Tag Archives: TripReport

After arriving and sleeping for somewhere in the neighborhood of 16-18 hours, my traveling companion (Ming) woke up and went to his conference. When he returned our plan was to eat and go to the nearby “Famous Sigma Mall” so he could get some souvenirs for his wife before leaving that evening.

The “Zodiac Coffee Shop” in the lobby of the hotel was pretty good. Aside from conference stuff, I just ate their the whole stay. Breakfast was included (buffet), lunch and dinner also had a buffet option. The buffet was pretty great. A couple kinds of rice and 6-12 indian dishes (never the same twice) as well a good dessert selection.

They always had “milkshakes” as part of the buffet, flavors included:
Vanilla
“Choco” — it didn’t really taste like chocoalte.
Butterscotch
Banana

They also usually had my favorite Indian dessert “Golab Jamun” as well as a slight variation “Kula Jamun” which adds sugar to the mix which causes the balls to taken on a darker color.

So after lunch we asked for directions on how to get to the Sigma mall and set off. I should mention that our hotel had an intense amount of security. Guards, metal detectors, under car searches, it was all going on, for no apparent reason other than show.

We walked up the slight hill to the busier Cunningham road. Cunningham road is a major street so it has something approximating a sidewalk but with people parking on it. Walking on side streets is a real test of nerves. There aren’t really sidewalks. What there are is cement trenches/channels with large flat stones placed over them. I guess the trenches are for drainage and the stone could be sidewalk-like, but many times they’re missing leaving gaping pits to jump over.

You also want to avoid any sudden movements. Traffic is like water in that it will flow around you, but won’t hit you. You don’t want to run or dart out, drivers will see you and avoid you. They may go around you in a way you weren’t expecting, but walk slowly and stay the course.

While Indian driving appears kinda intense at first, I think they’re far more attentive drivers than we are in North America. I didn’t see a single close call with a person, other vehicle, street dog, cow or whatever else was in the street. They seem to know where everyone and everything on the road is and anticipate stopping, but won’t if they don’t have to.

Lanes with out a concrete divider are really only a suggestion. They’ll use the entire road if available. This was a little hair raising during a bus trip (later) through the country side in India. It’s not uncommon to come around a turn and see two vehicles coming at you in both lanes of the road. One will eventually back off and you can pass.

We walked the hill to the Sigma mall, didn’t become roadkill and arrived at the corner of a fairly busy street. Sure enough, just hanging out on the corner was a cow. The cow didn’t have any apparent owner, or ID, or agenda. It was just hanging out of the corner. I think it gave me a dirty look but I can’t tell.

The mall was fairly uneventful. Ming bought some scarves (sadly without negotiating), I bought some bottled water and mango juice and we returned to the hotel. The valet called to inform us his airport driver was there and he set off.

I went back to work.

To be continued.

(Originally from an email Jan. 5/2010

We got to the airport on time and found out the plane had been delayed upon check in. The time slide a bit more and more and we finally got off the ground sometime after 9:30 or so. The plane to Brussels was packed pretty tight, so sleeping and eating was fairly difficult. Food on the plane was pretty good, various configurations of Indian food which was probably on par with some of the low end places in Canada.

In Brussels we got off the plane and into the terminal, we had to re-clear security which was fine and went to our gate. Our plane was delayed once more. I bought a water in the airport for 3.50 Euros! and then we boarded our plane to Delhi. The plane from Brussels to Delhi had far less people on it, so we were able to spread out across the plane with everyone getting their own row of seats. This allowed me to get some sleep and I slept for about 3/4 of the plane ride, skipping the first meal, but having the dinner meal just before we arrived in Delhi.

We arrived in Delhi and were very late from our projected time. Customs was fairly smooth, but busy as they were understaffed when we first got there, but cleared up after a while. We both breezed through customs without any problems, and then went to claim my baggage. This took a little longer as may bags have been one of the last to come off the plane at every stop (I guess the oversized poster tube complicates the matter).

We were very late at this point, but I decided to go see if our driver to the Delhi hotel was anywhere to be found. No luck, he wasn’t among the drivers. But at this point it wouldn’t have made much sense, since our next flight was in less than 4 hours, and we still had to clear security @ the domestic terminal.

We found the inter-terminal shuttle, and waited for that. All the customs persons / airport security carry AK-47s which is a little off putting at first, but then I noticed they didn’t have their magazines inserted. This was a little more comforting. The inter-terminal shuttle was quite an experience. It stays within the airport walls, which are 14 foot high with barbed wire and guard bunkers everywhere. There’s also a lot of abandoned vehicles and what not, which late at night seem like a war zone. We also had one of such guards on the bus with his AK 47 seated next to the driver. I realized this wasn’t for our security, but his job was to escort the bus through the various check points.

We got to the Delhi domestic terminal and passed security without any problems. We then went inside and waited about 90 minutes for our flight. We got a coffee and looked around the (expensive) airport shops. Airport wifi for the trip this far had been a bust, and although Delhi offered “free” wifi, we couldn’t get it to work since we didn’t have a mobile phone number that would receive the “password sms message”. Oh well, it wasn’t long enough of a wait to matter.

It was fairly cold in Delhi (being about 6-7 am), and we went to our gate. They don’t have those little tunnel thingys, you clear your gate and then get on a bus. The bus takes you out to your plane on the tarmac and you get on it there. The plane ride from Delhi to Bangalore was uneventful, just a typical short flight as you’d get in Canada or the US.

Arriving in Bangalore it was much warmer, we were almost back on schedule (fog was causing a lot of flight delays) but got my luggage without incident (last again!) and went outside. The driver pickup was much crazier than it was in Delhi (early morning when we were there), but Ming managed to find the guy holding a sign with my name on it. He took our bags, and went to get the car.

I don’t have words for the drive from the airport to the hotel. Some objective information:

- it was about 40 km.
- would take about 60 minutes due to traffic and what not.
- our driver was confident and we rode in a small new toyota.

Subjectively I woud describe it as follows.

- start with the vegas strip in the middle of the day — which is basically 4 lanes in each direction bumper to bumper, moving about 5 km an hour.

modify as follows :

- they drive on the left hand side of the road.
- increase the traffic speed to 80 km an hour.
- change half of the number of cars to motorcycles, mopeds, 3 wheel auto rickshaws.
- of the two wheel vehicles, 50% will have 1 passengers, 25% will be two, and 25% will have 3 or more, with children riding the in laps of the driver.
- add in trucks that are only allowed to drive 40 km an hour.
- cars will often attempt to get two cars into one lane.
- people will cross the road (this is a highway) at any point, or just be hanging out on medians.
- people will also be sweeping and cleaning the road at any point with traffic whizzing by @ 80 km.
- it seems more frantic because honking is used to tell the person you’re coming up on them, but also to berate poor drivers.
- don’t be alarmed by a vehicle coming at you, driving on the wrong side of the road, it was likely just easier for them to get where they were going that way. less common with cars, but common with 2 wheel vehicles.
- driver will be very calm, as if cruising down an empty country road.

We got to our hotel which is pretty posh. No problems checking in, but there was some confusion about my second reservation (conference one). We got out our room, got settled and went downstairs to have lunch. We have a small cafe-type restaurant in the lobby which is buffet and is pretty good. It’s also where our (included) breakfast takes place. After lunch I sorted out my conference registration and Ming arranged for a driver to and from his conference. He hired a driver for half of the day (who will wait) for 1200 RS (26$ CAD) — we likely could have done better but I think he was shell shocked from earlier experience and dealing with cabs outside our hotel looked a bit daunting.

At about 2pm ,we came back to the room and had planned on heading next door to the sigma mall so Ming could shop a bit. Ming decided to take a shower and I elected to take a nap. The original plan was a 1 hour nap or so, but that didn’t quite happen. I woke up 8 pm (6 hours later), and we decided to hit the mall tomorrow. I went back to sleep and slept until 7:30 am. In the morning a received a message from the desk from “wife”. She called back a bit later which was kinda surprising, as in my half-asleep state thought the wake up call person sounded very familiar and overly western.

I was dismayed to learn that wifi wasn’t included in our room, and was about 400 INR a day, I purchased it the first day, and was going to look into a better deal. We went down to breakfast which was great. I switched over to my conference rate (check out and re check in) and the concierge comp’ed my wifi for my stay, which will be a real savings.

So now I’m in the room, Ming has gone to his conference. The plan when he returns is to go next door to the mall, get some lunch, I said “we’ll eat at the mall, it’ll be more of an adventure” and look around for souvenirs for him. He’ll come back and head to the airport for about 5 pm.

I’ve successfully (after 3 service calls) got my room safe to cooperate, and for the first time in my life UNPACKED in a hotel room. I figure I’m here long enough I won’t live out of my suitcase.

that’s it so far,
jc