I'm back

UPDATED with a pic of the world at 430 kph for M.F.

What a trip. Sitting here in my home office in Vancouver at 4:30 a.m. on Monday and thinking back over the last five weeks, the whole thing is a bit of a blur.

Over the weekend I decided to see if I could catch one of the Air Canada flights to Vancouver ahead of schedule. In the end my friend Dean wasn't able to make it up from Hong Kong. It would have cost way too much for just a two-day visit. I'm kicking myself for not planning things better so I could visit with him.

I took the Maglev high-speed train to the Shanghai Pudong airport. I opted for the first class ticket, which wasn't that much more expensive. It gives you a seat in the front car and I had it all to myself. There was a digital clock and speedometer on display. At exactly 12:20 the engine roared up. My jaw fell open as the digits racked up the speed. 100km/h, 200km/h, 250km/h (this is as fast as I thought it went) 300km/h, 400km/h, 430km/h. I couldn't believe it. The world was whizzing by so fast I couldn't focus on anything. The trip that takes roughly 45 minutes by taxi was over in just 8.

Air Canada was good about the stand by ticket. There was no extra cost, and my luggage was accepted. I grabbed a final meal at the airport restaurant, a noodle soup of grilled pork and vegetables. The flight lifted off at around 5 pm on Saturday, and touched down in Vancouver four hours earlier at 1 pm Saturday. Donna was waiting at the airport for me, very happy to see me. I was overjoyed to see her there.

I've unpacked now, and tried to get back into a normal sleeping patter, but with the clock at 5 a.m. that's clearly not working yet.

The Vancouver air is as wonderful as I remembered it. Already my sinuses have started to clear and the drip in the back of my throat is going away.

On my last day in Shanghai I went to the Yuyuan gardens, which are surrounded by a series of ancient looking buildings. It started raining hard and I got stuck in nearby McDonald's waiting it out. Taxis forgo the meter in big storms and prices shoot up about 7 times the actual rate. Once it cleared I made my way back to the hotel to pack my stuff.

I did some planning for my writing. I have a heckuva lot to do in the next few weeks, but the stories are forming in my mind. Now I just have to get them down on my keyboard.

It was a great experience to see China and India back to back. There's still a lot I wish I'd have done. In India I didn't take the time to visit any new places. I would really like to visit Rajasthan and see the temples there, or visit the Ganges. While in China, I also hope to one-day visit the remote northwestern region. That was all on my itinerary for this trip, but I think I was a bit overambitious and unrealistic in my planning. Lesson learned for next time.

I don't plan on updating this blog any time soon. I set it up for the purpose of the trip and I don't think you'd want to read about my walk to the office or how I dashed out that last-minute story on deadline. I'll post a last few pics.

Oh, and before I wrap up, my first meal back in Canada? A four-cheese burger from Vera's on Denman, with fries and a strawberry milkshake. That might account for the rumblings in my belly.

Pics

I'm at the Astor in Shanghai. My room is twice the size of last time. The web works wonderfully. So, finally, from China, a few pics of India:

Rant! Rant!

Only read this is you feel like hearing me rant.

I barely made my flight to Shanghai. Despite several people at the hotel telling me I’d only need to give myself a couple of hours to check-in, I went extra early. That was the only thing that got me on the plane.

After 1 ½ hours lined up at the check-in counter, the surly Air India lady told me my luggage was twice the allowed weight. See, with Air India, they count your carry on luggage in the 20kg allotted space, which is the total you're allowed to bring. (With Air Canada, for instance, it's 23kg per checked bag, up to 2 bags.) With my camera, lenses and laptop, that really put me over. Plus I had the carpet and a bag of gifts. That meant I’d have to pay extra. Ok, I figured. How much could it be? How about nearly $400!!!

That was almost the price of my ticket. It's clearly a dirty money grab from a third-rate airline, but I was in a jam. I knew I had some books and papers that I’d collected from companies for research that I could chuck in a pinch. I didn’t think I could get rid of that much though, so I decided to bite the bullet and pay. But when I gave them my credit card, they said it wouldn’t work. I gave them my other one, and it wouldn’t work either. The only place in India where my international credit cards don’t work is the capital city’s major airport.

They still wouldn’t let me on the plane, so I had no choice but to start throwing out gifts. I might even have to discard the carpet, I thought. My plane was to begin boarding in 20 minutes.

I started dumping stuff on the floor – my travel guides, all my books and papers (except my notes), my sandals, some of my gifts, clothes. I had a growing pile on the floor when a guy came over and suggested I ship my stuff to Canada through the post office outlet nearby. They weighed it, and the cost would be about $150. Much better. So I ran over to the foreign exchange to cash travelers’ cheques. “We don’t open for another ½ hour,” they told me. Again, this is the country’s major international airport, and at 7:45 am on a busy weekday, they didn’t have a forex open. In the end, there was one branch open, at the other end of the terminal. I ran there, sweat flying everywhere, and got the required rupees.

On the way back I got my boarding pass and checked in my remaining luggage. It was still overweight, but they let it slide thankfully. The postal guy worked at a snail’s pace – “What’s the rush, don’t worry, take your time” he kept saying. My flight had started boarding 20 minutes earlier, and I hadn’t even gone through security. I almost went postal, but managed to keep my cool. The guy said he’d finish wrapping my parcels. He assured me they’d arrive in five days. We’ll see. I got on the flight seriously wondering whether I might have just handed him $150 for nothing. As it was I had to “tip” him a couple hundred rupees before leaving.

Anyway, I finally got on the plane and we sat on the tarmac for another hour. What’s the hurry?

Finally a pic

I booked into the Taj Palace hotel. very swank. Great pool. I was just riding up on the elevator and one of the staff, who I'd never met before, said "Good evening Mr. Kirby." Of course, in keeping with all Indian hotels, the Internet service is expensive and crap. I can't maintain a connection long enough to upload to Blogger. So only one pic, of me in front of the Gateway to India in Mumbai at night.

Most of the day was spent in and around Connaught Place, a series of ring roads that's at the heart of Old Delhi. It was the first place I went to when I got to India last year, and where my hotel was, and I now realize it's not representative of India. A foreigner can't walk 10 feet in CP without being accosted by beggers, rickshaw drivers, touts hawking chess sets/napkins/maps and guys trying to play friendly to lure you back to their stores. While other parts of India do have all of those, no where is it as concentrated as here. It really wears you down.

At one point I walked past the Air India building and remembered that was where I had my first run in with a con. It was a shoe shine guy, who by the time he was done had talked me into removing my shoes so he could work on them, pretty much destroyed them, and somehow convinced me to pay him for it. Just as I was recalling how ticked off I was, and how much I'd learned since then about spotting the cons, I saw another Western guy sitting on the ground beside a shoe shiner in the exact same spot, smoking a cigarette, and looking pissed off. The circle is complete.

Last year the centre of CP was a dusty wasteland, torn up as part of the construction of Delhi's new subway system. I remember thinking there's no way they'd ever get it done. I only saw one piece of equipment, a rickety earth mover. But it is done. And it's a great system, albeit a bit limited until they finish all the expansion. I took a quick ride to one station down the line and back.

I wanted to take photos of the subway, but couldn't. Cops everywhere were telling me no photos. It's been like that all along -- today alone I was told no "no photos" three times by authorities. It's all in the name of security, but smacks of cops trying to look like they're doing something. I saw on the news this morning a bunch of protesting students beat a professor to death in full view of the cops who stood around watching. I'm sure if anyone was trying to take photos, they'd have swung in to action.

My penultimate day in India

I haven't posted a great deal since I got to India (partly because of the lack of quality internet connections.) I've also been in go-go-go mode, which hasn't left much time for sight seeing. Tomorrow, my last day here, I have vowed to try and do a little bit of playing tourist. I haven't been taking many photos either, since sitting in the back of cars only affords so many photo-ops.

As most of you know this is my second visit to India. I was here in April 2005. For that reason, many of the images that made my jaw drop last time seem almost second nature to me now. I have spent a total of 6 weeks in India, which isn't a lot compared to some of the one-year journeys some travelers undertake here, but it's enough to get used to the cows and the beggars on the roads.

Ok, scratch that. You never really get used to the beggars. At least, I haven't. When you're sitting in your air-conditioned car stopped at an intersection, quite often you'll hear a tap at the window. If you turn and look down, you're likely to see a child of no more than 4 or 5, barefoot, in rags, staring up at you and repeating some strange words with his or her hand out. Or an old man with his fingers eaten away by leprosy will appear beside your open-air auto rickshaw and jab his mutilated limb at you. Or you'll see a young boy, with his legs snapped and bent behind his back so his feet reach over his head like antennae, wheeling through traffic on a makeshift skateboard.

What do you do? Roll down the window and toss them some rupees? I did that a few times on my last visit. Then others see you handing out money, and rush over. It starts to feel like you could give away all of the money in your wallet, empty your bank accounts, sell your car and mortgage your house a thousand times over and barely make a ripple. It would only encourage more criminals to maim children to increase their haul.

My answer is Indian charities. On my last visit the airline I flew handed out envelopes earmarked for a children’s' charity. I haven't found a charity yet, but will before I leave. So instead I do what the most Indians do when accosted. I look straightforward, put on my Bombay blinders, and wait until the beggars go away. It still feels horrible.

I was in a car last week when I remarked about a stray dog to my host. He told me a story he'd heard, about the residents of a building who found one of the regular strays lying in the road, its front legs crushed by a car. They wrapped it in a blanket and took it to the vet. The group chipped in to have the dogs front legs amputated, and outfitted the animal with a harness and wheel so it could still get around. In the end people felt so sorry for the dog they overfed it, until it was too fat to roll anywhere. Minutes later, at an intersection, we sat stone faced as a young girl, holding a baby, begged for money at the window.

I briefly met a woman yesterday who has devoted herself to helping Delhi's stray dogs. She estimated there are as many stray dogs in India as there are people in Canada. She spends half her income to hire a man who, each day, travels Delhi to feed and care for 150 strays. She also told me there are too many people in India. Something must be done about it. But what, she asked sighing. India is a free country. You can't impose a one-child policy like China has. I was interrupted before I could ask her what she thinks can be done about the begging children.

Anyway, enough deep thoughts for one day. You can all put down the sharp objects now.

I bought a carpet today. On my way back from a meeting, I had the driver drop me off at one of the cottage industry shops, which are government owned stores that sell authentic products. They cost more, but there's no haggling. It's 4x6', and while they wrapped it up tight, I have no idea how I'll pack all this stuff up. I'll worry about that tomorrow night.

Oh, it turns out I was wrong about that Ganesh festival. It only started on Sunday and it's not celebrated much in Delhi. But while in Mumbai before I left I saw dozens of frenzied processions carrying brightly painted clay elephant God statues. Neat sight.

Ok, time for food. There aren't a lot of restaurants that I feel safe going into around my hotel. I gauge a restaurant here by the number of Indians sitting at the table, and all the joints here are empty. So I guess it's time for a bit of Mickey-D's. Should I have the McVeggie burger, the McAloo Tikki, or the Veg McCurry Pan?

Delhi Belly

(It doesn't look like there will be any more pics until I'm back in China. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of Internet connection I get, Blogger just won't accept any photo uploads to the site.)

I arrived in India's capital a couple of hours ago with a receding case of stomach troubles. Unfortunately I got walloped again at Anupam's house. I think it was the sweet lassi.
On Saturday we headed downtown to pick up my ticket to Shanghai. I must have caught Air India on a good day when I reserved the ticket, because my second visit was an excruciating experience. I arrived in the middle of the staff's 2 hour lunch break, which ran half an hour over the posted time. I was a bit nervous, because I'd been told my reservation expired at 2 pm on Saturday, and by 2:05 the place was still deserted. But apparently the airline's computers take a long break too, so there was no problem getting my reservation. Getting my ticket proved to be a bit of a hassle. The agent insisted that I needed a visa for Shanghai. I tried explaining that I have a visa for China, and that Shanghai is a city. That took a while. They also wanted proof that I had a ticket out of China before they'd let me fly there. I didn't have this much trouble when I was entering China in the first place. Finally the guy ripped my credit card receipt so that my signature wasn't on the merchant copy. I tried to tell him Mastercard probably won't accept unsigned transaction records. I tried.

After that Anupam, his wife and I went in search of the oldest English building in Mumbai, a church that was built in the late 1600s. It had the first photo graph of Mumbai hanging inside. Once you were inside, with all the tombs for knights, gentlemen and ladies, it was easy to forget you were in the heart of India's biggest city.

Following that we visited the home where Ghandi lived when he was in Mumbai, from where he orchestrated much of the resistence. There were letters from him to Hitler, imploring the Fuhr to stand down from war, and F.D.R. His bedroom was preserved behind glass, with his spinning wheel and mattress on the floor.

We capped the visit with the fateful sweet lassi drink.

That night Anupam and I went to a restaurant near his home and quaffed some Kingfishers and shared stories. He's a serial entrepreneur, with many proposals and ideas constantly on the go. He has been tapped by one of the big U.S. business magazines to write a blog about business in India. He's the perfect guy for that.

That night was when my stomach troubles hit me. In hind sight, it meant that I had to get a fair bit of rest, which wasn't bad. I had barely slept in the Mumbai hotel for two nights because of the racket and its short beds.

We ventured out to a big glitzy mall, complete with all the big name U.S. brands. It could have been the Eaton Centre or any other western mall. India is undergoing a huge shift from road side stores to malls. Wal-Mart is eager to enter the market, though merchants are fighting tooth and nail to prevent that. Kind of reminds me of Vancouver.

I bought a couple of CD's at a music store called Planet M, and Anupam bought me the soundtrack to his favourite Indian movie.

My flight to Delhi was uneventful. The hotel is a little ways from downtown, but it's a nice place with WiFi internet, albeit slow. At 3 today I'm getting picked up for an interview, then tomorrow I have another meeting for another story. Wednesday is my free day, so I hope to cram in a lot of shopping before I leave India.

Oh, and my buddy Dean is flying all the way up to Shanghai from Hong Kong to spend the weekend with me before I fly back home. What a guy.

Home sweet home away from home

I’m sitting at the dining room table at Anupam’s house. He and his wife Kanika are taking a quick post-breakfast nap. We didn’t get in until around 2:30 am last night. Anupam has high speed internet, but Blogger is being a real pain in the ass about posting pics so I'll only get to put one or two up for now.

I had a busy day yesterday with work, and when I was done I returned to my hotel to collect my luggage. Anupam came by that evening to collect me. I was very happy to see he drives a Suzuki Maruti Wagoner, a truck/car with good trunk space. My belongings are getting increasingly heavy.

It’s been great to be with them on so many levels. For four weeks I’ve been in business mode. I’ve had nice conversations with people I’ve met at some of the companies, and had some nice chats with locals. But to hang out with people you know, swap stories over beers and laugh out loud at the inanities of life feels great. We started the evening by going to a bar in Colaba and catching up over a few beers and starter dishes. Anupam is doing very well. His company is doing consulting work for HP in Bangalore. Kanika just landed a very exclusive job in the head office at Tata Group, India’s largest company, through a program where they train people to become company leaders.

From there we went to Bademiya, which translates into big brother, a street stall that has been around for years and is probably the most famour eatery in Mumbai, even with all the top-notch restaurants. It’s a drive in. You park your car, and just like in the old A&W days, a waiter takes your order and brings the meal to your car. We snacked out of the back of his vehicle and watched the bustling city street around us.

Anupam lives in a district of Mumbai near where all the famous Bollywood stars call home. It’s a two-bedroom apartment on the first floor. My bed is huge, at least a king size, if not wider. This morning there have been a steady stream of people at the front door. A lady came to clean the house. On most days a guy comes to cook breakfast. The laundry people came to collect clothes. I gave them my jacket to press because I have an important meeting on Monday in Delhi. You can get anything and everything delivered right to your home here. Feel like renting a movie? They deliver. Run out of toothpaste? They deliver. Need bread? They deliver.

In a bit we’re going to head back downtown. I have to pick up my Air India ticket to Shanghai. Then we’re going to visit some sights.

As an aside I love reading local papers when I travel. The options in China were limited, of course. But there are many English language papers here in India. Every day’s paper is engaging. You just can’t get drama, crime, gossip and political stories like these in Canada. Here’s a synopsis of some of the stories from yesterday’s Times of India:

-a bull in a market broke lose and gored a traffic cop before an army of firefighters could subdue the beast
-politicians debating in parliament broke into a melee after one MP accused another’s “men” of being involved in a rape. The accompanying sketch showed one politicians hurtling a speaker box at another MP’s head
-a woman set herself on fire after police and city officials showed up at her front door to enforce an eviction notice
-a leading industrialist was arrested for supplying bullet proof cars and flack jackets to organized criminals
-dowry deaths are on the rise in India. A court called them a “national shame” after convicting two men who poisoned the wife of one of them because she didn’t bring enough of a dowry to the marriage
-a famous millionaire “bar dancer” faces charges after she assaulted her body guard when he asked for his pay

Pics will come...

Crisis narrowly averted

I can't describe how horrible it feels to open your wallet in a Mumbai shop and reach for your credit card, only to realize it's not there. This morning I discovered I was missing my Master Card. Terrible thoughts rushed through my mind. I've never lost a credit card before. I rarely use the thing, since I came well stocked with traveller's cheques. I did a little backtracking in my mind and figured the last place I used it was Leopold's restaurant in Colaba, where they offer tourists a 10% discount if they used their credit cards. That was on Monday. I dashed out of the store, hopped in a taxi and we gunned it over to the restaurant. I had pretty low expectations, but when I asked the cashier if they had my card, he pulled up a stack of credit cards two-inches thick left behind by all the other dumb tourists. Mine was on the bottom of the pile. Phew. That called for a Kingfisher then and there.

My flight to Delhi is booked. I got a great deal. $120, taxes included. It's about a 3 hour flight. I'm flying Kingfisher Airlines, a discount carrier that launched recently. I wonder if they serve beer? I also have a reservation for a return flight to Shanghai that's about $100 cheaper than what it cost me to get here. Unfortunately Air Canada said all the seats the first week of September are booked. But that's what they said about my flight from Vancouver to Shanghai too, so I'm just going to show up at the airport and try for standby.

I have a day of back-to-back interviews tomorrow. Then in the evening I'm hooking up with my friend Anupam. He's invited me to stay with his family for the weekend. I get to live the life of a Mumbaiker. Can't wait.

My buddy Jamie sent me an e-mail today saying how much he liked the food entries in my Blog. He pondered what it would be like if I kept writing after I returned. Here's an exerpt from his e-mail:

i think it would be hilarious if you keep doing the blog once you get home.
i can only imagine the entries...

"i'm sitting in a tim hortons right now, eating a chunky chicken salad sandwich. it's on a 5 inch whole wheat roll with a butter on one side. the tomatoe is dangling perilously from the edge of the hastily put together sandwich. i swear my sandwich stewart must be having a bad day as she actually tried to get away with out even giving me a pickle. bitch."

Well, as it happens, today I had my best meal in India so far. It was a Gujarati Thali, a vegetarian dish from the province that Ghandi called home. They brought out a variety of side dishes, including my favourite, spicy pickle. Then they set down a large flat round stainless steel plate, with about eight small steel bowls on it. Into each bowl they poured a different vegetable mixture, ranging from hot to sweet. You’re given a variety of breads, and you scoop up the food with the bread. Each dish was bursting with flavour and completely unique. I didn’t realize it, but it was a buffet of sorts. Each time a bowl neared empty, or my bread ran low, the waiter would rush over and give me more. You wash it all down with a yoghurt drink.The cost was 120 rupees, or about $3, not including the beer I ordered. Why don’t we have this meal back home? Maybe we do. I gotta check.