An early afternoon start at the office was the plan and amazingly we nearly succeeded. It was agreed that we would meet for lunch at midday and then be driven into the office for about 1PM.
It didn't help that I had a call at 9am from the hotel staff asking if my room was comfortable (it certainly was) but it pretty much screwed up me sleeping. I ended up falling asleep again at 9:30 and bot waking up until 11:30. One quick shower and change of clothes meant we managed to have lunch and be ready to go at 1:15PM...amazing given the normal timekeeping of our department :)
Ah, driving in India. You think you'll be prepared for it. You've heard the stories....and they are all true and more. I'm sure we avoiding accidents at the rate of about one a minute. You have never seen tailgating, under taking and sheer suicidal lane changing until you have seen an India city at lunchtime. Scary is all I can say, although I'm informed today was "quiet". Yikes!
I managed to take a few pictures on the way, but they really do not do justice to the journey. India is certainly a land of contrasts. From our 5 star hotel to the office was only 2 miles but the sights were amazing. Shopping centres, slums, beggars, affluent people walking in the road and the frankly amazing road workers who work inches from roaring traffic with no protection. What really stuck out was the amount of rubbish everywhere. From the roof of the office was an amazing view of the city (need to get back up there with the camera) but looking down to the street all i could see was mountains of rubbish by the side of the road.
Work was OK, the office is pleasant and modern. Our Indians colleagues kindly laid on bottled water for us, as they knew we are all paranoid about drinking the local tap stuff. We were at the hotel at 7:30ish after another manic journey, this time in the dark where it seems headlights are purely optional.
A very welcome beer or three followed which were certainly needed. My boss was telling me his theory of avoiding Delhi Belly (or should that be Calcutta Craps?). Basically drink lots of beer. This had a certain appeal to me so watch this space to see if it works.
Cheers! (written with my 4th bottle of beer well under way)
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