A little light traffic in the park outside my hotel
We’re going to try this again today… I have the WordPress app (the software back-ending my blog) on my phone now, and yesterday I wrote this post once before and lost the content somehow. Sorry about that! Hopefully in the future I’ll be able to add pictures and text without that concern!
My plane from Chicago to Delhi was a 777-300, HUGE!
After the longest contiguous flight I’ve taken as an adult (South Africa was longer… but had a refuel break), I arrived in Delhi, India. The airport was very much a cookie-cutter airport that you would expect, with little more than a few shops and restaurants near the base of the terminal. I had actually enjoyed the last flight overall, ending up with an empty seat next to me made the 15 hours bearable, if not great… I’m glad that part is behind me now!
Delhi was another adventure, security was exceedingly strict and boarding began fifteen minutes early. I was there in plenty of time and this wouldn’t have been such a big deal except there was no announcement until near the very end, I almost missed it! I saw the line of people at my gate and figured something was amiss when they were boarding!
I got on though, and after two and a half more hours I landed in Bangalore.
I should say upfront that parts of Bangalore are very nice, and parts are not. In India, Bangalore is seen as an example of a very modern city, with large tech companies (like my employer) investing heavily. Walk around it, though, and that perception changes very quickly.
My first impression of Bangalore was stepping out to meet my driver. It is hot here all the time day and night, and humid too. The airport is beautiful though and we were shortly on our way.
I was feeling pretty confident that I had a lay of the land to some degree in Bangalore. I’d noticed in Dehli that people kept passing me on the right and correctly guessed that in India drivers stay on the left side of the road. If you ever are unsure… try to pass someone from another country in a hallway. If you head to your right, and they do too… most likely you’ve found a country that drives in the opposite side!
When we go onto the highway heading for the hotel, my driver said we had a forty-five minute drive ahead of us. It would turn out to be about an hour and a half.
I was immediately reminded of Costa Rica when watching the locals drive here. In Costa Rica, there is little concept of a traffic lane… cars move where they fit and people walk the sides of major roadways inches from cars without concern at all. That is much the same in India, just quite a different magnitude.
Imagine bumper cars, where everyone is trying to get as close as possible without actually touching. Then, take the same game and make it competitive where it is imperative that you finish first. Throw in pedestrians, tuk tuks, and a billion scooters with anywhere from one to five passengers on each… and you get somewhat of an idea. Every inch of road has a car, truck, scooter, person, or tuk tuk on it,with barely any air separating them at all. Most of the time, that type of chaos is exceeding 40 MPH, and I’m really not exaggerating. It’s actually almost scary, yet fun to watch! Oh, and everyone uses their horn at every available moment. In fact, many of the horns here are custom and make funny sounds!
Eventually, we did make it to the hotel and didn’t kill anyone or get hit. I think I’ll coin the driving here as “competitive living”, where the goal is to get where you are going without killing or dying… and those are the only rules.
My hotel is the Oakwood Premiere Prestige in the UB City mall area, it airs like a jewel on a raised terrace over three levels of high fashion shops. It also encompasses a square with a few restaurants and bars / clubs. I went to a bar the first night here, a coworker (Hi Brian!) met me immediately on my arrival and we had a few drinks and some food for me after all that flying! It was a great night!
A picture of the Hotel from the next morning
After a late night, an early morning to ease sleeping later. I had to switch to US hours again on Monday after somehow acclimating perfectly to India Standard Time throughout my flights. I had breakfast with Brian and went for a walk in the surrounding neighborhood.
A Nearby Library
Once you leave UB City, it’s hard not to notice the surrounding poverty. India is a country I can’t figure out, and part of that appears in what will follow here: I get the impression that people here care about new things… and somehow give up quickly on the old things. I wonder is America has had some part in this in the world today, I hope not.
We walked out of the hotel and ran for our lives across a busy intersection. There are few crosswalks here an cars do not stop unless there is no way around you. We came across a stadium, full-size as you are probably imagining, left to slowly fall apart. We saw sidewalks that went from brand-new to disintegrating within blocks, with holes big enough that you could really hurt your ankle… or in some cases your knee! It’s like the engineers and society built the place, and then hung up the tools and retired, job done. There is no such thing as upkeep on some buildings here, many are abandoned, re-purposed, or just used to dump trash. It is odd and a little frustrating to see the potential that has gone unrealized. Today we dodged power lines lying on the sidewalk (yes, live ones), and got a food view of the local shops and park. It was fun, to a degree, but what a contrast. I’m sure there will be more to come.
I’ll summarize my first day at work tomorrow! Goodnight!
