Wow! I knew I was tired, but I didn't realize I'd sleep six hours straight on the plane!
Yesterday, I woke up to a pretty good bout of diarrhea: my only travel difficulty, which I was hoping to be able to avoid. I felt pretty good, and even continued to eat, so I knew it would pass. I borrowed some medicine [Immodium] from Laura which I used throughout the day.
Laura had a 9:00 meeting this morning [technically, that would have been yesterday], so we got an earlier start than normal. The traffic was substantially lighter than what we've typically been seeing. It gave our driver, Mr. Kumar, a chance to give us a little mini-tour around Bangalore. We saw the Parliament building and a few parks on the way to the office.
There were a few emails I took care of in the morning, but that didn't take long. The rest of the morning was spent with the team. I took everyone's picture and made sure I got their names, too, so we can learn them easier. As I was taking the last one, a security guard approached me and said that pictures were not allowed inside the building. We were finished anyway.
The whole team went to lunch at an Afghan restaurant. Surprisingly, it was one that Laura had been to before. The food was quite good, but as I was still recovering from my intestinal difficulties, I did not eat much. It was fun having the whole team out. It seems like a fun team, which will make a difference when they are working together.
From lunch, two team members stayed with us (Padma and Hima) to help us with out shopping. It was very helpful, since I am not the best negotiator [as it was, most all of the stores we went to were "fixed price"]. It was also very helpful that Hima spoke the driver's native language [Telugu].
We first went to a little store [Ashok Silks] to look for Pashminas, which are particular kinds of scarves. It was a small, two-level store, but there were lots of scarves. It turns out we made the right choice to get them here - they were of very good quality and a good price [Rs 1700, which is about $40]. I got two Pashminas and a table runner.
Then we went to what the sign said was an art gallery, but it was closer to a craft store. They had carvings and woven items. This store was more spacious. I got a cute carved wooden owl, which Hima insisted on paying for.
The next store we went to was called the Bombay Store. It was like an Indian Pottery Barn. There were lots of accessories, some furniture, and some clothes. In fact, I thought I was being led to the children's section, but instead I found myself in the men's clothes section. Padma insisted I pick out a suit for myself that she would pay for. I like the suit we picked out.
I also got a small carved elephant for myself, an incense holder for Becca, and a hand-dyed scarf for Mom. Padma also wanted to get some gifts for Kevin and Mike, so I helped her pick out some small items for them.
Our next stop was a clothing store that specialized in sarees [I had thought that was spelled "saris" but it was definitely spelled with two e's there] and kids clothes. I went on my own in the store to get some outfits for my girls. It didn't take me long to find two sets for each of them.
When I returned to the rest of our shopping group, Laura was trying on dresses. Padma again insisted on buying an outfit for Laura, but she was having a hard tie finding something that liked the fit of. She eventually settled on a purple top and pants, which the store tailor made some quick adjustments to.
That gave us some time to repack all our loot into our bags. I had to let out the expandable part of the suitcase I had (which I borrowed from Laura), but it all fit. I spent a frantic few minutes looking for my paper ticket for our flight to Mumbai [which used to be called Bombay until 1997], but it wasn't too long until I found it.
Padma left us there to return to the office, while Hima came with us to the airport. The Bangalore airport was not so foreign to me as I thought it might be. There was no air conditioning except in the premium lounge Laura found upstairs [She had been there during her last trip to Bangalore, but I don't think we were really supposed to be there. We had coach tickets to Mumbai, but the person who helped bring our luggage into the airport delivered us to the premium check-in line, so we had the little special luggage tags which made us look like we belonged]. I bought some postcards at the airport and addressed them as we waited for out flight. We also found an international phone booth which had great rates [and a 3 minute courtesy limit]. I used it to call home, where I talked briefly to Don [my father-in-law] as everyone else was out.
The short economy-class flight to Mumbai gave me just enough time to eat my dinner and write my postcards before we landed.
The Mumbai airport wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be, either. Our bags were among the first ones on the belt, so we picked them up and boarded a bus to the international terminal. Here, we got our boarding passes for the rest of the trip, and I found out that my bag got randomly selected for a customs inspection.
We waited in the immigration line for about 30 minutes - not too long. I then had to go to the customs area and describe what was in my bag. I opened it to show them, but that was it. It was very professional and straightforward. In fact, I was contacted both at the check-in desk and in the immigration line to remind me what to do for the customs inspection.
We spent the next three hours there in the airport. I was getting sleepy, but otherwise I felt good.
At 2:00 AM IST, we were advised to make our way to the gate. We went through several other security checks before getting on the plane. It was a 747 with an upper and lower levels, but we didn't get to be in the upstairs section. I had a center seat, in which I very quickly went to sleep and stayed that way through most of the flight! A small nap on the next leg should be just about right to set me up to minimize my jet lag.
Posted by Rob Reid at April 30, 2004 09:50 PM