India & Dubai 2008 (02.02.2008 - 17.02.2008)

From the 2nd to 17th of February 2008, me and two colleagues went to India to primarily attend a seven day Oracle course. But there would also be time for some sightseeing and vacation.
They like to call it Incredible India, but I would rather say Terrible India, because I have never been anywhere near experiencing this kind of air pollution, garbage in the streets, noise, traffic chaos, amount of people, poverty, etc etc. Although the experience in the end was a good one, this is without a doubt the worst country I have been to so far.
I have nevertheless taken A LOT of pictures from the trip. The pictures will give you an idea of how our trip was.

We started off in Gurgaon, which is a "suburb" or something like that to Dehli. This is were our company is located. We attended the course for seven days, in between we managed to squeeze in a short visit to Dehli. Didn't make us wanna go back... After the course, we went for a day trip to Taj Mahal, which must be the only clean place in India. After this we went for a vacation to the south of India, in a state called Kerala. This was nice compared to the rest of India, with beaches, not so much pollution, and actually beatiful girls too! After our vacation we spent a day in Dubai, before we went back to Norway, and sweet sivilication..

02.02.2008: Departure Oslo & Munich
The trip did not start very well. We missed our original flight due to a blizzard at Gardermoen, which caused the whole airport to close at night before departure, but we managed to reschedule to a later plane to Munich. In Munich we had to wait for about 3 hours before our plane to Dehli departed. I found a Hugo Boss suit that I put on lay-away for the return trip. The shopping had already started!

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03.02.2008: Gurgaon, India
Quite a shock arriving at Dehli airport. There were so many people "working" there, but still the airport looked like a complete mess, maintenance is no point, they should tear down the whole place and build a new one. I managed to steal a part of the airport for souvenir.
On the way from the airport to the hotel, we got a little taste of the incredible amount of people actually living in this country, as well as the air pollution and the littering.
We checked in at the hotel, where we were greeted by a dude dressed in a traditional indian dress saying "good evening, sir". We found out that this was the only thing in his job description: saying "good morning, sir", and "good evening, sir", all while holding the door open! In the evening Jørgen and me checked out a couple of the shopping malls not far from our hotel, which was called Fortune Global, 5 stars and a very good hotel (at least compared to the other ones on our trip).

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04.02.2008: Gurgaon, India
Today was the first day of the course, and we got to see where Conax India has their office.
After the course we decided to go for a walk to the Gold Souk to buy a gold necklace for myself. Interesting walk, were we amongst other things had the honor of witnessing a kid taking a dump just beside the road. I ended up buying a 9 karat necklace for about, I think, 11000 rupees (1600kr). After our trip to the Gold Souk, we ended up in the shopping malls again. I had to buy more sweaters, because it turned out that India was COLD, and only brought t-shirts...

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05.02.2008: Gurgaon, India
A new day with Oracle course. On the way to the office, the stupid driver got lost (!) and tried to pretend to us that he wasn't... (normal indian behaviour). We ended up in total traffic jam at a back-alley where there was an employment line of some kind. Check the pictures.
I believe this was the day Bjørn got really sick from eating the chicken teriyaki at Subway and ended up puking all over his bathroom later in the evening.
In the evening we did some more shopping, and we ate at our favorite eating place in India, Pizza Hut. In my opinion, Indian food in India is extremely overrated. Indian food back home is MUCH better!

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06.02.2008: Gurgaon & Dehli, India - Hell day
Today we decided to take an evening-trip to Dehli, after the course. This turned out to be a nightmare. First of all, our taxi, though cheap as hell, was crap. Our driver did also not understand english, which surprisingly many other Indians didn'd do either, considering it's their second language. On the way to Dehli, our driver got a ticket for driving on a red light, and he expected us to pay for it. Of course we refused (200 rupees=30kr!!), just for the principle of it, but I think this resulted in what happened later, as the driver obviously didn't like us anymore.. After visiting Gate of India, which was actually the only place we got to see in Dehli, because it was getting dark, we started on the nightmare journey back to Gurgaon. On the way to Dehli, the driver took the toll financed highway which only took about half an hour, but on the way back, he decided to take the old, free road, probably as a punishment for us not paying for his ticket. We were stuck in the traffic for about 3 hours, and we were starting get really pissed off. Suddenly the driver decides to stop for gas, even though the tank was 1/4 full, more than enough to get us back to Gurgaon. So he pulls into a gas station, were there is a big line, and which does not move. After 10-15 minutes in the line, when he tries to start the car to move forward in the line, the car won't start. The engine is dead. So we are stuck in the middle of nowhere with a retarded Indian taxi-driver, and no clue of how to get back to the hotel. After a while, we are in great luck, and manages to get a free taxi. He charges us 800 rupees for the 10 minute drive back to the hotel (the other taxi cost 450 for the entire evening), and when we get to the hotel, theres suddenly an extra amount added to the bill, a luxury tax, he says. I give up arguing with the fucking idiot, pays him the money, and trie to calm down and start the healing process from this day which I really started to hate India.

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07.02.2008: Gurgaon, India
Today we ate lunch at the hotel which was nearby the office, but which I can't remember the name of. I think this lunch was the start of my great diarrhea experience. In the evening we visited Indias largest mall, the Mall of India. It was supposedly 1 kilometer long and had 3 or 4 floors, so it was quite big, but the construction wasn't finished. I bought some more sweaters and we then went back to the hotel.

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08.02.2008: Gurgaon, India
We decided to walk from the office back to the hotel today, just to get a feel of how that was.
Apart from the extremely polluted air, the slums, the dead animals rotting in the roadside, the people staring at you like you had green skin and were the reincarnation of Shiva or something like that, the constant honking of horns, and the extreme traffic, it was quit nice! Not.
The walk took us about 1 1/2 hour.
After the trauma of our walk, we went to Punjabi by Nature, a restaurant recommended by many Norwegians. The restaurant was of course not especially good, the did not understand english very well, and managed to screw up our order, and the food was very good either. So with another disappointment in mind, we went to meet up with Sumit, to get some beers at a local pub/disco. They of course played the music extremely loud, but it was fun to watch the Indians dance, and I also liked the system they had with happy hour. You buy a beer, and you get the next beer for free. We quit the drinking about 12.00, not only because we were getting up early the next morning, but also because they stopped serving alcohol at that time...

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09.02.2008: Gurgaon, India
Not much happened today, exept for when we tried to hire a tuk-tuk to take us back to the hotel. We said to the driver: "Fortune Global Hotel". He took us to the Gold Souk. What an idiot. We paid him too much money (50 rupees), just to get the hell out of his tuk-tuk, and then called the hotel, and made them send a driver to pick us up. We are more and more giving up communicating with these people. They give the impression that they do understand what you say, but they don't at all and just tries to guess where you are going. Morons!
I also tried Sumit's bike today. A 350CC something. I have now bought my own, back in Norway, a 800CC Suzuki chopper. Yeeah!

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