India Trip: January 2010

Pre/Post-Trip Comparisons

2010-02-28T19:24:00.000-08:00

This final posting will discuss the differences and similarities between my pre-trip perceptions about India and my actual experiences. While I have already shared many experiences, this posting will specifically address these perceptions.

The first is the weather changes throughout the country. I was correct in predicting some differences in climate as we moved from the northern section to the middle of the country. While the differences there are not quite like from going from Wisconsin to Florida during winter time, there still was a noticeable difference. In the northern part, namely Delhi, it was around the mid 40s at night and only got up to the upper 60s during the day; later in the trip at the central region, specifically Mumbai, night-time temps were about 60-70 and day-time temps were in the 90s. We were even lucky enough to witness and experience the coldest day in Delhi in 7 years! In Mumbai, we changed from pants and long sleeves to shorts and t-shirts and still sometimes couldn't stay cool enough. The weather in Mumbai was more of the weather I had always thought when I thought of India.

The next perception is about the people and their friendliness towards me. I was again correct in predicting they would be extremely helpful. Little did I know however, that for every word they mumble to me, whether it is a simple pointing to the exit to opening a door for me, I am expected to tip them. I began to wonder whether they were actually nice or just wanted money...I'm hoping both.

The next perception was that of the marketplaces. I didn't quite accurately predict this, as sellers were mostly scattered along all the streets, some waiting for you to come within speaking range for them to try to talk you into their store. Others walked in-between crowds and tried to sell their items that way, and soon I learned to just ignore them long enough where they will leave me alone. Most selling areas were not in a square or marketplace, they were just random shacks located throughout the country.

My perception about the business professionals were accurate. There was a great understanding for the need to be professional, and all the workers exhibited that professionalism well. All the associates had a deep interest in their company and I was able to tell they knew everything about it as well. They knew if they took care of their company, it would take care of them. Their work ethic seemed strict, but each person held only themselves accountable for their actions; thus only the truly entrepreneurial people advanced quickly, showing some signs of Capitalism. Their standards are high for quality and service, but they must be in order to remain in business, something I have learned any company must require.

The final perception about poverty was correct as well. Some people were just so skinny and frail; they would hold their starving children in their arms and beg for money, sometimes following you for a block or two. At times we were told to not help them out in front of buildings because then they will be back there again. The wealthy were wealthy and the poor were poor; there really wasn't an in-between class. It was definitely hard sometimes to not just pull out a twenty dollar bill, which would feed them for probably a year.

However, I must remember there is poverty in big cities in the United States as well, and that I cannot define a country by seeing only some of it and experiencing just a fraction of the culture. Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to India and I definitely wouldn't mind going back sometime to experience more and form a much more rounded opinion of the country of India.

~ John

Days 11 & 12

2010-01-31T15:41:00.000-08:00

Thurs. January 14th,

I woke up thinking there wouldn't be anything to do for awhile; however, I heard familiar voices in the hallway, so I checked it out and found some of the group ready to go for a walk. I decided to join them instead of just waiting in the room. It was about 10:30 and we just walked around the block. We got hassled by a lot of people, most of them wanting to give us a taxi ride, and later we found out it would have not been towards where we intended to go later. We were going shopping in one direction and I believe they kept pointing and telling us they would take us in the other direction. We made the loop and got back to the hotel around 11, and by 11:30 everybody else was ready to walk down the street. We had the entire day to shop, so most everyone kind of broke off into groups and went separate ways.

One gentleman got Paul and myself to go with him to "just look, I'm not going to make you buy anything, just look please." We went down a back alley, and I must admit I was surveying our surroundings very carefully, making sure I could defend myself if anything happened. His shop was about a block and a half of the main strip and was a decent establishment. He had a nephew do the show and tell and someone else helping him getting different scarves to show us. One thing I forgot to mention was that at every shop/store we went into, there were always several people around, making sure there would never be a customer without someone helping them. Usually they are all relatives in some way, thereby keeping it in the family. We survived the shop and make it back to the main strip safely and met up with some others from our group. We ate lunch where ever we wanted (ended up being Pizza Hut again) and went to a nicer "mall." It was called the Emporium and was government run, meaning all the prices were not negotiable, unlike everything else in India. At this place, the price you see is the price you will pay.

A group of four of us made it back to the hotel but no one else was back, so we went to the hotel restaurant and had a few beers and peanuts, just passing the time. We went up to our rooms later and packed up for the return home. We found out our flight was moved up a half hour because they wanted to get the flight off before more fog would set in (wow, fog in Delhi, was a surprise!). Then, breaking news!, the radar tracking system at Delhi airport crashes. Now here we are, in one of the leading technology countries, and the radar system crashes! Eventually they got it back up and running and we resumed our procedures for getting home. We made it to the airport with one sick person already, and myself closely in tow. I didn't quite get sick but I'm sure I gave Casper (the ghost) a run for his money in terms of skin complexion. The airlines allowed our group to board, and everyone was comforted that we didn't have to stay in India until we were healthier.

Fri. January 15th,

Our flight left at 12:15 in the morning. A few other people ended up getting sick as well during the flight home, but fortunately I slowly got better over the course of the 15 hour flight. Once again, we went straight north for some reason over the North Pole and the temperatures were similar to when we flew over before. We landed before 5:00AM Chicago time, and had to wait for customs officials to get to their desks before we could deplane. Since we were the first flight to arrive, we had no problems quickly getting through customs and got our baggage right away too. Our shuttle arrived to take us back to Milwaukee and we said our byes to those staying in/near Chicago.

This was a trip I will never forget. I was able to obtain many perspectives from the cultural and business standpoint, and appreciate the US culture for what it is worth more. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Hindu and its influence on practically the entire country. No matter where my career takes me, I will be better prepared for it because I am a more rounded individual having experienced what I did. I am so glad I took this opportunity to explore part of the world, and look forward to exploring more of it in the future.

On a side note, I decided I should probably have some meat in my system shortly after getting back to Milwaukee.

Thanks for reading about my experiences from India. I hope you enjoyed reading about them just as much as I had fun there.

~John

Days 9 & 10

2010-01-31T14:51:00.000-08:00

Tues. January 12th,

We were able to sleep in again, and some of us went for a walk and street shopping, leaving around 10:15. Most shops don't open until about 10, so we had to wait until after then to even think about seeing merchandise, having people come up to us begging for money, or vendors walking up and trying to sell something. We returned to the hotel, showered, and grabbed lunch before our next company visit at Infosys at 2:00. Naturally, we arrived then at 2:30 and finished about 5:30-6:00. That was another very informative presentation and great hospitality too. This time however, they weren't trying to sell us some of their products, just educating us, which was a nice change of pace.

*As a side note, I am not including a lot of my company notes because I believe it is their property and I shouldn't be freely distributing it without their consent.

We headed back to the hotel and had a normal, on-time supper. Then we relaxed in our rooms until about 9:00, at which time we went out to celebrate Teresa's birthday! Fourteen of us squeezed into two cabs and meandered our way to a bar. We stayed out until after midnight, even though the bar closed at 11. They kept serving us drinks until 11:45, so we kept drinking, even though all the other guests had left. We had our hired-cab-drivers-for-the-night take us back to the hotel for bed then.

Wed. January 13th,

Another later morning finds us at Spiderlogic around 11:30. They are a very small company, only about 25 employees at this office. I thought it was really neat to learn they are one of the arms of Wipfli, an accounting software provider out of Wausau, WI! Coincidentally, Stratford Bank uses Wipfli, so I definitely had something to relate to there. Spiderlogic was a relatively shorter visit, and after which we headed off to another company: Zensar, a medium-sized firm.

We arrived just after 2:00, and had a minor lunch during the presentations. Zensar, like the other companies, was very concerned about the well-being of their employees, providing many services to them, making sure every employee they hire will stay with the company throughout their entire career. We had to rush the presentations a bit, as we had to leave at 4:30 to get to the airport in time. Fortunately, traffic was not bad at all, and we made it through the check-in and security just fine. At this point of the trip, I think there were others besides me who were craving some meat. Luckily, Jerry had some beef jerky, so some of us kept sneaking some into our mouths as discretely as possible so as not to upset the locals and their religious belief of the cow. We had enough time before our flight left that some of us went to the restaurant in the airport and had a beer (you guessed it, a Kingfisher) and a sandwich. I ordered a chicken burger, but the waiter brought out a veggie burger, two completely different things. This leads me to believe one of two things: 1)he misheard/misinterpreted me, or 2)he deliberately didn't want me to have chicken. I guess the language barrier goes both ways!

The plane ride was only two hours, and since our plane probably wasn't the biggest one in the air, we had to take a shuttle to the inside of the airport. When we got to the baggage claim all our bags were already circulating! Talk about service. We reunited with our original bus driver and his assistant, although our guide was not Gaurav this time. Driving through Delhi again I expected heavier traffic, but it was mild enough to let us quickly get to our new hotel in a suburb called Janpath. Our hotel was under construction/remodeling (hard to tell which) so surprisingly (jk) it was dusty!

Days 7 & 8

2010-01-31T13:58:00.000-08:00

Sun. January 10th,

I was able to sleep in somewhat and decided to not go out for an early morning walk for some chai tea. We had breakfast and got on the bus to take a small break from company visits for more sightseeing all over Mumbai. We visited Gandhi's home/museum, a beautiful garden with a cemetery adjacent where vultures were visible circling over dead bodies and whose job was to pick the bones dry (some ritual/belief of being clean for the next life I presume), and a Jain temple (a sect of Hindu I believe). All this in the morning! We stopped for a hurried lunch, thereby making it unenjoyable, as we all felt rushed. We headed off towards the coast, which wasn't too far away, and arrived at a large courtyard with a big arch next to the Indian Ocean. Across the street behind us was the Taj Hotel, which we were told was a "7" star out of 5. This is also the same hotel that was bombed late in 2008, making it one of the reasons the trip did not work out a year ago. I think I heard it was about $550 a night, so it must be decently nice!

Passing through the courtyard, we once again were met with a barrage of sellers, anything from mini chess boards, to flower bracelets, to peacock feather fans, they had it all. And "just for you sir, I make a special deal. 100 rupees." That equates to less than two dollars, so our purchasing power in India is very strong, making it easy to spend the money, but then again I have to realize I don't need the items. We boarded a boat/ferry that would take us out on the ocean towards our island destination. On the way we saw many tankers and military vessels during the one hour boat ride. Out destination is called Elephant Island, where there are five Elephanta Caves, all hand carved and containing sculptures of Hindu gods depicting some heroic story. As I forgot to mention, Mumbai is relatively in the center of India north-south-wise. Therefore, the weather was around 90 degrees during the day, so many of us were wearing shorts, making us stick out even more. Indians do not wear shorts and many wear long sleeves, although they will roll up the sleeves. So climbing up the mountain on the island to see the caves was somewhat tedious and warm. Because we were pushing for time and sunlight, our new tour guide practically run up the mountain, leaving the rest of us to get up as fast as possible too. By the time we got up to the top, we were all sweating like mad. We were warned about the monkeys on this island that they were pretty smart. One of our members, Jenny, set down here water bottle to fix something and a monkey emerged and ran towards her half full bottle. Everyone yelled at Jenny to grab it, just in time before the leaping monkey's outstretched paws. After landing empty-handed the monkey squealed at Jenny and ran off somewhere. After that, all of us were very cautious the rest of the time on the island with our belongings.

Our guide was explaining every sculpture in vivid detail, taking his time at the first cave. Meanwhile, myself, Greg, and Paul separated from the group and took off the see the other four caves before sundown. We ended up getting to see all four of the others, noting that the fifth cave was very crude, meaning the inhabitants probably didn't have time/or died before its completion. The three of us headed back down some of the mountain, hopefully catching up with everyone else before we all took the deep descent down the rest of the mountain. We figured they probably didn't make it past Cave 2 basing on the fact of our guide's talkativeness. Unfortunately, everyone else left already so we just took our time making our way down. We stopped and watched a monkey search through a garbage can, looking for bottles with some liquid still left. It found a Coke bottle, pulled it out of the bin, unscrewed the cap, and then tipped the bottle over on the ledge, which poured out the remaining contents, and sipped/sucked up the Coke on the ledge. After finishing it, the monkey threw the bottle over the ledge into a ravine and returned to the bin, probably with its thirst still unquenched. From there we walked down the tricky part of the mountain, this time it was significantly easier, faster, and cooler than the hike up. We met the rest of the group at the bottom and got on one of the ferries to head back to Mumbai. After the hour boat ride back, our completed trip to the island and back was "A three hour tour!".

It was about 7/7:30 we when arrived at port and we took our bus to one of Monica's old school friend's residents. He is a VP of Operations at Morgan Stanley, so he had a "helper" as well. We ate another great meal at his place and had some more beer (Kingfisher is the only kind of beer served in India). After the meal, we said our thanks and departed and took the short bus ride back to the hotel, making it to bed by about midnight.

Mon. January 11th,

Today we didn't have to be at Deloitte until 11:00AM, so we had the option of sleeping in later than usual. The corporate visit at Deloitte was a great experience and was somewhat easier to relate to because it is a US based firm, and I could correlate certain ideas and concepts easier. A similarity with US based firms is that all the companies we visited in India had cubes, just like in US, and the workplace seemed the same as well: mostly quiet except for the normal questions between cubes and a few wandering people back and forth. The cubes were smaller than in the US, and shorter as well, allowing higher visibility with coworkers, reducing the amount of someone going to a cube with a question only to find out that person isn't there.

After the visit, we rode our bust towards Pune (poo nay). It was about a three hour bus ride to our hotel, and once again this hotel held supper for us, this time not quite as late: quarter to nine. We decided to experience the night life, so we walked down our street towards a bar. The place we ended up at was more of a restaurant and we drank outside. Unfortunately, the bars close around 11, but they didn't ever kick us out. We left shortly after midnight, and went to bed.

Days 5 & 6

2010-01-31T13:28:00.000-08:00

Fri. January 8th,

I woke up early, packed my bags, and went down around 6:00 to meet up with a few others to go for an early morning walk in the dark. Since it doesn't become light for a few more hours, we aimlessly walked towards a fire where some Indians were making chai tea. We sat down and had some tea there and then three of our group went back to the hotel. Greg and I were the only ones left so we went walking again and found another stand and tried their tea. Both we very excellent! We made it back to the hotel and found pretty much everyone else ready for breakfast around 7:00. We ate and left Jaipur, and took the same bus back to Delhi. (I wonder how many frequent bus traveler miles I racked up on this trip?) On our way the Indian traffic was yet again displayed, this time on the highway towards Delhi. Since our side of the road, the left side, was looking congested up ahead, our bus driver cut through the divider and starting driving against traffic on the right side. We stayed on this side for awhile and none of the drivers coming at us seemed to have a problem with us on their side. We got back onto our side and drove for a few more hours and by 2:30 or so we made it to Guragon, a "suburb" of Delhi. Since we were short on time we decided to get something quick for lunch before our first corporate visit. We got something very Indian: Pizza Hut!! We got to our hotel, quickly changed, and left for HCL, our first company.

Now I realize this all seems like a fun vacation, but alas, we have to do some work as well. Our visit at HCL was supposed to have been from 3-6, but it ended up being from 5:25-8. As I said before, time is of not much essence and people understand if you are delayed; although I'm sure they probably weren't too thrilled with us being a bit later than usual. HCL is a large IT company that performs a lot of market research and is very dedicated to its employees, a trend parallel with many companies.

After the visit we took the bus to Monica's parents' house. We had dinner there with many laughs and some drinks. It was quite a shock for me to learn that the affluent of India have "helpers" who do the cleaning and cooking and some have their own personal drivers as well. Usually I only think of this for the billionaires in the US, but in India either you have money or you don't, and those that have money will most likely have drivers and helpers. We stayed at Monica's parents' place until around 12:30, at which time we took our bus back to the hotel and went straight to bed.

Sat. January 9th,

I slept in this morning until about 8:00AM. I was blessed with my first hot shower of the trip and it felt very good. For some reason there is a "geyser" you have to turn on 15 minutes before your shower which heats the water up, but I could never figure it out. So for some fortunate reason, the shower was hot so I took a little extra time in the heat. We left at 9:30 for Akshardham, the largest Hindu temple in the world. Since Hindus worship the cow, we couldn't bring in our leather belts, cameras, or wallets. Since the inside was being renovated, we only were allowed to walk around the outside. There were 148 elephants carved out of sandstone on the exterior and little captions here and there depicting stories of man and elephant. We left at 11:30 to meet up with Monica's parents again for lunch at a different temple. After a pure vegetarian lunch (could have used some chicken at least), we took the bus to MDI, a graduate school. We sat in with one class and had really good discussions with them about benefits, problems, and hurdles resulting from American companies outsourcing to Indian companies. We spent around 3 hours talking about related topics and then when we finished we all walked to a stand on campus and continued smaller discussions in groups over tea and coffee with the MDI students. It was neat to ask more personal questions about Indian schooling and expectations on students.

From MDI, we arrived at the Delhi airport and quickly checked in. The security left something to be desired though from a US perspective: it was very laid back, we could keep our shoes on through the metal detector, belts and watches could stay on, and we just had to put our bag through the X-ray machine-we didn't have to remove our liquids or anything. We had a two and a half to three hour flight towards Mumbai, previously known as Bombay. I was able to catch up on sleep pretty much the entire duration of the flight. We took another bus to our hotel; however, our new bus driver got lost and we didn't get to bed until 2 in the morning. Needless to say, I went to bed right away.

Days 3 & 4

2010-01-31T11:51:00.001-08:00

Wed. January 6th,

When we woke up we discovered our train to Agra was running only 3 1/2 hours late because of the fog, so we took our bus instead all the way to Agra. We manipulated our way through the heavy traffic early in the morning, still wondering when the fog would lift and we could see some of the city, but were told it will probably lift by about 11 first. The visibility in the morning at 6 was probably somewhere in the vicinity of 20-30 feet, and I kid you not. I was surprised we didn't run into anything; but alas, our driver was a good one and navigated us through it all. By about 8:30 we passed through a state boundary line and had to pay some sort of toll. It made me think of Illinois and how I despise paying those tolls. Shortly after paying, we turned off the highway to get some breakfast. Since the weather wasn't quite what we expected, it was about 45 degrees, we all did not have adequate clothing on us or with us. Therefore, coffee was warmly accepted by all for our breakfast beverage. Many of us ordered the Indian breakfast, which consisted of triangle-like potato pancake tasting food, called barantas. It came with yogurt and a type of curry to dip the barantas in to.

So after our first 100 km and breakfast, we departed and started on the next 100 km. Upon arriving in Agra, our bus could not go all the way and drop us at the Taj Mahal. Therefore, we took horse drawn carts the remaining kilometer and a half to the entrance. It was about noon and when we got our first glimpse of the Taj, it was still foggy and difficult to fully see its beauty. Luckily, the fog quickly disappeared and we all got plenty of pictures. Our tour guide gave us some history first (22 years to build) and then let us loose to discover anything we wanted on the grounds. We had to put on slippers over our shoes before getting on the same level as the entrance because it was special ground. We viewed the burial room and discovered the only asymmetrical part of the entire Taj Mahal: Shah Jahan, the ruler and architect, was buried next to his wife who is in the center. Shah Jahan's marble casket is the only thing that makes the Taj asymmetrical, which is truly amazing. After visiting the Taj Mahal, we departed towards Agra Fort, where Shah Jahan was imprisoned while his youngest of four sons ruled. After leaving the fort, we once again warded off the street vendors, all trying to sell us Americans some thing or another. If you really want something, all you have to do is ignore them until they bring their price down to your level. Also, if you don't want it, you still ignore them and keep walking. It is quite the fickle art.

We stopped at a small shop close by who crafted the stones used on the Taj Mahal when the previous stones fall out. As a marketing major, I was able to identify their marketing pitches and listened to the verbiage of how they were going to try to sell items to us. They took us inside their shop and gave us another demonstration, hoping we will be enticed and by their marble tabletops and other miscellaneous items. While in their shop, there was a power outage, which I'm told is practically a normal thing, so we just waited in the dark for the power to come back on.

After that, we boarded the bus for a five hour ride to Jaipur, the third city on our trip. Even though I was freezing like everyone else, I managed to sleep the entire way. We arrived at our hotel, and they held a buffet supper especially for us. So after we arrived in our rooms, we had a nice sit-down supper at midnight on the rooftop. We turned in for the night shortly after the meal.

Thurs. January 7th,

An interesting fact about the amount of emission and smog problems in India: when you wipe your nose because it is running from the spices, you actually will notice your mucus is black, not its normal color.

We left our hotel around 8-8:15 (time really doesn't matter in India); as our tour guide says: "We know the distance, but not the time." Our first stop was Amber Fort, which used to have a large lake on one side, but now it is all dried up. After walking through the entrance gate, we all mounted elephants, two per each elephant, and rode up the narrow passage to the entrance of the fort itself. We received some more history lessons about the fort and later were allowed to wander off at our own discretion. Greg and I wandered off and I ended up charming some snakes in a secluded area of the fort. I thought I was good at charming women, but WOW could I charm those King Cobras! I was able to touch one after I had it mesmerized from my beautiful music playing abilities. We made our way back to the group and and fought off some more vendors. Our next stop was the Observatory. This was a short tour through some neat astrological and astronomic pieces. They use the position of the sun to determine all sorts of things, from when you are going to die, to the time (accurate up to 2 seconds), to who you should/will marry and if you will be successful. I think Galileo would have been proud.

After that we arrived at The City Palace, where the current Maharaja (or prince) lives. The Maharaja is wealthy but does not hold any political power I hear. We visited the armory as well, viewing all the ancient swords, armor, guns, bows, and knives. Following that we made our way back to the hotel.

Something to point out is that all along the highways there is constant advertising. As a marketing major, I picked up on this very quickly and took note of the amount of signage displayed. Whether the signage was for Vodafone, Pepsi, or some college institution, there was ample supply of it. Any United States Chief Marketing Officer would be chomping at the bit to get their promotions out there.

After arriving back at the same hotel as the night before, a few of us decided to brave the real traffic of India by taking two taxis through the crowded streets at night to do some shopping. That was quite the different experience versus the bus; the bus commands a lot of respect on the road and people will get out of the way, whereas our taxi had to allow people to merge in front of us every now and then. We stopped at a textile place and a jewelery store. What doesn't stop to amaze me is the hospitality they exhibit towards guests, probably hoping we will buy because of their nice accommodations. Many of the stores have us sit down and get us chai tea or coffee and give us a long explanation and display of their products. We spent quite a bit of time and I believe everyone got something for either themselves or as gifts for others. We headed back to the hotel for an early dinner at about 11:00PM and went to bed relatively earlier than most other nights so far: 11:30.

Days 1 & 2

2010-01-31T11:22:00.000-08:00

Mon. January 4th,

This day was spent getting to the airport, checking through customs, security and everything else at Chicago O'Hare. We took off from Chicago about 8:00PM and went pretty much straight north. Eventually I noticed our flight path was one that went directly over the North Pole on our way to India. Our screens in the plane said the outside temperature was a moderate -86 degrees Fahrenheit! We did have some excitement on the plane ride, as someone had a heart attack while we were somewhere over Russia. Fortunately, we did not turn around and head back to America. The gentleman ended up being OK, and everyone survived the remaining hours of the flight. Because of the time zone differences and the flight duration, we landed in Delhi, India around 10:00PM on Tuesday.

Tues. January 5th,

Since we landed pretty late in the evening, the airport was not very crowded, which very much surprised me. I was expecting a crazy mass of people trying to maneuver their way through the crowds and everyone running into everyone else. Fortunately for us then, we passed through customs quickly, waited for our baggage, and made it out of the baggage claim to find our tour guide. One of our instructor's (Monica) parents were there to greet us, which was a very nice gesture for them to show us. While it was late and we were all tired, it was comforting to have someone care about us as soon as we landed. We found our tour guide, Guarav, and the bus driver and his assistant. We boarded the bus and started our journey through the wide-open, sparsely populated, non-honking roads of Delhi! (jk) The fog in Delhi was amazing, you could hardly see more than 300 yards. I believe a lot of that is smog though, and the government is trying to reduce emissions from vehicles, so they are suggesting turning off your car when you are waiting at an intersection. So while we drove towards our hotel for the night, we all began to get excited and tried to take pictures through the windows of the bus, but many of us just captured fog.

An interesting observation I didn't even think of thinking about was the fact that since India was settled by the British, Indians still drive on the left side of the road. I was taken aback by this initially, but quickly adjusted to taking left-hand turns. Another observation is the traffic and the rules of the road, or I should say lack thereof. I saw a motorcycle/moped pass a large truck in the same lane, no blinkers being used ever, and driving in the middle of lanes. I realized there are no set guidelines, and you can just drive at any speed, make a pass whenever you want, and don't necessarily have to obey stop lights. It's really amazing there aren't many accidents. After a few days I picked up a trend with the different lengths of honking your horn. There are short bursts that just say "hey, I'm here, don't run into me or merge over," and then there are longer ones that could say several other things that I probably shouldn't post!

Anyways, we read the sign wrong and ended up at the YWCA, unloaded our luggage, and tried to check in. Unfortunately, we did not have any reservations there. We realized our mistake and went a few blocks/miles down the road and made it to the correct destination: the YMCA. We got to our rooms by about 1 in the morning and had to get up to leave by 5:30 for some special sight-seeing. We all went straight to bed.

Getting Ready

2010-01-02T13:19:00.000-08:00

With just a few days left before I leave, I am preparing all my medications and packing appropriate clothes. I've heard the dust in India is pretty bad so I am trying to find pants and shirts that won't show as much dust and dirt than others. I leave Milwaukee early afternoon for Chicago and then we fly out Monday night. We will get into Delhi over one day later with the time difference. From there we have to get through customs and then to the hotel. I will post more experiences in a few days!! Thanks for following.

~John

Pre-Trip Perceptions

2009-12-08T09:59:00.000-08:00

Before going out to India, I have some ideas what it might be like there. I am really anxious to find out which are true and which are far from it. First off, I'm not real excited about the long flight, 15 hours non-stop, but maybe that will help build up the excitement even more. Secondly, I'm interested to see how much different the weather changes from region to region, and how it compares to the United States' regions.

One perception I have about the Indian people is that most of them will be very friendly, as I will clearly be spotted as a non-native by my white complexity. If this trip occurred during summer I might be able to make a good run as I tan very well. As it is, we are going during January, so I will be very white. I think the people will try to help me as much as they can whenever I ask for it. I highly doubt that many, if any, are rude and think that I am a stuck-up American. I do not think I will have much of a problem with the language barrier, as long as we are both speaking English. I have had experience with African and Asian accents since middle school when I helped tutor visiting priests on the workings of computers and word processing. I have also had a few Indian professors here at Marquette, so I am used to the accents and I am able to process it very fast.

A perception I have about India itself is that it is huge and it covers many different climates. I believe there are monsoons in some regions and snow in others; there are cold climates and hot climates. While India probably doesn’t cover the same distance north to south as the United States does, I think it still offers a great variety of weather and conditions.

Something that has caught my attention over the course of seeing movies from the Middle East and sometimes parts of Asia is the marketplace. Most major metropolitan cities in the United States are industrialized and have just a few street sellers. My perception of visiting India will be a large marketplace, or bazaar, in the middle of most major cities where people are yelling and it is very crowded, and people are buying, selling, and bargaining over prices and trades. My idea is just a crowd of people wearing white and black clothes and everyone is bumping into each other because the central square is so small.

My perception about the Indian business world is that of great sophistication. From my previous knowledge of working with a few Indian people, I have been very impressed with their work ethic and the quality work they produce. When I worked with these people I was working at Kohl’s, who usually has about 500 offshore contractors at any given time. I hope to gain from visiting Indian businesses a more thorough understanding of their operations and how they set and maintain high standards of quality work.

As the date approaches to being in India, I look more and more forward to learning all that India offers. I am excited to match my perceptions with what I actually experience there, and I will share these differences as I see them.

~ John

Hello

2009-12-08T09:58:00.000-08:00

Hello to all who follow this blog! I'm really excited to go to India and I look forward to learning all the new cultural differences. I will post an initial blog about my perceptions before going on the trip. During the trip I will try to update this as much as possible so you can follow along and know what is going on on the other side of the world. Finally I will have some additional comments after the trip to see how my pre-trip perceptions compared with what I actually experienced.

I hope you are excited as well to learn what I am doing in India, and I will do what I can to provide you with vivid descriptions. Thanks for following!

~ John Knoll