The entrance to Sydney harbour



 

These photos were taken at the entrance to the Sydney harbour.  They used to have a number of gun emplacements at the top of these cliffs to protect the harbour, but they have been removed and only the concrete remains (pretty poor concrete too by the way).

You can see in the top photo a number of large sailing boats leaving the bay and heading out to sea. 

And I will also share with you the view I had from the restaurant that I ate lunch at.  A very nice lunch too by the way.

 

The Airport Hotel - the penthouse suit

The first night in Sydney I wanted a hotel close to the airport and not too expensive, and I found this lovely little room. Yes, my room is the one up at the top of the stairs.  Despite the awful looks, the hotel turned out to be very comfortable.  Not quite the Trident in Mumbai, but okay for one night.

 

 

 

 

Sydney - Australia

I spent the weekend in Sydney and got the chance to look around a bit.  The activities that they have at the beach are amazing.  The one beach I visited (in Manly) had a Surf boat race. The web page listed it as follows:  (I didn't take these two photos - but they are much better than mine)

"Sydney's Dee Why beach was abuzz on Saturday with a large crowd (it was really only about 100 people) gathering for the fourth and final round of this summer's Schick Hydro Ocean Thunder Pro Surf Boat series. Australia's top 36 surf rowing crews from all over Australia converged on Dee Why for the series which is viewed by millions of television viewers worldwide."

The male rowers were all 6'5" and 230lb's,  real giants.  After watching all these guys wandering around I began to think that everyone is that big here in Australia, but at the next beach they were more the everyday size - short and fat.  I am surprised that this sport isn't the number one sport watched by women.  The guys for some reason, pull their speedo's up to form a sort of thong at the back.  Fully exposing their bottoms.  So at the start of the race you see 6 teams of 5 men with their butts exposed, getting ready to rush down to the boats.  The women's teams don't feel it is necessary to do this with their swim suits unfortunately.

The tough part of the race is getting through the first set of waves, and often one boat is completely swamped and looks like it will sink for sure.  But somehow, they can row with the boat full of water and it drains out the back.

 

Further down the same beach was a larger crowd gathered for kids life guarding training.  They had a series of races set up for kids from age 6 to 13.  The little ones had a relay race where they had to run down to the beach and then swim through the waves, go around a bouy and swim back.  The older kids were doing a race with the rescue boards.  They had to go quite far out and around two bouys then back to the beach.  It looked like great fun and I wished I could join in.

Night out

That evening we are all taken out for dinner and join a large group from the same company at the typical round table.  5 of the people at the table I have never met before and don’t even speak English.  The drinking soon starts and they are regularly  “Gambei” each other (finishing off the drink). I wisely don’t take part.  The photo is of our table early in the evening.

The next morning in the meeting room, you can smell the booze coming out of their pores.  But they didn’t seem any worse for wear.

That evening we fly to Beijing on the first leg of our return flight.  When we land in Beijing, the air is unbelievably bad.  Over powering smell of sulfur and smog in the air.  I get 1.5 hrs sleep that night and I am very tired when I have to get up at 4:45am for the morning flight – I am starting to wonder why I put myself through this….

Off to China

How’s this for a travel day:  Get up at 4am (after being woken up at 2 am by mistaken wakeup call from hotel reception) for a flight at 5:45 am.  The first leg of my flight was from Surabaya to Jakarta, then catch a flight to Guangzhu China, then a third flight from there to Wuhan, China where I landed at 7 pm.  By the time I got to the hotel it was 8:30pm.  It was my first time to Guangzhu airport and I had to pass through immigration and then find the domestic flight to Wuhan.  They certainly could use some more signs to inform people where to go. I had to ask a number of people to find my way through an extremely large airport and I was given the wrong information three times before I found the right check in desk.   The business lounge I would rate at the low end of the scale for those who happen to find themselves passing through.  However the airport is very modern and very spacious (and huge).

The hotel is quite nice – with the painting below in the lobby (3 meters high) and the hotel room is excellent (even free internet).  In the morning, I can’t find the restaurant and have to ask again, only to be told it is on the 4^th floor.  I am later told by colleagues that the prostitutes are on the 5^th floor.  I am quite shocked that this is the norm in China for business men and that even top hotels organize this.

Trip to Tuscany

My wife and I took a short (?) drive down to Tuscany.  Weather was great and traffic minimal.  Only problem encountered was the very bright light that flashed at me for some reason on our return.  I am waiting to find out the exact speed that I should have been traveling vs. the speed I was going when this bright light hit.  The Swiss postal system will bring this news in the coming days.

The photo is of the area of Tuscany that we were in.  It is quite amazing how much time it takes to drive anywhere in the country side.  10 km ends up taking 30 minutes or much longer in our case when you take into account getting lost.

Back on the road - Jakarta and Mumbai

After a brief break, I am back on the road - well " in the air" actually.  I felt the kids were pushing me out the door this time, as they have given me their DVD wish list   It has been a while since I have been to Jakarta and they had compiled quite a list of DVD's for me to pick up.  For those not in the know, Jakarta is a good place to pick up inexpensive DVD's - about 60 cents each.  I don't think I can buy blank ones for this price.  There are about 10 of these "shops" in this mall I frequent, and the quality (so I hear) is quite poor for new releases, but improves as the movies get older.

For any FBI agents reading this blog, I can assure you that I spoke quite sternly to my children about copy right infringement and that I would not be a part of it.

As usual with my visits to these places, it was required to work the weekend.  We spent 8 hours working in a corner of the hotel lobby lounge as the office shuts off it's air conditioning on the weekend.  The lounge played the same music CD over and over again.  It became mildly bothersome after the forth time.

The flight to Singapore is always on the A380 and I find it cool that the entrances are on two levels. I have been meaning to show a photo of it for a while, and finally remembered this last trip.

My stop over in Mumbai was thankfully brief, and I got a room with the ocean view.  Normally I get the dirty view out the back looking at the slum.  In the morning I got up early and took this photo of the ocean with the shadow of the buildings on the water and a small fishing boat below.  The city across the bay is visable in the distance.

 

First class upgrade on Emirates

 A while back I had to fly Emirates Airline, which I hadn't done for quite some time. I had even lost my frequent flyer card, which created a bit of a fuss as I thought they could just find me in the system. But it turns out there are over 30 people with the same name as me in their system. However, the people at the desk were extremely helpful and eventually found me among the others. It had been so long since I had flown with them, that I had lost my Gold and Silver status and was right down at the bottom. I try to avoid flying Emirates because you have to stop in Dubai, which then breaks the flight up and you land in the middle of the night. The airport is usually packed with people, even at 5 am. And the lounge is also far too crowded. The one benefit is that they offer a free limo pick up and drop off. This means that a fancy Mercedes will pick you up at home and drive you to the airport and vice versa when you land. This is very nice. But it doesn't outweigh the crappy stopover in Dubai. The other nice thing is that on the return flight I got upgraded to first class. However, these Arabians
kind of over do it with all the gold trim, so it looks tacky.

 

Day off - Sri Lanka

As I will be travelling on Saturday and working Sunday, I feel very justified in taking Friday off.  I arrange for a driver to take me to the Kitekuda kite surfing nearby and arrive just before 9am.

This being my third visit to the very rugged camp, I feel very at home as I do the traditional greetings to all of the guests at breakfast.  This time the group is smaller than usual and is not comprised of the die hard expert kitesurfers that I encountered last time.  This group is quite normal, four of which have traveled from Dubai (expats working there) and the others are expats working in India.  Most of them are new to the sport.  I even meet a Canadian – but unfortunately he is very irritating and I distance myself from him.

Once we get to the beach, I grab my gear and pump up the kite (very exhausting) I launch and start surfing.  I am happy to find that I have remembering everything I learned from the last time and surprised to be actually surfing easily for the very first time.   The morning is great and I sail for almost 2hrs without a break.  Despite my earlier hopes I attempt no jumps – surprisingly what age does to your fear of injury.  Maybe next time.

In the afternoon the wind is strange and picks up – 26 knots while we eat lunch, then dies shortly after we have got back on the water.  So I find myself stranded out in the middle of the lagoon and have to wade through the water to get back to shore.  I wait out the lull in the wind and go out again for another 30 min before it dies again and I pack it up for the day.

4 hrs later ( a very long drive with a solid line of traffic) I am in a hotel by the airport and I see that  I have a sun burnt nose, a number of bruises, blisters on one hand and several rashes on my hips.  Once again I am reminded of the toll on the body this sport takes. 

Sri Lanka - Elephants & bad coffee

We meet at 6am to travel north to the future plant site – some 4hrs north.  None of the restaurants are open at that time in morning so we leave with empty stomachs.  Of course we don’t stop along the way for any food or coffee and I am particularly hungry and in need of java.  The site has prepared an elaborate breakfast for us – unfortunately they had prepared it hours in advance and everything is cold.  Except for the local food which is so spicy I couldn’t eat it. All the Europeans want coffee but you have to keep an open mind in terms of quality.  The first cup I pour is so weak as to be like water.  So I ask for some powdered coffee  (meaning instant).  A bowl of powdered is produced and we all dump a spoonful of the stuff into our cups, only to find that he brought out real powdered coffee – not instant.  Absolutely undrinkable.  So we clarify our request for Nescafe and I get a number of packets of the stuff, which I put into my cup.  It is pretty bad but grows on you, so I decide to have a second cup.  I reach for the hot water which was stored in a normal tea pot (and I used five minutes before) only to find after taking a sip that someone had replaced it with tea.  So I am left to drink a mix of instant coffee and tea.  At least I get my caffeine for the day.  

Wind turbines in distance

Chameleon at the plant  

The future site of the project which is located near a national park (just what every national park needs - a cement plant nearby) and wild elephants are an every present danger (or so I am told).  When we tour the future project site, a security guard, armed with a gun and explosives to make noise) is present to scare off any elephants that might emerge from the bush.  Unfortunately we don’t see any.  In the evening over dinner I am told a story of an elephant killing two people a number of years ago.  They had built an elephant fence around the housing compound, but left the side facing a busy road open.  After time the elephants discovered that they could get at the gardens if they just went around the fence and proceeded to do so.  Unfortunately some people tried to stop them and got crushed in the process.  I was informed that elephants can be quite pushy and will knock down house walls to get at food in the kitchen.  However, for my soft hearted readers, you can be comforted in fact that killing elephants in Sri Lanka gets the death penalty.

The plant location was on the front line of the war between the Tamil and the government.  No good stories were told to support this claim however.  They did relate a story of an attack by Tamil troops on the international airport in which they blew up all the Sri Lankan airways planes on the ground.  Now that would have been a bad time to visit.

Ear Hair and other observations

The Indian’s seem to take a certain pride in having extremely long hairs covering their ears.  The older gentlemen I come across have the hairiest ears I have ever seen.  This fellow is an example of the pride they have in their grooming skills.

On to more interesting things- I had to give an update on the project to senior management the other day and afterwards was considering why it was such a unproductive meeting – it might have been due to having the meeting at a table the size of a squash court – it could have held 50 people around it.  But there were only 6 of us in attendance – with us 3 on one side and 3 on the far other side a good 3 meters away.  A very impressive board room I must say, but not too effect for small meetings.

Taxes:  The Indian tax system is as confusing as their normal way of life.  The large project that I am working on has required countless lawyers, consultants and tax advisers to guide us through the tax risks of doing a project in India.  While I won’t bore you with the tax details that cause my eyes to glaze over as soon as anyone tries to explain it to me, but I will share some insights in to it.  The rules are clear in how it should be applied, but there are many different tax departments and they are quite ruthless in applying their own interpretation to the rules.   They have put the fear of God into the many large businesses with their tax powers.  So as a result we have lengthy discussions on how these rouge tax officials may look at our documents.  In end we will create thousands of pages of paper, all of which is for no purpose other than to prevent an aggressive tax official from falsely assigning a tax penalty (which could be millions of dollars).

 

The Doctor comes

 God – finally feeling human again.  I have gotten to know the bathroom well in the past few days.

On Tuesday I finally called for a Doctor, who comes your hotel room, by the way.  I have to add it to the plus side of my list of things that I love and hate about Mumbai – currently the list is heavily weighted on the Hate side.  But I digress.   He lined up blood tests (also later done in my hotel room) and issued a prescription for antibiotics after a short physical.  24 hrs later I am starting to feel better and have not had any more diarrhea.  The prescription was also delivered to my room and they even offered to pick up my stool sample (now that is service!)

The diet the doctor told me to follow was interesting;

Lemon tea, coconut water, fresh lime water, peeled apple, boiled rice, yogurt and toast.

I had a difficult time finding any of the stuff but I got the idea and kept the food very simple.

Mumbai - again -

Sunday - Well after 4 days in Mumbai, I am hit with stomach problems.  Last night bathroom trips started and I was up several times in the night.  Figures that it happens on the one day off I get.  So I spent all day either in bed or on the toilet.  If I am not better by tomorrow, I will call a doctor.

I assume it came from my lunch at the office restaurant, but no one else seems to have got it.

Visiting Perth in style

Saturday July 28th

It is a 5 hr flight and not in business class - :(  However, the seats are roomy and they even serve free wine.  It is my first time in Perth and I am picked up at the airport by a colleague who has graciously offered to put me up at his house for the three nights.

The weather is fantastic – sunny 24°c.  Perth is a beautiful city and I am very impressed by it.  It makes San Diego look dumpy.  My host has an impressive town house across from the beach and I am shown to a very nice room with its own full bathroom.  The beach is endless and relatively empty.  Waves are surprisingly small, as winter is the prime surfing season. 

The living room - all windows look out over the ocean

The view from the balcony

Sunday morning, I wake late to find my host has gone surfing and I take advantage of the time and go for a run.  Later, we spend the day touring the city and I am taken for a ride in his limited edition hand built Aston Marton.  New it would cost $400’000, but it is 6 years old so it probably only cost him half.  He even lets me take it for a drive, which I am a little nervous about, hoping that he has insurance up to date.

Monday we head in to work, where he works at a major law firm who is supporting us on a number of different projects.  The offices are on the top two floors and the view as you enter the reception area is successful in impressing me.  I don’t know what the psychology is behind all these large firms having opulent offices.  I would be happier using a firm working out of a warehouse and charging $200 an hour less.

The lobby

The view from the 2nd floor (top floor of the 38 story bldg

The room I work out of for the day

The office is in the 2nd bldg from left

Tuesday – I wake at 4:45am to catch a cab to the airport.  Time to fly to Mumbai – Oh joy, oh joy.

Coastal drive south of Sydney

July 23 - 26

My flight(s) to Sydney go well and I arrive only one hour late into Sydney in the evening.  In total it turns out to be a 21hr trip, with a very good connection in Singapore.  I pick up a rental car and with the help of a GPS drive south in the dark to Wollongong only an hour away.  (BTW - the movies were not good )

Wollongong is a pretty town next to an industrial port with a very large steel factory that is progressively being closed down due to the high costs of labour in Australia.  The weather is a little cold (being winter) in the evenings and the hotel room is not heated, however the days warm up to 18°c.

In the Port - Scrap steel ship being loaded

I am quite tired and go to bed at 9 am and sleep until 6:30am. I am quite happy whenever I wake up and find that I have managed a good night’s sleep after changing so many time zones.  However the next night I am not so lucky and wake up at 4 am, and go for a long walk along the beach in the dark from 5 - 6am.

I have 2 days of meetings in a cramped construction trailer at the project site.  The only break I get  is getting out early one afternoon, where I get to enjoy a run along the ocean.

Saturday I drive back to Sydney along the scenic coastal drive, to catch my flight to Perth.

 The coastal hwy

 The view back towards Wollongong

 The view from the beach at low tide

My bed for the night

Kite surfing in Sri Lanka

 My alarm wakes me up at 1 am, and I am surprised at how much sleep I was able to get.  The 3am departure time is not ideal, but for some reason they only have middle of the night flights to Colombo.  The flight is uneventful and I arrive at 5:30 am only to find an enormous line at immigration which takes 30 mins to get through.  The duty free shops in Colombo are interesting because of all the things that you can purchase there.  Even at 5:30 am the shops are very busy selling refrigerator’s, flat screen tv’s, and other appliances.  I am in a rush to get out of the airport and on the road for an exciting free weekend at a kite surfing destination just up the coast.  And as usual, my progress is indirectly related to my desire to get somewhere.  First the 30 min delay in immigration and now I find that there is no driver waiting for me.  It is now 6 am and after wandering around a bit, I start searching for people to wake up on a Saturday morning.  Fortunately I get a hold of someone who tells me the driver is late, but on the way. 

The trip up the coast is crowded with traffic, but I arrive at my kite surf destination basically on schedule only to find – no wind and no people.  Confident that both will change I dismiss my driver for the day, and go in search of people. 

The destination is quite interesting, a small lagoon that is shallow and next to the ocean so that the strong trade winds blow across it, so that the wind and shallow flat water combine to make it a great spot for learning to kite surf.  An Australian fellow has set up a kite surfing school and hotel at the place and it is a little rough (like a Canadian cottage) but comfortable.  The meals are served buffet style and everyone eats at one large picnic table.  So you have to be a bit sociable (I make an exception and pretend to be sociable)  The background of the people is quite interesting, with a cross between die hard kite surfers that are taking a year off to travel the world to the top destinations and other die hard kite surfers who use all their vacation to visit top spots – and then the wannabe kite surfers (me) who are trying to learn.  I love the accommodations as there is no AC only the trade winds blowing through the night to keep you cool.  The owner, not the most organized guy, over booked the place and he is kind enough to offer a bed at his place (at no cost).

The wind kicks in just after lunch and I get to sail for a couple of hours (still in the learning phase) but my body is getting old and is very sore after just 2 hrs.  The next day I progress much better and I am sailing comfortably across the lagoon and even manage an (accidental) jump of good height but not the landing.

There is a Sri Lankan kid who works at the camp and his payment is getting to sail every afternoon.  He is completely fearless.  The jumps he takes are insane – height around 7 meters and he covers 25 meters in distance.  I saw him showing off to the local kids that come to watch – They were yelling at me, but I think they were hurling insults.

 The dinning room

 A small jump

The lagoon

Skiing in June

The view from the top 3500 m

June 15 - I finally was able to escape work and family and make a day trip to the mountains for a ski trip.  (A number of earlier trips planned had to be cancelled at the last minute due to either work or weather.)
We left at 2am to drive to the pass and started hiking up the mountain at 5am (elev 2'000m).  5 hours later we made it to the top at 3'500m - Susten horn.  A grueling climb, that left me exhausted.  The ski down was fantastic until we hit the soft snow and here my tired legs were not up to the test.  Fortunately the snow was soft and I didn't hit any rocks when I fell (a number of times).

Chennai - and weather

Thursday May 31 – Chennai

I arrive at the hotel at 1:30 am and quickly go to bed. 

Keeping to the temperature theme, I was warned that Chennai will have the worst climate of the three cities on this trip.  Hot and humid, and I notice it, but let’s see what the day brings.

For the past few days I have been told that our travel plans might get disrupted by city wide strikes in Chennia – in protest of the hike in gas prices (14%).  My colleagues have been busy making alternative plans of where it is best to stay to avoid the disruptions.  They tell me that all public transportation services will be on strike (from 10 am to 6pm – which is convenient of them to make it between working hours.

It turns out all the warnings were false. The weather is very comfortable, and there is in effect no strike.  I heard the government backed down and didn’t raise the price as much as they said they would.

Pune and no AC

Wednesday May 30 – Pune

Another flight,  another hotel.  Pune is cooler than Delhi, a chilly 28°c when we land in the evening and only 34°C during the day.  I am told that it has the nicest weather in India, which is surprising as it is only a 3 hr drive from Mumbai, which is quite hot.  In a tour I was given of the engineering offices of the people I was meeting, I observed a big room with about 50 people working in a modern setting, with flat screen monitors and about 30 overhead fans running at full speed – meaning no Air Conditioning.  I was told this was due to the very mild climate (and not because they are too cheap to pay for the AC).

Lost luggage and Indian efficiency

Tuesday May 29 – New Delhi

Upon waking I passed on my problem of getting the box of drawings to the Indians.    I had thought – no problem – just give the luggage tag to the driver who would be sitting around all day anyway waiting for the meeting to end, and he could go pick them up.  However, it turned out to be quite a challenging task. First, it was too important to be left to a driver, so they gave it to some poor bastard in the office.  For the next 8 hrs I was given constant updates in the efforts to obtain the box.  First I had to sign a letter saying that this person was approved to pick up the box for me.  A short time later they asked to borrow my passport so they could photocopy it.  Then they decided it would be better to take my real passport and a copy to the get the box without telling me.   Still the authorities refused to give up the box .  Then I had to sign the letter again the same way as my full signature in the passport was.  No – not good enough.  They asked for a photo to be attached to the letter.  I refused this request.  Every hour I got an update, with the officials refusing to release the box.  I told them to forget the box, just please bring back my passport.   But the negotiations were continuing and they were not ready to give up yet.  In the end they released the box and it was delivered with the passport just as we needed to leave to head back to the airport.  Typical India.  Most likely someone wanted some cash to release the box and continued to think up new ways to make life difficult.

Unwise decision

Monday May 28 -   Zurich to New Delhi

Here it is, another long weekend and I am working again.  This time, heading back to India for a 4 day trip.  Unfortunately I have flown too much in the month of May and have already seen all of the new movies available.  But this time I have to actually work and use 4 hrs of the flight to prepare for the series of meetings in India, which start in Delhi, followed by Pune and end in Chennai.  Each night a new flight to a different city (what joy, and on Indian Airlines).

Unwisely I decided to check two bags as they were cumbersome to carry, one of them a box with drawings for the meetings.  Inner warning bells went off when I checked them  and I failed to listen to my inner voice when I was told they would need to be handled differently as the box is not suited for the belt conveyors.   So I was not surprised when the box didn’t show up when I landed.  The Delhi luggage system was a complete disaster.  The modern system would not put more bags on the belt unless the existing ones were removed to make space and no one was removing them (not sure why).  So after waiting 20 min’s and no sign of progress (three new bags were deposited on the belt) I wrote off the box of drawings and left.  I was not prepared to wait another hour only to find they had lost the drawings.  It was at this time 12:45 am

The Airline got ahold of me at 1:30 am by phone to tell me that I forgot my bag and asked if I could come back and get it – No, was my reply.  They didn’t like this, but I said I would have it picked up in the morning and went to bed.  By the way, the temperature in Delhi was 35°c at night and the air conditioner in my room was freezing me so badly that I had to sleep with my head at the foot of the bed to avoid an arctic draft and I wore a pullover to keep warm (and ear plugs to keep out the noise).  Unfortunately the AC shut off in the night and I woke bathed in sweat.  Unable to get the AC working again I settled for the overhead fan and stripped of all clothing.  A very sweaty night.

which ones are the Soccer stars?

Torres and Mata

Friday  May 25 - Return to Zurich

 The conclusion of this trip was interesting.  It turned out that two famous Spanish soccer players were on the same flight.  I only noticed them at the baggage area when a large group of kids were crowding around them taking pictures.  Being completely ignorant of who's who in the soccer world I asked my colleague who informed me that it was Torres and Mata, who play for the Spanish National team and Chelsea FC.   My colleague asked  me to take a picture of him together with them - which they were quite nonchalant about

Demonstrations in Madrid

Tuesday  May 22 – Madrid

After a very long day of meetings (well actually it was only a single meeting) we caught a cab to the hotel, but found as we neared the hotel a very large traffic jam stopped progress which caused us to walk the remaining half kilometer.  A very large protest was being held and the police had blocked the street our hotel was on.  People were gathering from all around, and heading in the same direction as us, so we joined the protest crowd for a bit (dragging our luggage behind us).  The protest was about government changes in the public education system.  Due to the financial crisis that Spain is in, the Government has decided to reduce the education budget and eliminate part time teachers.

Dinner in the evening turned out to be another late night - bed after 12.

On a street corner

No fish on Monday's

Monday May 21 – Gijon Spain

Morning was spent working from my hotel room and then after putting in a good 4hrs, decided to reward myself with a break and went for a run along the sea side.  I arrived back close to lunch time and very hungry (again).   My attempts to obtain food however once again met with little success.  It seems that in Gijon (originally a fishing village) that most restaurants are closed on Mondays because the fishermen don’t work Sundays and therefore there is no fresh fish and no point in opening a restaurant without fresh fish.  This included the hotel’s restaurant.  But room service was available (after 1:30pm). In end I did get something to eat but it was horrible.  Fortunately dinner was excellent, but I didn’t get to enjoy it until 10pm.  My stomach isn’t set up for this type of eating schedule.

The end result of eating at 10 pm is going to bed after midnight on a full stomach.  Unfortunately I had a flight to catch early the next day and had to get up at 5:30 am.

In Gijon along the beach in town - much nicer than Mumbai I must say.

King kong's Loo

King Kong's toilet

 Sunday May 20 – ZRH / Madrid / Gijon  Spain

A beautiful  sunny Sunday in Switzerland and I have to leave to go to Spain.  The flights are uneventful and I arrive at the hotel at 6 pm.   As I was only able to eat a very poor sandwich on the plane (at a cost of 10€) I was very famished and immediately set out in search of a place to eat.  However in Spain the restaurant opening times are very different from elsewhere (or at least India).  For lunch they open at 1pm until 4pm, then close between 4 to 9pm.  This caused me to slowly starve for a few hours.

I passed the time with a very nice walk along the sea side and up to a park overlooking the sea with a large concrete statue (by a famous artist - or at least I was told by a local).  This statue, after it was unveiled was acclaimed by all to be a great work of art, until one day a visiting dignitary commented, after being shown the statue that it looked like “King kong’s Loo”  (a big toilet).  And for evermore that was the name of the statue. 

Mumbai vs. Switz - photos

Oh it is good to be back in Switzerland

View from Hotel

See the slum by the water - fishermen's homes

The nice walkway along the bay

Downtown Mumbai

Well I am back again in Mumbai for 3 very busy days.  The good news is that I am staying downtown, so the morning drive is much shorter and the hotel is very nice.  The Trident is one of the hotels also attacked in 2008, or at least I assumed so after seeing the small monument to the staff and guests who died in 2008.  I hope it wasn't due to something else that I wasn't aware of.

The other evening I noticed in the lobby a small crowd gathered behind ropes and later learned that IPL - cricket league - "Mumbai Indians" were staying at the hotel and practicing nearby.  Since then have rubbed shoulders with the players at breakfast and in the elevator.  Unfortunately I don't know who the hell each one is.  They definitely look very fit.  Today in the elevator a player got on and he started up a conversation with a little boy (in Hindi).  After the player got off, the little boy turned to me and asked what team I played for? I was wearing a Man United football jersey and I also look very fit, so I understood his confusion. 

Final Photos - the buildings

I don't recall the building leaning like it seems in the photo - but it might be correct



laundry hanging on the windows



great views of your neighbours

typical street scene

My last day

Well today is my last day in India and my flight leaves at midnight.

The past few days have been a hectic series of meetings that would not be believed in a western business setting.  The project manager leading one meeting with several senior executives in attendence, showed up having sent out the important "pre-reading" material one hour before the meeting.  Provided no additional copies of the documents, and he was unable to get the beamer working to show the documents to anyone.  We all crowded around the one available hard copy (his).  To add to the confusion it was a video conference with a poor sound connection to a group in Sri Lanka and the signal kept dropping out every 15 minutes. 

I spent most of my time however locked in a room with 20 Indians.  I lead the meeting for a marathon 1.5 days.  Often I would put my head in my hands and give a silent sob.  The meetings are complete chaos.  They jump from topic to topic as any random thought enters their heads.  There are so many hidden agendas and personal grudges against one another it is actually amazing the company functions at all.  Between meetings senior people pull me aside to tell me what is "really" going on because they don't want to say it in the meeting.  I listen sympathetically and nod my head while counting the hours until I leave.

At least it is definitely not boring.

Some of the sites around town

A wonderful view of the swamp next to the hotel.  Last year two fishermen were eaten by crocks in it

"The accessibility to the Dargah is very much dependent on the tides. As, the causeway is not bound by railings, when the causeway gets submerged during the tides high tides it becomes inaccessible. Therefore, the dargah is accessible only during low tide. This walk on the causeway, with the sea on both sides, is one of the highlights of a trip to the shrine." - Looking at it from a distance, I would say the walk would be the only thing of interest.

The slum next to my hotel - a nice view down into it.  It looks like one of the more up and coming slums

The Gateway of India built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Bombay, in December 1911. Unfortunately the British king and Queen only got to see a cardboard model of the structure as construction did not begin till 1915 - Typical for India