Made it to Bangalore

Well, I got here, made it to my initial hotel, it was pretty late and they gave me a studio on the first floor near the front desk. I mentioned to them that I would need a quieter room and they assured me they could fix it in the morning. The room was nice, a service apartment studio, with a kitchen and 2 single beds in addition to the bathroom and tv. I made it to bed, after getting online, figuring out how to boil water and brushing my teeth. The next morning I went to the front desk and got moved to the second floor, with the high hopes that the room was going to be my home for the next 3 weeks.

First day of work was fine, got in on Friday by around 11am, met everyone on our Bangalore team, and mostly chitchatted with folks until we went to lunch. Lunch was at a 3+ story restaurant around the corner from the office, called mainland china, the food kept coming, and the prices were cheap. The decor was first class and I was impressed.... back to the office 2 hours later, I plodded through email, as usual, following up on many things that were broken in our infrastructure. I didnt really get much done, and I can see that for the folks in Bangalore, they really cant read ALL email when they get in, because basically they have 12+ hours of crap in their inbox to sort through. Most of the email is generated from the USA and its much easier when you read it throughout the day. I would guess it takes special email handling skills to be in Bangalore, and high traffic interesting email lists like devel-random@ are certainly difficult to keep up with.

After work went out to TGIF in Bangalore with Ashish G., Arvind K., Samy G. and Sachin R., except for Samy who is on our team in BLR, I knew the others from the tickets they submitted. It was Arvind's birthday, and everyone was drinking. I think everyone was drinking even if it wasn't Arvind's birthday. TGIF has buy 1 get 1 free drinks until 8:15pm and our table was reserved. It was quite a scene, with loud music bumping, from techno, to shakira, mostly western music, the place was packed and we all share different appys as we imbibed alcohol...note to self, Mojitos made with honey are damn good.

Got driven back to the hotel, fell asleeep, the bed was comfortable.. didnt stay up too late. Woke up at 9:30am to construction. I had seen the signs, and knew it was going on, but it was too much to handle. I also was stuck, and there was no food there, and it was more of a self service place. I am a foreigner in this weird land, everyone says to watchout. I couldnt take it. I needed a hotel that had restaurants and services for the dumb American in Bangalore because his IT company has sent him there. I called my manager Bruce, to just double check that switching would be OK and to find out where he would be staying. He said try and keep the cost down and that he was staying at the Park Hotel. OK, so I now my mission was to find a hotel, I called the travel desk and talked to someone, just to check if I needed to have them do my booking, they said no. While on the webpage for the travel desk I saw a link to the approved prices for hotels all over the world, and checked the price for Bangalore hotels. WHOAH, we are authorized to get a hotel thats $295 a night. While the cost seems high, I think the reasoning is that there is no Best Western or Holiday Inn Express here, and westerners coming to Bangalore actually need the luxury just to tolerate the culture shock. Its not like you can rent a car and drive it to a 7-11 or go to a Wendys like in other civilized places. Bangalore is civilized, but its not the kind of place I want to fend for myself. I feel a bit nervous about the cost, but I will work extra hard, and the location of the hotel will allow me to save money on cabs, though thats not a significant cost, it would add up. I promise myself I will work extra hard. And my conscience is going to have me call the travel desk on Monday to just confirm that its all OK. If its not, I guess I can have them try and find me a cheaper hotel, unfortunately, I just was too jetlagged and feeling abused and stressed and just needed some place peaceful to rest.

Once I had checked out of the old hotel, which took them 15 minutes to run my card, silly machine was not getting dial tone, got a refund for the month of internet I had purchased, I took a cab to the new hotel, and was so relieved. Doors were held open for me, the lobby was wafting with the scent of incense, and I proceeded to ask for Keith, the guy who I had called to make sure I could get a room. I told them I was from Yahoo!, gave them my card, they gave me a good deal compared to their posted price, and I put in a word with them about some kind of internet discount because I was going to be staying so long. They didnt give me the room sight unseen. I was escorted to the room to look it over. The amenities were listed, and I felt like a human being. Though I tried to maintain my cool, I am sure that my eagerness for the luxury surroundings were noticed, or perhaps not, as Keith was mostly blind, as noted by how thick his glasses were and his inability to read the signs that pointed guests right or left depending on your room number.

I settled in for an hour, getting on to the internet, relaxing, and contacted Samy. He came by and we had lunch in the hotel, where I had the most amazing Indian food of my life the murgh masala with garlic naan was a luscious, rich, buttery dish where every bite was heavenly. The naan was crisp and moist; there was no rice with my dish. I used a fork for the chicken, and sopped up the savory red sauce with the naan and a giant heineken to wash it all down. Samy had some thai curry which he said he enjoyed and lunch conversation was varied and interesting, talk about Brahmins, and castes, into Judaism and why Jews seem to be so smart. I think Samy was trying to related Brahmins and Jews in some ways, it was all very interesting and I was happy to impart any knowledge I had in the hope of sparking interest in things that he was not familiar with. I have to believe that people in India are just as naive to western culture as we are to their culture.

From the restaurant we went to a mall that I had seen when cabbing from the other hotel to the new one. Samy knew I want to buy things, so this is where he took me. I had told him I was interested in towels and sheets and Indian clothing. We walked around the mall for an hour going into clothing stores, and trinket shops, sampling weird Indian candies that were really not my style. The jewelery stores were very interesting and seemed to have some amazing prices on things. The diamonds were relatively cheap, but there were no Asscher cuts. The gold that I saw was 22k. Even the clothing stores that had American style things had them for cheaper. While I didnt buy anything, I will probably go back and buy some stuff. There was not too much traditional Indian garb, but I dont think I am really into it. The linens were not really what I expected and they didnt have queen or king size sheets.

From the mall we stopped at the MG road office, which is walking distance from my hotel. Met a bunch of the INOC folks who used to page me. Big cricket match, Australia vs India in Bangalore and it was keeping the city glued to their TVs. Learned about 2 things about cricket, and then we headed back to the hotel.

I thought I was doing good with the jet lag but within an hour of being back in the hotel I crashed hard. Slept for about 4 hours, getting up at 9:45, timid and not sure of my game plan, I laid low and just relaxed, ordered some room service. Once again heavenly Indian food, though it was a bit spicy for my taste. Some prawn dish with beautiful sweet prawns, ginger and sauce. I ordered lemon rice and garlic naan, some watermelon/apple/ginger juice, a heineken and a chocolate dessert which they ended up not having. That ok because I replaced it with a second heineken. Took a shower and then the food arrived. Figured out how to watch the satellite tv in the room and ate dinner... got some tourist tips over IM from Zaheer who is on our team. Will try and head out in a car tomorrow and do some things on my own.

Being on my own sucks. Originally I wanted to come out at the same time Penick was going to be here, but the BLR folks said that having 2 people in at once was too much for them. Anyways, I've been recommended to fly to goa for a weekend, but I cant imagine now why I would want to do this on my own. I became a member of virtualtourist website.. been fucking around on the computer, reading, etc. I am up and not tired and its 3:34am and I am blogging.