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