Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Road Trip
Hot Damn!!! Another road trip. A 3-hour drive to Vijayanada to the airport for a flight to Hyderabad. I couldn’t get a room at the Taj Krishna so they put me in the Taj Residency overnight then fly to Mumbai first thing in the morning. I have to clear some tools/equipment through customs. I’ll stay overnight at the Intercontinental Grand then fly to Visag on Wednesday and take the 3 hour drive from there back to Rajahmundry.
…Just arrived at the Vijayanada Airport and it’s sooo small. Looks like they might handle two or three flights a day, tops. I can’t imagine what planes fly in and out here. I’ll probably be on some small turboprop or similar. Air Deccan seems to be the only airline here. Their check-in counter is very tiny, just one small desk.
On the way to the airport, the driver took a tea break and parked in front of a really nicely painted truck (for India anyway). Most all the trucks here are brightly painted but this one was really well done. I had to get a pic and when they saw me taking the pictures some young Indians came rushing over and posed in front. One of them claimed to be the owner, or driver, not sure which and he was quite pleased with my interest. Despite what I may say about India and it’s people I deal with at work and at the hotel, the people I meet when walking about town or in a restaurant, bar or store are genuinely nice people and always very friendly.
When I arrived in Hyderabad I was greeted by a man in a dark suit who told me things had changed and I now have a room in the Taj Krishna and a driver was waiting to take me there. That’s awesome since I really wanted Chinese food for dinner at the Golden Dragon there. The room was very nice but not on the Club level where I stayed in the past so not quite as nice but that’s OK since I’m just there overnight.
Dinner at the Golden Dragon was awesome. They have a full Chinese staff from the chef down to the waiters. It was a marvelous dinner. I had some fish in a really hot sauce then some pork with plum sauce and an order of Hakki noodles. Needless to say I was stuffed by the time I finished eating but it was just so good…
I got up the next morning and headed back to the airport for the second flight of this trip and made it to Mumbai without incident. I was supposed to go and spend a few hours with customs and identify items being shipped to the site then get on the plane the next day and head back to Rajahmundry. If that was the way things happened then I’d have been back earlier this afternoon but it looks like I’ll be here for a couple more days. It seems that customs wanted us to go thru each box and rebuild the inventory based on what was actually in each box. They had a list of total items but they were not identified to a specific box just somewhere in the 7 boxes we shipped. Keep in mind these are large gang boxes full of turbine repair equipment not little boxes with a few hand tools, etc. We spent the last 2 days doing the inventory as requested by customs here in India. Tomorrow we will actually have customs go with us to inspect the boxes. If they check a few things and are happy I can leave the following day, Friday and head back to Rajahmundry. If they want to be a pain (which seems to be the case), then we will probably spend two days doing it over again to prove that every item is as stated. Customs here in India is a real pain in the butt… I’ve not seen anything like it before. Not to mention that the international import warehouse is a big joke. I saw them drop a shipment of computers, maybe 50 or so that were stacked on a pallet and they went all over the place. They just threw them all on a truck (and I do mean threw them) for delivery somewhere. I’d hate to go to a store here in India and buy anything electronic after seeing the way they throw things around. I saw them crush an auto parts box that obviously contained body parts and was marked fragile, etc with a huge pallet they tried to stack on top. It was amazing to witness the blatant disregard for the property they were handling. Tomorrow they are going on strike for more money… not that they make anything at all there, no one in India makes much. I’ve been told that the skilled workers at our job site earn about 300 rupee’s ($7.20) a day others earn as little as 84 rupee’s ($2.00) a day.
Last night I ate steak and lobster that was OK but not really “good” by our standards. This morning I had a nice big omelet with hash browns and bacon. Hey, don’t laugh; these are the things that make trips like this one to Mumbai so enjoyable. I love Indian food and it’s been great all over India but it gets old after a while and things like steak or bacon are really quite rare or non-existant in the area where I’m usually working. Tonight I had sushi that was OK as part of a really good mixed buffet avoiding all the Indian choices, just because I could.
After work today I had a little time so I went exploring Mumbai by taxi and the driver took me to a Hindu Temple of some kind (they are all different) that was really cool, nice statues on the roof at the entrance and in little rooms that people walked up to (not in) and said a small chant or something then went to another.
Not sure what tomorrow holds but it guarantees me at least one more night of good food…
…Just arrived at the Vijayanada Airport and it’s sooo small. Looks like they might handle two or three flights a day, tops. I can’t imagine what planes fly in and out here. I’ll probably be on some small turboprop or similar. Air Deccan seems to be the only airline here. Their check-in counter is very tiny, just one small desk.
On the way to the airport, the driver took a tea break and parked in front of a really nicely painted truck (for India anyway). Most all the trucks here are brightly painted but this one was really well done. I had to get a pic and when they saw me taking the pictures some young Indians came rushing over and posed in front. One of them claimed to be the owner, or driver, not sure which and he was quite pleased with my interest. Despite what I may say about India and it’s people I deal with at work and at the hotel, the people I meet when walking about town or in a restaurant, bar or store are genuinely nice people and always very friendly.
When I arrived in Hyderabad I was greeted by a man in a dark suit who told me things had changed and I now have a room in the Taj Krishna and a driver was waiting to take me there. That’s awesome since I really wanted Chinese food for dinner at the Golden Dragon there. The room was very nice but not on the Club level where I stayed in the past so not quite as nice but that’s OK since I’m just there overnight.
Dinner at the Golden Dragon was awesome. They have a full Chinese staff from the chef down to the waiters. It was a marvelous dinner. I had some fish in a really hot sauce then some pork with plum sauce and an order of Hakki noodles. Needless to say I was stuffed by the time I finished eating but it was just so good…
I got up the next morning and headed back to the airport for the second flight of this trip and made it to Mumbai without incident. I was supposed to go and spend a few hours with customs and identify items being shipped to the site then get on the plane the next day and head back to Rajahmundry. If that was the way things happened then I’d have been back earlier this afternoon but it looks like I’ll be here for a couple more days. It seems that customs wanted us to go thru each box and rebuild the inventory based on what was actually in each box. They had a list of total items but they were not identified to a specific box just somewhere in the 7 boxes we shipped. Keep in mind these are large gang boxes full of turbine repair equipment not little boxes with a few hand tools, etc. We spent the last 2 days doing the inventory as requested by customs here in India. Tomorrow we will actually have customs go with us to inspect the boxes. If they check a few things and are happy I can leave the following day, Friday and head back to Rajahmundry. If they want to be a pain (which seems to be the case), then we will probably spend two days doing it over again to prove that every item is as stated. Customs here in India is a real pain in the butt… I’ve not seen anything like it before. Not to mention that the international import warehouse is a big joke. I saw them drop a shipment of computers, maybe 50 or so that were stacked on a pallet and they went all over the place. They just threw them all on a truck (and I do mean threw them) for delivery somewhere. I’d hate to go to a store here in India and buy anything electronic after seeing the way they throw things around. I saw them crush an auto parts box that obviously contained body parts and was marked fragile, etc with a huge pallet they tried to stack on top. It was amazing to witness the blatant disregard for the property they were handling. Tomorrow they are going on strike for more money… not that they make anything at all there, no one in India makes much. I’ve been told that the skilled workers at our job site earn about 300 rupee’s ($7.20) a day others earn as little as 84 rupee’s ($2.00) a day.
Last night I ate steak and lobster that was OK but not really “good” by our standards. This morning I had a nice big omelet with hash browns and bacon. Hey, don’t laugh; these are the things that make trips like this one to Mumbai so enjoyable. I love Indian food and it’s been great all over India but it gets old after a while and things like steak or bacon are really quite rare or non-existant in the area where I’m usually working. Tonight I had sushi that was OK as part of a really good mixed buffet avoiding all the Indian choices, just because I could.
After work today I had a little time so I went exploring Mumbai by taxi and the driver took me to a Hindu Temple of some kind (they are all different) that was really cool, nice statues on the roof at the entrance and in little rooms that people walked up to (not in) and said a small chant or something then went to another.
Not sure what tomorrow holds but it guarantees me at least one more night of good food…
