14/03/2007 by Lyndon.

The disparity in Gurgaon really does amaze me.  As I mentioned in a previous post this city has only recently had an influx of investment but almost all of this has been spent on skyscrapers, tower blocks and malls.  High paid workers travel from all around to spend the day working here before going back to their comfortable apartments nearby.  But for most people living in Gurgaon life isn’t so flash, and I guess sometimes even just having 4 solid walls is classed as fancy.

I took the photo below on one of my rick shaw rides to the mall.  It’s taken right outside my apartment complex and gives you an idea of the huge variation in wealth here.  It’s crazy to think that within 25 meters you have families both living in relative luxury and such extreme poverty that they cannot even afford 4 solid walls to their home.  It’s a crazy world we live in, isn’t it?

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10/03/2007 by Lyndon.

Weekend 2 in India and with it my latest opportunity to explore more of the sights and sounds of this very different country.  The tally for this weekend:

• 1 wonder of the world,
• 550km + 8 hours in a taxi,
• a camel ride,
• 2 near death experiences …
• … and only 1 pedestrian run over

This weekend I decided I would travel to Agra and see one of the most famous buildings in the world: the Taj Mahal.  I’ve heard many things over the years and see the odd photo of this incredible place but nothing can ever compare to seeing it with your own eyes.  It’s not until you discover the incredible effort and workmanship for yourself that you can truely appreciate why this is one of the 7 wonders of the world.

Agra is around 250km from Delhi and taking a taxi is the easiest way to get there, although perhaps not the safest method.  With the journey set to take around 4 hours each way it was an early start and leaving around 8am.  During the week I finally met Nicky, a fellow deweller in the apartment, and invited her and her daughter (4) along on the trip to Agra.  It’s good to finally have someone that I can have a real conversation with - I’d started going a little crazy in this place recently!

Our taxi driver was a young guy and like seemingly all Indian taxi drivers, he lacked certain driving skills that I’m spoilt with in England.  It appears that the city based driving technique is still maintained when driving over longer distances.  The only difference is that it’s done at 120km/hour.  I wonder how long before sky diving bungee jumping adrealin junkies discover the kicks that come with travelling in an Indian taxi.  Take overtaking for an example - blind corners? on a hill? at night?  huge trucks hurtling towards you?  Not a problem for the Indian taxi driver, and in fact it appears these are often the most desirable times to overtake. Two occasions in particular saw us only just avoiding a truck at high speed - god only knows how we missed.

Of course, that’s not to say we didn’t have any accidents at all.  Whilst driving through Agra our driver did actually run over a pedestrain, though thankfully not badly enough that we had to stop for long, exchange details or for the driver to show any sign of surprise.  Indians never seem to be surprised or phased by anything, things that I’m often stunned by.  I guess the best philiosphy here is to expect the unexepcted.

After a few hours on the road our driver turned off onto a route and as the road turned into a heavily potted mud track we started to wonder whether perhaps this was some kind of short cut.  As it turned out this was the driver’s home village, and we were to be the daily entertainment.  Feeling rather like an animal in the zoo we were paraded to all and sundry before being allowed to continue on our journey. Just a little bit random!

We arrived at the Taj in just about one piece at around midday and very soon the beggars and street vendors selling junk were swarming around us.  The usual range of rubbish was on off; mini taj’s, postcards and other trinkets but perhaps for the first time in my life I was offered a camel ride!  Of course we quickly accepted this grand offer and travelled the last few kilometers to the Taj in true humped style.

Entrance to the Taj only costs 30 rupees, if you’re Indian that is.  Otherwise its 750 rupees for foreigns though this higher price entitles you to a bottle of water and some shoe covers.  A real bargin I’m sure you’ll agree.  But, being a once in a lifetime oppotunity it doesn’t really matter, especially when you see the place up close.

The Taj is beautiful, and even more so up close.  It isn’t until you’re right next to it that you realise all of the decoration isn’t just paint but encrusted semi-precious stones.  All of it, from the lotus flowers to the arabic script it was all created by embedding colourful stones into the brilliant white marble.  Not to mention the carvings all made from solid marble - it’s really quite amazing that it only took around 16 years to complete.

Next up was a stop by the Red Fort, a huge and equally magnificant structure built by the same emperor that constructed the Taj Mahal.  It stands a little along the river from the Taj and is made from solid red sandstone with the odd white marble palace within it.  There are endless buildings in the fort, and all are intricately carved and decorated. 

Having skipped lunch we were all getting very hungry and with the prospect of 4 hours in the taxi to get home we decided it was time to head home.  Stopping along the way to eat some food in road-side ‘restaurant’ we were home by 10pm and completely knackered. 

Another great day seeing the sights and sounds of India.  Fingers crossed for next weekend, my final one in India before flying to China.

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06/03/2007 by Lyndon.

It’s quite a common situation across much of southern Europe to be approached by people selling junk, and Delhi is much the same. Every tourist attraction has its share of people selling all kinds of useless stuff, but in Delhi they also attract beggars. Wherever you go, and however hard you try to ignore them they are persistently harassing you with repetitive Hindi and touching you before moving their hand to their mouths. It got quite unnerving sometimes and often the only way to get them to leave is to move closer to a police officer.

Interestingly, I haven’t been approached by even a single beggar whilst wandering around Gurgaon, but in Delhi it was a constant pestering wherever you go. From what I’ve seen of Gurgaon there are a lot of very poor people living in some appalling conditions. Despite having walked right past their shanty towns none of them ever approached me asking for money. Perhaps the reason for this is that there simply aren’t enough gullible tourists in Gurgaon to make professional begging a viable option.

Given Delhi’s status as one of the more exotic travel locations for westerners there were a lot of white people at each of the principle sites. That’s not to say there weren’t any Indian tourists there - in fact there were probably 5-10 times as many Indians as there were whites, but strangely the India tourists weren’t approached by the beggars. I sat at India Gate for a while and observed my surroundings. Each time a new car load of white tourists arrived a handful of beggars would gravitate towards them. I guess these very desperate people have learnt that their best chance of success lays with the wealth of gold lying in the pockets of gullible white tourists.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the begging problem in Delhi is the child abuse that comes with it. Often many of these beggars are young children with an adult lurking somewhere in the background. After all, it’s a lot harder to resist a horribly thin and appearing very desperate child beggar than to refute an adult one. These children are forced to perform the dirty work of adults and rarely get to keep any donations for themselves. My guide book suggested the best thing to give to these children is sweets because they are of no interest to the adult and the child benefits from it (ignoring the obvious dental issues).

What my guide book failed to realise is that there seems to be a pecking order even within the children themselves. Whilst sitting at India Gate I observed some American ladies giving candy to two children, one of about 3 and the other about 7. Each child was given a candy bar of some description and beamed with smiles at the tourists. Obviously feeling rather pleased for themselves the looks of delight on the American’s faces quickly turned to horror. As the two children wandered off to find their next victim the older of the children snatched the younger’s candy bar and pocketed it for himself. When children are working for other children it doesn’t matter whether the prize is money or candy, often the child themselves doesn’t benefit.

The most hideous child abuse that I witnessed whilst in Delhi was while waiting at some traffic lights in an auto-rickshaw. As we approached the lights I noticed a woman sitting at the side of the road with two children near her playing. As happened whenever we stopped the child approached the vehicle and started begging. The difference with this child was that he had his arm in a sling and appeared to have a nastily infected cut on his hand. As part of his begging routine he kept pointing at his arm trying to win the sympathy vote. The cut looked relatively real, but even if it wasn’t the fact an adult would force a child to pretend to be injured really cannot do the child any good. I guess while tourists continue to support these children the abuse will continue, regardless of whether the abuse is coming from an adult or another child. It’s difficult to ignore a child in need, but perhaps it might be the best solution to the problem.

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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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05/03/2007 by Lyndon.

In India there is usually a bank holiday following a big festival and consequently there are around 14 holidays a year.  The idea is to enable people to recover following the celebrations of the weekend.  Today’s bank holiday in lieu of Holi meant I could finally escape Gurgaon and explore Delhi.

I had booked a taxi to take me into the city and drop me at India Gate.  Not even being able to pronounce Gurgaon properly, I was slightly concerned how I would get home so decided I’d get the same taxi to pick me up in the same spot he left me.  Fingers crossed that this would work I wandered over to have a look at the Gate.

India Gate is Delhi’s monument to the soldiers who fell in the first world war.  It’s an impressive structure standing at 42 meters high and was built in 1931.  At night it’s lit up very impressively and can be seen from all around making it a good navigation tool.  This is one of Delhi’s main attractions, and the place was swarming with tourists.  Comfortingly there was a ‘Tourist Police’ presence here that made it feel a lot safe to wander around.

From India Gate leads the Rajpath road which is bordered with distinctive red sand and leads directly up to the Rashtrapati Bhawn, originally the Viceroy’s house.  This palace has 340 rooms but can only be viewed by invitation from the government.  The closest I or any of the other tourists could get was the high iron gating bordering the grounds.  It’s strange, but I seemed to be the only tourist doing the rounds on foot.  After snapping a few photos everyone else jumped into chauffeured cars and darted off to the next attraction.  I love walking, and find it’s the best way to really learn how everything fits together and discover the non-tourist things in between.

Being able to walk on real pavements made with real stone is a nice thing.  It’s strangely reassuring to pound along a path and not have to worry what’s underfoot.  Something you don’t really appreciate at home but as I’ve seen in Gurgaon having pavement is a rarity, much lower down the priorities list when money is so scarce. 

Leaving the Rashtrapati Bhawn behind me I walked back past the two secretariat buildings, one of which housing the ministry of defence and heavily guarded.  Sneaking a crafty photo of the MOD I wandered off to see Parliament House nearby.  This building is a large circular building with 144 columns around its circumference surrounding the three chambers held within.  Again, the closest I could get to this was peering through the garden gates.

I finally managed to actually go inside an attraction at the Jantar Mantar.  This name literally means ‘instruments’ ‘formulae’ and houses a number of astronomical instruments built in 1724.  These things were built very large so they would be more accurate and are an impressive feature among the many skyscrapers surrounding the site today (which ironically mean it can no longer be used to taking readings).  Entrance to this attraction is only 5 rupees for people of Indian origin, but is 100 rupees for foreigners.  Delightful!

The Jantar Mantar is located near to Connaught Place, a circular garden around which all the local roads centre upon.  Beginning to get quite dehydrated I opted to continue straight down Janpath, the main shopping street in Delhi.  I found a shop that sold sealed bottled water, and went browsing through the shops that contained all sorts of wares from clothing to statues.  Half way down the street I found a trusted western food: McDonalds.  Not sure when I would next get this opportunity I ventured inside and ate my usual meal.  Wherever you go in the world you can always be sure that the food you get from McDonalds is consistent.  It may be terribly unhealthy but you know what you’re getting.  Or at least you think you do, something that would be proved wrong later in the day.

Taking a read of my guide book on Delhi I discovered that right across the road was a famous shop called Central Cottage Industries Emporium.  This government owned shop is well worth a visit should you ever travel to Delhi and within its walls are a host of authentic Indian wares from silver and statues to silk and clothing.  Whilst pricey by Indian standards, the exchange rate means there are small some amazing bargains to be had.  I spent a good hour in this shop and picked up gifts for almost everyone I needed to buy for.

With shopping bags in hand, and looking ever more the tourist I trundled off to locate the next item on my tour.  I was looking for the Ugrasen ki Baoli; built in the 14th century Baolis were public places that were carefully maintained to provide travellers and residents with water and a cool place to rest.  Unfortunately I didn’t locate this hole in the ground amongst all of the new high rises, but I did find the British High Commission.  Bizarrely, the Commission appears to have black and white cow print over the front of it.  Perhaps this was intended as a token gesture towards the high value placed upon cattle in the Hindu religion?  Who knows why they did this, but it amused me.

Whatever the reason for the cow print I had almost finished a wide loop back to India Gate and still had 4 hours before my arranged pick-up time.  I decided the moment had come to take an adventure on an auto rickshaw.  These vehicles are the modern equivalent of the popular three wheeled rickshaw bicycles. My guide book states that one of the benefit of these autos is that they have a meter to calculate the fare so that passengers don’t get shafted.  A nice idea, but in practice hardly any of them use it.  A realisation I discovered after we had started moving. I started to prepare myself for being ripped off.

Our destination was the Lotus Temple in the south of Delhi.  When we arrived I wasn’t disappointed and my driver ripped me off for 80 rupees (just under £1) for the 15 minute drive.  Slightly annoyed with myself I paid and got out at the gates to the temple.  Something the driver had also neglected to tell me was that the temple isn’t open on Mondays.  Joy. So having just travelled 15 minutes and spent a quid I was in the middle of no-where with nothing to do except gaze at the strange Temple from a distance.

The Lotus Temple is a structure built of concrete in the shape of a lotus flower.  The petals have been clad with white marble adding further to the impressive nature of the Temple.  Pity I could only view it from across the lawns but I suppose that’s better than nothing.  Not wanting to waste the journey I found a little park close by and took a rest in the late afternoon sunshine before heading back to find another auto rickshaw to take me into central Delhi.

Thankfully I had the laws of the free market on my side and managed to get three drivers to barter with each other until an acceptable price was found.  This time I would pay only 50 rupees and would be taken directly to the Lodi gardens.  During my negotiations I failed to fix a value up on relative driving standards - something that meant my adrenalin levels were at a high during the drive.  My driver evidently had no sense of fear and squeezed through whatever small gap in the traffic he could find.  Whilst they might be a cheap way to get around, make sure you have your health insurance details handy.

The Lodi Gardens are incredible; so plush and full of greenery and wildlife.  Located in the gardens are the tombs of 5 long dead Lodi and Sayyid sultans who ruled northern India in the 15th and 16th centuries.  Each tomb is surrounded by a number of small gardens, which I’m told indicate the number of wives each Sultan had.  The most impressive tomb still standing is that of Sikander Lodi (1517) who’s tomb was located in a high walled enclosure within which stands an octagonal chamber where the coffins were placed.  Surrounded by 4 smaller gardens I’m not sure if this chap was lucky or cursed by the number of wives he had.

With the sun setting rapidly in the sky, and with few street lights between the gardens and India Gate I decided I’d done enough for one day and walked the 30 minutes back.  Arriving just as it was getting dark the Gate was illuminated and the place was packed full of tourists.  After a little confusion later my taxi was located and I headed back to Gurgaon.

All in all a very enjoyable day, and I’m glad I got to see so much of central Delhi.  I estimate that I walked around 12km today which is great.  Delhi is definitely in a different league to Gurgaon and consoles me that perhaps India isn’t all that bad after all.

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04/03/2007 by Lyndon.

This is a bank holiday weekend in India celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi.  This celebrates the end of Winter, and is colour is largely the main theme.  On the sunday morning everyone throws coloured powder and water at each other (whether they know them or not!) until everyone is multi-coloured.

I had been advised by many people to not venture out this morning as there would be big crowds everywhere.  However, I didn’t have to go far to get a taste of the celebrations.  This photo is of my house boy (right) and his friends…

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03/03/2007 by Lyndon.

Thanks to moving houses and my ambulance training today was the first chance I’ve had to lay in for about a month.  After waking at around 9:30 and eating breakfast I decided I ought to explore this place.  I told my house boy that I was going for a walk and asked him which way the shops were.  With a bemused look on his face he pointed, and I headed off.

As I’ve learnt over the last few days, walking in India is a challenge.  Given there is only mud and filth at the sides of the roads you are constantly watching where you are stepping whilst hoping you don’t get run over.  A lack of a map meant I had nothing but my sense of direction to guide me as there are no road signs (or even names!) to get around. 

My challenge for the day was to find a supermarket that sells shaving foam (a casulty of the repacking at Heathrow).  I walked for a good 45 minutes following the road away from my apartments before I found anything bordering civilisation.  My route took me past a shanty town, numerous street vendors and a manufactoring zone.  The ‘factories’ made all kinds of stuff, from air conditioning units to carved furniture and ladders (see pic below), each factory housed in make-shift buildings.  I seemed to be quite a novelty, and attracted the stares of many people as I walked along the side of the road.  Was it because I was walking? Because I’m one of the very few white people here (I’ve only seen one other so far)?  Or did they just want to nick my wallet and phone?  Slightly unnerved I kept going, deflecting the persistent pestering of rickshaw drivers.

Things started to get more developed and I finally came across a new building housing numerous small businesses.  I was attracted to the nice, clean and originally named “Cafe!” housed at the entrance to the building, and decided I’d camp out here for a while.  I spent a pleasent few hours here drinking hot lemon tea and reading my book on India. I was in an oasis, away from the scaryness of Gurgaon.

Eventually the time came where I could sit no longer and I ventured back outside after asking for more directions from the cashier.  I headed into a more built up area that appeared to be the commerical area with shops selling all kind of wares, but no sign of a supermarket.  I carried on walking for another 30mins or so and finally came across a larger road that actually had a pavement!  Crazy! 

Spying a sign stating “Mega Mall entrance –>” I figured I was onto a good thing.  Following the sign I ended up at a large, modern mall full of mostly clothing shops.  Thankfully it also housed a small supermarket (shaving foam - check, bug spay - check) and a cinema!  Perhaps I’ll venture here again one evening and catch a bollywood film hmm.  Heading back the way I came and got back to my apartment after about 45 mins walking just before it got dark.  Adventure number one over!

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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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01/03/2007 by Lyndon.

I saw a strange thing today that made me think about the caste system here.  I’ve never really thought about it, back home in England I guess there is still a kind of caste system but it’s nothing near like what it is here.  In India there is no sense of pride in doing things for yourself.  It seems if you can hire someone to do something for you, then that’s what you do. 

The thing is that one man’s servant is often another man’s Master.  I saw this exemplified today on the way to work.  A rick-shaw rider was taking a passenger along the road on his bike.  This man is evidently quite low in society to be physically exerting himself to transport people.  But he isn’t the lowest, not by far.  This guy had a servant running along side his bike.  Just in front of me the bike’s chain fell off, and quickly afterwards the man running alongside got a wallop from the driver.  He immediately dropped to the ground and started mending the chain, before both bike and running carrying on their journey.  Servant and master at the same point in time, and keeping the caste system as strong as ever.  I guess when there are so many people and relatively so little money that people will do anything for money.  I wonder how long it’ll be before India gets to a point where people have more freedom to live a life they desire.  Glad I was lucky enough to be born in Britain.

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28/02/2007 by Lyndon.

Day 2 in India and straight into the office.  It’s a bit daunting here, everything is just at such a much larger scale.  In the London office we have less than 200 people, and the majority of those work on client site so it’s a bit of a shock to be in a building with 2500+ people.  There are around 40-50 people working on my project in India (and 15-20 in China, and 5 in London), including a pile developing against the designs I did before christmas.  Hopefully I did an ok job and they won’t want to kill me.  Time will tell I guess …

So anyway, I had a rough idea what I’d be doing when I got here but I didn’t realise the full extent of it.  I’ve been made a track lead for the piece of work I’ve been designing over the past month.  Over the next few weeks I have to put together the plan and prepare everything, knock out some POCs and then I’ll be off to China to manage a team of 7 developers.  Bit of a step up!  Should be great for my career growth though as well as giving me insight into the offshore side of things.

Wish me luck!

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