Visitor!!!

My first proper visitor arrived. My brother arrived for 3 whole weeks. Very exciting. . Last week was Diwali (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali) , so I had a week off work. There was a lot of debate about what we should do. My brother naturally wanted to see the Taj Mahal but I’ve seen it often enough at this stage (not a big fan – at the end of the day it’s just a very big elaborate tombstone – I know this is a minority opinion). After deciding Rajasthan was too far away, Goa not really India, we finally settled on Nepal! Nepal, of course is not part of India. Indeed, partly to prove that Nepal is a separate country, it has a different time zone. India is GMT + 5.5 hours and Nepal is GMT + 5.75 hours. It may sound silly and petty but the half hour difference always gets me. I’m OK to Europe but US/Canada always requires serious calculations. I had just got very good at calculating and now it has changed again. Like many countries near the equator India does not observe daylight savings time, so last week India was 10.5 hours ahead of Chicago, now it’s 11.5 hours ahead of Chicago since daylight savings time has begun in North America. Nepal is a separate country; Nepal also has rupees but Nepali rupees, but I seriously question how different Nepali (the language) is from Hindi. I really only know the numbers in Hindi but they are identical in Nepali. I can’t complain too much as Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian are really all the same language but few of the native speakers would concede the fact (for more political then linguistic reasons). Despite being a separate country, amazingly Indian rupees are welcomed all over Nepal. I had been informed by my colleagues but didn’t entirely trust then. Nonetheless I had a large wad of Indian banknotes (here I often feel like a drug dealer as I’m carrying 20-50 bank notes at any time which is quite considerable). Of course they had failed to inform me that 500 and 1000 Indian rupees notes were not accepted (500 rupees is about 10 Euro). The US dollar was a lot more popular.

Now my brother (D) would say this is unfair but as he admitted to not reading my blog I suppose I’m safe writing this. I got the distinct impression that D thought I was being “a glass is half empty” person about India. At the best of times he is sensitive to my complaints that women not have equal rights in the West and he finds my impassioned words about the oppression of women in India annoying (I think he would use the words ranting and complaining). He says but Hel, you have a driver and an apartment in a posh neighbourhood, what are you complaining about. However when he arrived, he finally understood where I was coming from. He sent my mother an email complaining about my water supply (not enough pressure to shower, one must use tap), the traffic (he kept trying to warn my driver he was going to hit something, like my driver would listen to him!), the neighbourhood (where is the posh part of Delhi), the shopping (it’s impossible to buy the things you want, and inevitable to be pestered to buy things you don’t want), the inefficiency (there were 3 check-out guys but it was slower than at home with only one!) . He gathered all this is about 24 hours in Delhi. I make him sound bad which is not true at all. It was lovely to see him and he bought all the food I requested from Ireland. Toffee crisps and club orange may be the nicest food combination in the world. He also brought Barry’s tea (a very popular tea in Cork, my hometown) http://www.barrystea.ie/ which was very welcome. He is spending this week in Nepal and he’ll arrive back next Sunday.

first visitor

My firend J came in September but she was in Delhi for only a few days and we didn't get to spend much time together, so I'm counting my brother (arriving tomorrow) as my first (and possibly only!) visitor. A recent email from him
___________________________________________________________________
Hel,

Like I was saying yesterday I'm booked, see the itenary below. Must get a phonecall in over the next few days to get a gameplan together. Looking forward to the trip and rejoining the lonely plannet brigade, possibly for the last time, allthough I have a few concerns-namely no idea what to do in India, (i'll be relying on the lonely plannet and your good self, the former seems much more enthusiastic about India), also the Embassy is processing my visa and won't say when they'll have it back. They'd better have it back to me before departure.................the people in there as we both already know are monumentally arrogent and unhelpful, customer service course badly needed methinks.

___________________________________________________________________

we finally got a gameplan together - and we are off to Nepal. he will get to experience about 2 days in delhi beforehand which is probably enough to get a feel for India.

Trying really hard to like India

A colleague of mine (the transcontinetial gossip girl) recently sent me a fab article about India. It's title: trying really hard to like India.

initially I thought it was somebody's blog and got a bit depressed as it was much better written than mine and flowed logicially. Then I realized it was actually a professional writer so felt a lot better.

It's a long article but as I say well-written and probably more balanced then helenindia!!!

Hope you enjoy


Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2143259/
Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Usually BA are quite efficient but this is India!

hi all,

A pretty short post as it's late and I want to sleep as a vast quantity of work awaits me this week (yikes). Recently I booked my flights home for Christmas. Booking was fine - paying was a different matter. Here is the letter I wrote to BA. Suffice to say I was very very cross (cross at the incident and even crosser than India brings out the grumbler in me that I had well under control for many years). To be fair to BA; even in the midst of inefficency, they were very pleasant


Dear Sir/Madam

I recently went on to BA.com to book a flight from India to Europe over Christmas. I had a good on-line experience as I have had with ba.com when booking from other countries. However there was no possibility to pay online. A number was provided for me to call to make payment. I called it but it was closed only having limited office hours (starting at 9.30 am). Since I am working I was obliged to call during work hours. When I first called I was on hold for 25 minutes. When I finally talked to somebody, she was unable to accept my credit card as there was a GBP 300 limit on American express. After some debate she was going to try something. However the message came that the card has been rejected. I said I would call back later with another credit card. I asked what time of the day was less busy and I was informed that mornings were less busy, so I called back the next day at 9.30. However I got the message that the office was closed and continued to get this message until 9.35. Then I was put on hold for 20 minutes, was obliged to give all my details again and this day my American Express card was accepted.


This is not the first time I have tried to book with BA from India. On the other occasions I booked with BA via expedia.com or traveled with KLM. I was tempted also on this occasion to travel with KLM but unfortunately their price was more than 50,000 more so I decided to stay with BA.

I do not understand why you cannot accept online bookings as your peers do. Furthermore I am shocked that I spent one hour of my life trying to give your company money. As BA is a global company I expected 24 hour service not 10 hours during which time I am at work. Additionally a credit limit of GBP 300 is ridiculously low – there are few flights out of India costing less than this!!!

Only if, as in this case, the price is considerably lower will I choose to book with BA from India which is a pity as I find your in-flight service excellent.

I would be grateful if you could reply this grievance.

Kind regards

Helen (last name excluded from blog for privacy purposes)

PS – I attempted twice to submit this information via your website but failed as an “incident type” and Flight number are required fields but I was unable to complete them.

Mahatma Gandhi birthday - October 2nd

Possibly not my finest work this week I’m pretty tired and it’s late. Today is Gandhi’s birthday so most of India is closed ad celebrating. There are a few restaurants open but it is a “dry Day” which means no alcohol is served. Seemingly Gandhi didn’t believe in drinking alcohol, eating meat or lying. To be honest normally I won’t care one way or the other as I don’t really drink alcohol but I had a few colleagues over and I was responsible for their entertainment today. They really wanted beer with lunch but the restaurant won’t serve it because of the day. Indeed there are quite a few places in India that don’t serve alcohol at all – Gujarat for example.

However I can’t complain too much because it was a 4 day weekend for me. Friday wasn’t so good as I spent the morning sick, the afternoon on a conference call preparing for some important meetings and the evening struggling with Delhi traffic (or more accurately sitting in the back seat while my driver struggled with Delhi traffic). I left my apartment at 16.40 to go to the gym arrived there at 17.10 only to find I had forgotten all my gym gear save my shoes and washbag (no wonder the bag felt light – nothing at all to do with my tidying session). Then we drove back to my apartment but already the traffic had begun to built so it was close to 19.00 by the time we returned to the gym. After my workout I went back and retired to bed – exhausted by Delhi. Saturday I pretended to be a tourist and went to the modern art gallery – there was some interesting stuff but nothing spectacular. The collection was quite small, no more than 300 pieces, but 2 were called “Toilet in the Woods” – both were by different artists. Very strange. That evening I went to church in the hope of catching mass from the Irish priest but it was his Indian colleague who looked about 16 – I suppose he was more (‘tis unlikely the Catholic Church encourage child labor or vocations)

Sunday a colleague (also called Helen) arrived in from the UK and we went off to Agra (home of Taj Mahal and former capital of the Mughal empire). Agra’s only 200km from Delhi but with holiday weekend traffic it took more than a hour to leave Delhi so more than 4 hours in total to get to Agra. Once there we really only had time to see the Taj which was I suppose to whole point but I wished we had time to see Akbar’s tomb which is rated pretty highly by the guide books – I’m sure I’ll get another chance to see it. The journey back was shorter about 3 hours but all in all it was a long day but I think my colleague enjoyed it and ‘twas more interesting than my standard Indian Sunday.

Today (Monday) more colleagues arrived and we went to Humanyan’s tomb – the site of my first tourist activity in Delhi (mentioned in one of my first posts along with photograph). We were only half-hearted culture vultures as the mid-30s temperatures don’t encourage serious exploring of ruined tombs. My colleagues were pleased to have seen a bit of Delhi . After a pleasant (but alcohol-free) lunch we took the train north to Chandigarh. Chandigarh is a planned city designed by the famous architect Le Corbusier. The whole city is composed of sectors (originally 45 but now numbering 88) – each sector being a 1km block with the same basic structure – residential, commercial etc. Block 17 is the city center and is entirely commercial. I suppose somebody was superstitious as there is no block 13. Chandigarh sounds interesting and even though this is my third trip to the town I’ve never seen that much of it as usually I’m here for less than 24 hours and what with sleep, commuting to the factory and thanking God the commute to the factory didn’t cause my early death, there's not much time for other activities. As I’m here 36 hours this time I may get to see some more of Chandigarh.