbar who I fell completely in love with. I am quite certain he fell in love with me, too. Michelle and I got to feed him after riding him, and he stared at me and leaned his giant head into my face while I pet his trunk. Michelle wouldn’t let me take him home.
We also made friends with an English couple who were on the hike with us. I am frustrated that I don’t have an English accent; I don’t sound anywhere near as clever as they do.
Then it was on to Alleppey where we spent a day and night on a houseboat. The crew cooked us three amazing meals including the largest tiger prawns I have ever seen and fish which were caught by the crew only minutes before being cooked. The crew laid anchor for us along a canal where Michelle and I were able to enjoy one of the most stunning sunsets in the history of the universe.
Then it was on to the Kumarakom lake resort where we spent the last days of our vacation getting spoiled rotten by the staff. The resort was a two hundred year old palace and the woodwork was stunning. Our cottage was on a meandering pool where we read books in the sun and relaxed until we became tense. I wore a dhoti which delighted the staff. Despite looking like a dress, a dhoti is a manly garb.
On the last day, we spent a few hours in Cochin, which used to be Dutch-controlled port. We visisted a Dutch-built cathedral, cemetery, and the old Dutch port. One of my ancestors lived in Cochin when it was controld by the Dutch; it was an amazing oportunity to see the old colonial buildings and imagine how strange it must have felt to arrive there without any idea what to expect and try to start a life.
As delicious as the food in India is, first thing Michelle and I did when we got back to Seattle was get hamburgers and microbrew at Quinn’s Pub on Capital Hill. It was awesome.
Ironically, our first weekend home, the New York Times travel guide featured a section on Kerala and happened to specifically mention the houseboat and lake resort we stayed at: Liquid Assets: A Perfumer Noses Around Kerala.
More NYT travel information on South India:
South India in Two Weeks
In the Land of Four-Star Asceticism
India Travel Guide
May 8, 2008 · Filed under India, Trips
Michelle and I are off to the jungles of Kerala for a few days before we return to the United States. Kerala is widely considered to be one 
of the most beautiful places on earth, and I’m gunning for the the monsoon season not to strike a few weeks early so we have nice weather. I took the precausion to place several “good weather” orders with all the right people, so I feel good knowing I did my part.
We’ll fly into Cochin and travel 5 hours east to Thekkadi where we will spend two nights in a “cottage on an island in a wildlife sanctuary”. Having seen the animals running around the tiny sanctuary in Mysore, this actually scares the bujezuz out of me. Sleeping on an island with this guy as my bunkmate sounds more like “terrifying” than “relaxing”.
India’s national mascot is the King Cobra, the world’s largest venomous snake. It really bothers me that one of the deadliest animals on the planet is fast over land, can swim, can squiggle into small areas, can move about silently, and can strike accurately and lethally from something like 10 meters away. If it can kill a full-grown elephant with a single bite, the least nature could do is make it super gimpy or blind or something.
One of the managers here in Bangalore is from Kerala and I expressed my concerns about getting up in the middle of the night to stoke the fire only realize that what I thought was the fire poker was actually the business end of a cobra. He really got a kick out of me being afraid of snakes in the cottage. “Oh, they make sure there are no snakes in the buildings. But you should be careful when you go outside or leave the door open.” Thanks. That helps.
While staying in the sanctuary, we’ll be going on an elephant safari or some similar activity that seems to border on suicide. The good news here is that apparently, it’s possible to reattach limbs that get torn off by jungle beasts. The base assumption here being that you survived the attack. And even then, I bet it still ruins your trip.
After Thekkadi, we’ll be heading to Alleppey to get on a private houseboat for an overnight tour of the Kerala backwaters, which Conde Naste ranks as one of the ten things everyone should do before they die. What they forget to mention is that you should time this trip so that you do it before you spend the night in a cottage on Cobra Island in Thekkadi because then it becomes one of the ten things you should have done before you cozied up to a 12 foot venomous snake.
The houseboat will then drop us off at our final destination in Kumarakom where we will have a room on a big lake. Apparently, this is the place to be this time of year because most of the streams around the area will have dried up by now and all the wildlife will come to the water to drink.
If not, I’ll just use my croc-call to bring ‘em in.
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Disclaimer for both our mothers who I’m sure I have scrared half to death with this post: the dangers of this trip have been greatly exaggerated. This is a very common itenerary and almost no tourists die on these trips. Usually.
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