28/04/2007 by Lyndon.

Wow, I really can’t believe that I’ve reached the end of my work abroad.  It has been a fantastic 10 weeks, work has been great and I have seen some amazing things in both India and China.  I am now off on vacation with a whistle-stop tour of Hong Kong and Bangkok before reaching the tropical island Krabi in Thailand.  I’ll be back in the UK on Monday 7th May which is going to feel very strange!  In the mean time I’ll try update the blog with more entries for my time in China.  See you soon!

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23/03/2007 by Lyndon.

What was it like flying with Ethiopian Airlines?  That’s a question I’ve been asked a few times now, and understandably so.  Afterall, in one of the poorest countries in the world where famine and drought are rift how can they possibly have a national airline?

I suppose the answer is that like everywhere in the world Africa has both its very rich and its very poor.  Whilst many are starving and dying from lack of water the high flyers are in the air going to Delhi and Beijing.  This was very evident on the plane where a third of the passengers who were African all oozed wealth.  From nice suits, to excessive bling these passengers were obviously doing quite well for themselves. Given the state of their nation these people, and their airline are doing relatively well for themselves.

The plane was your usual sort of jumbo with overly cramped seats, microwaved food and poor inflight entertainment.  It was a bit rough around the edges and evidently hadn’t been maintained too recently.  For example, my meal tray sat at an unhelpful angle resulting in a slightly embarassing incident involving the reminants of my dinner ending up on my neighbours lap whilst he slept.  Ahem.  Similarly, the upholstory was a quite tattered and the plane’s wings had disturbing staines flaring from the joints.

Perhaps unfairly, my confidence was pre-set to its over cautious mode well before I got anywhere near the plane. Unfortuantely this wasn’t helped any when my fellow passengers and I boarded the plane.  Confusion broke out shortly after we began looking for our seats in the usual cramped and crushing manner.  Looking for seat 31K I was slightly concerned to discover the plane only had seats in positions I and J.  As the air hostess approached I half expected to hear “sorry sir, we lost those seats in the turblance on the way in.”  However, the reality was a similar confused look after which she tried to console with me by suggesting I find myself another seat as there were only “20 passengers”.  Said in a confident tone I would have been tempted to believe her had there not been a planeload of eyes gazing at us following the comotion!

Perhaps it’s just a sign of the times that I live in but the most disturbing thing about the Ethiopian experience was the in-flight entertainment.  It wasn’t the quality of the movie or even the fact there were only communal TV screens.  The truely horrifying thing about the whole experience was that the movie we were watching was stored on a video cassette.  One can only hope that the technolgy in the cockpit was slightly more advanced…

Then again, I arrived in once piece and so did my overweight (but without charge) lugguage.  The food was surprisingly tasty and the air hostesses pleasingly gave me a glass of wine in addition to a cup of orange, apple juice and tea (though she did offer to mix them all together for me).  Given the only alternative was Air China I suppose flying with an African airline wasn’t all that bad afterall.

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22/03/2007 by Lyndon.

I’m writing this from 37,000 feet somewhere over southern China on an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Beijing.  Until a few minutes ago I was fast asleep trying to catch up on an early start when I was rudely awoken, and boy was that an unexpected way to wake up!  There I was dreaming sweet dreams when something startled me and I open my eyes to find an air hostess’ bosom only centimetres from my face.  I’m sure there must be a more elegant way to shut the window blind, asking the person sitting next to it perhaps? 

I’m half way through a flight that takes me into the next phase of my journeys: China.  It’s strange to think that I’ve been away from home for almost 4 weeks now.  Time seems to have flown past in India, perhaps too fast in some respects, but it’s definitely been an experience I won’t forget.  Work has been crazy busy with 12 hour days the norm whilst I prepared for my forthcoming challenge.  I’ve been given a lot of freedom whilst working the India office which in some respects was quite scary, but it’s nice to know my managers have faith in me.  Or perhaps it is poor judgement, but whatever reason they had for sending me here the next 5 weeks are going to be a leap into un-chartered waters.  I have 7 Chinese developers and an Indian QA that I have to lead to satisfy a long list of requirements.

I have enjoyed my time in India. I have learnt so much at work as well as outside in the scary streets of a developing country.  It’s definitely been an eye opening experience that has given me more clarity about the sort of work I want to do and the simple things to be appreciated in live.  It’s amazing how many things we, or at least I, took for granted back home in the UK.  Simple things like safe drinking water, a constant electricity supply and solid walls around my home.  British kids are taught about the wider world in school but seeing some of it with my own eyes adds a realism that can’t be grasped in school.  And to think India is actually one of the more developed countries in the world.  I’m glad I was lucky enough to be born in the western world and can return to the luxuries that come with living in London.  Perhaps if we sent ASBO laden teenager to a developing country for a week they might learn a thing of two.  A sort of “I’m a brat – get me out of here!” reality show.  Worth a thought at least …

But then perhaps I haven’t overly enjoyed living in India because I was born in England.  I have been trying to think of the virtues that India can claim over my home, and haven’t managed to come up with a very big list yet.  The only two that easily came to mind were some amazing sites and some kick ass animals.  Of course these things probably won’t be anywhere near the top of the list for an Indian born here.  I guess in that respect my trip here was perhaps a partial failure as I haven’t really experienced the true Indian way of live, or the vitality that many longer-term visitors talk about.  But hey, I did get to ride an elephant so in my mind the trip has been a total success

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14/03/2007 by Lyndon.

I found out today that I have got my Chinese visa!  I hadn’t expected to get it back until Friday, and even then we were unsure if I would be granted it.  This was the first time the company had applied for a Chinese visa in Delhi for a British national, and we were concerned there might have been a residency requirement.  Thankfully it appears our worries were unfounded and I’m now the proud owner of another sticker in my passport!

Officially my piece of work should kick off on 2nd April in Beijing, but it appears that my team will become partially available before then.  It now looks like I’ll be leaving India as soon as next Wednesday (21st March) once I have finished passing on knowledge to the rest of the India team and completed my plan. 

Unfortunately there are very few airlines that fly between Delhi and Beijing, with the two main ones being Air China (obvious) and Air Ethiopia!  As I’ve heard many horror stories about Air China I think I will give the Africans a try, especially as they give you a 50kg luggage allowance.  At least that should mean I don’t have to have do any creative repacking at the airport this time

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06/03/2007 by Lyndon.

They say if you are in Delhi for more than a week you are almost certainly going to get Delhi Belly.  However, I didn’t expect it to happen at the chime of 7 days. I was prepared for this eventuality and brought plenty of drugs with me, but it has still been a pretty rough night.  I have had today off work to try sleep it off and I feel a bit better, so fingers crossed.

It’s just so irritating because I have been extra careful with regards to water and food.  I have religiously only drunk water from bottles where I have opened the seal, have eaten only at higher quality restaurants and constantly bath my hands in alcohol hand gel.  It seems as though it’s almost a fore gone conclusion that you will get ill regardless of how hard you try.

The only things I had during the day yesterday was a bottle of water and a meal at McDonalds.  At McDonalds I even had them prepare me a fresh burger without any salad!  But by tea time I was starting to feel ill which can only mean it was the McDonalds that did it.  McDonalds prides itself on serving consistent food regardless of where in the world you are but I guess it pays to never trust anyone, however big and well known they are.  Of course if you trust no-one then you would then starve, but that’s not the point…

Fingers crossed that I can go back to work tomorrow - I can’t afford to be ill for very long.

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02/03/2007 by Lyndon.

There was me thinking I was in Delhi.  Simple assumption to make considering I’m supposed to be working at our ‘Delhi’ office, right?  Well I discovered today I’m not actually in Delhi at all - I’m in Gurgaon, about 30km southwest of Delhi.  It’s actually a city in itself!  Oh well … with the amount of time I’ve spent in the office this week I could actually be anywhere :-s

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27/02/2007 by Lyndon.

So the whole airport thing was a bit annoying.  We arrived with 2.5 hours to spare, but the check-in queue was huge.  We spent about 45 mins in the queue before Taylan somehow pursuaded one of the staff to let us jump the rest of the queue.  Result!  I knew the baby would come in handy someday :-)  I knew my baggage was overweight so I little creative temporary redistribution to mum’s bag meant I was only 4 kg over.  I couldn’t believe it when the guy at the desk told me that’d be £108 please!!!  £27 per bloody kilo!  So a little more creative repacking, and I got it down to the limit.  God knows how I’m going to get it all back …

Going through security was crazy, it was all very un-British with pushing and shoving and a very slow trapse through to the usual set of xray machines.  I was slightly worried they’d question why I had two laptops but in the end it was no problem.  So, having arrived at the airport 2.5 hours before my flight I end up getting to the gate just as they announced the door was closing!!!

Overheating due to wearing too many layers of clothing (worn to reduce the weight of my bags) I was slightly more irritated to discover my pre-booked aisle seat had somehow turned into a seat between a window and a 18 month baby.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love babies (especially Taylan!) but sitting next to a little bugger that doesn’t sit still, throws drink over you and whinges isn’t my idea of a quality flight.  Neither is an air steward who evidently believes flights would be so much more enjoyable without any passengers.  Thumbs down this time Mr Branson.

Still, we arrived into Delhi international airport on time and I didn’t have any issues at immigration or customs.  My taxi driver was waiting for me, and with the exception of both currency exchange desks refusing to take cards my arrival went smoothly.

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