Wednesday 28 November 2012

Day in the Life

One of the reasons I love foreign work trips, other than the obvious benefits, is a chance to see some real life action on location.  It is great to see the highlights like the Golden Temple, but real life is equally entertaining.  For example, yesterday we headed out for our farm tour at about 9:30 from Chandigarh.  In theory it was supposed to take us 1 1/2 to get to Ludhiana, a distance of 100 km.  We have a driver supplied by a company that caters to business travellers.  What could possibly go wrong right? Especially since we drove from Ludhiana to Chandigarh the night before.  Well we take off and within about 20 minutes we realize we are not on the same highway we came in on.  We question the driver, who doesn't really speak English, why we are on this road.  The answer: it's faster.  Ok then and we settle back into our discussions.  After about an hour, we are in the middle of farm country with no sign of the highway.  The driver stops for directions for about the 5th time and the person points to a dirt road headed to a very small village.  Since our farm tour begins AFTER we get to Ludhiana, this is not a good sign.  We head down the kidney busting dirt road to the little village and after several stops for directions, complete with scraping against the car that just stopped to help us, the driver finally pulls onto a main road with the signs stating it was 61 km to Ludhiana and 34 km to Chandigarh.  After 1 1/2 hours we managed to get 34 km from our original destination. To add to our delay, the driver managed to pick a road that was lined with grain trucks pulling up to the grain depots at harvest time AND the towns along the way had parades to celebrate the Guru Nanak's birthday. To add one last complication, there are no hotels to stop at for a bathroom; a must for women travelling.  Men, it appears, can just pee by the roadside, which has been demonstrated numerous times throughout the trip.  Finally we roll into Ludhiana, 3 1/2 hours late and dying to find a hotel before our meeting.  Turns out the poor driver isn't even from the area, he was dispatched by his company from Delhi and despite the official language being Hindi, we are in The Punjab, so he appears to have difficulties communicating. 

Fortunately, the people in this area are gracious and hospitable, forgiving our late appearances and treating us to food and drink upon our arrival.  Tons of food and always chai.  We did get our farm tours in.  Small plots of land, three crops a year, heavy reliance on irrigation by pumping water from the rivers.  The problems arise with power to operate the pumps since summer brings with it a high power demand with spotty supply.  Good opportunities perhaps for alternative energy pumps in the region.  The area produces high yields of grain, mostly wheat and rice, but due to inefficient shipping and storage, a lot of food is wasted.  So certainly opportunities to improve the system as long as it fits with the realities here.  All in all, it was an educational day out and about.


Wheat being transferred to the grain terminal

The Grain terminal

Planting - wheat mixed with phosphate; hand bombed



 

Insomnia pays

Quick update before we head out to the country.  On day one of the trip I had the most amazing dinner and then headed to bed after the 36 hours of travel ordeal. However I am learning that having curry before bed doesn't necessarily lend itself to drifting off to sleep. 

At 3 am, right on cue, I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep so I read my book thinking I would eventually get tired again. Little did I know my travel mates were also awake concocting a plan to head out to the golden temple for morning prayers. At 4am I got the knock on the door and so the day began.  It was completely worth the early start. 




Because it was a temple, we had to ditch our shoes and take on the cold marble floors (really cold) with bare feet.  I have to say I am not particularly proficient with getting my head covered. I'm not sure why but I end up just about hanging myself.  This lack of ability was a bit of a problem when we went back to the temple later on in the day.

After the sunrise we headed out for a walk and got sidetracked by a scarf and shawl store where we proceeded to make the guys first sale of the day well worth the effort.  Loaded with bags we had to head back to the temple for Bonnie to meet a contact.  As Kim and I were standing in the entrance trying to decide what we would do during the meeting, I remembered I should have my head covered.  So instead of putting my bags down, I attempt to get the scarf unwrapped from my neck and up over my head with one hand, resulting in a very awkward display of attempted modesty. I finally succeed only to have some old guy come up to me and scold me because during all of that my shirt lifted up and exposed my belly. Now we are not talking a lot of exposure, just a little flash of fish belly white.  As I'm still trying to figure out where I went wrong, three women in saris walk by and if you can recall that set up, there is a lot more skin showing than what I flashed. I'm slightly bitter about the exchange. But lesson learned - shirts will be tucked in from now on.

The area is celebrating Guru Nanak's birthday which means parades and fireworks. People in the region are known for their hospitality and love of a party. I can relate to that.






Sunday 25 November 2012

Ready, Set, Goa

I had to borrow that title from Kara because it was just too funny.

I'm en route to India. If you had asked me a few months ago where I would love to go next, India was not even on the list.  Sorry India but the tales of digestive trauma, poverty and chaos just didn't have me dying to sign up. However, as it goes with many of my adventures, something came up through work and I jumped at the chance to see this diverse and colourful country.  I am going to make an attempt to not focus on the negative bits that you so often hear and highlight all the great things I discover.  That said, as I'm flying out of Toronto, I see an article in the Globe that claims Mumbai is the  world leader in number of poor people in one city with 2.5 million people living on $13/month. Wow. 

But for now I'm in the polite, orderly city of Munich in what has to be one of the worst flight plans I've ever signed up for. I'm currently at 23 hours of transit time with another 12 or so hours before I get to be horizontal again. Ugh.

Here's a little taste of my 10 hour layover in Munich. Pretty city. Talk to you again in Amritsar.