Jase in India: 2011

Wednesday, 30 November 2011

FINAL POST

Final Posting . . .

Well all good things . . . This will be the final posting as I fly out tomorrow and whilst I’m at work during the day, I’m unable to access this website.

So I thought I’d end with a mix of photos and things of today and other recent things . . .

Below are some pics from the journey to and from the Taj . . .

I’m not sure what these things are that the guys is selling but they look like eggs . . presentation is very good, I must give him that!

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Ayaz recently said to me the following . . “Australians drive on the Left of the Road . . . Americans drive on the Right of the Road . . We drive on what’s left!” I find that so funny . . as it’s so true!!!

Cruising through a town a truck just pulled in front of us as they wanted to cross the road . . And funnily, the driver was making gestures to another vehicle in front of him which was in his way . . . hand outside ushering them to get out of his way . . .

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So I had a look to my left to see who was getting the verbal from the truck driver . . . oh, a Military vehicle . . . Mmmm . . . Not sure I’d be giving attitude to the Military matey!! He he. All was fine . . as it always is here!

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Below are just 3 random shots taken as we travel in the car . . .

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Yesterday I got a car to take me to meet up with the guys at a local mall . . and as we exited the Hotel we collided with a motorbike. And in all fairness, there was nothing the driver could have done. The motorbike with pillion passenger (no helmets) was riding on the wrong side of the road and simply smacked into the front bumper of our car. They fell off but were ok. After the tension etc . . I sneaked in this pic.

I wrote a statement for the driver to ensure the damage is not deducted from his wages as it was not his fault.

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This afternoon we headed out for lunch around 2pm local time . . . I captured some funny signs on the side of the road . . too funny, read them!

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After that we cruised a new strip and the girls sought out a place to get some Henna done . . Some pics below, looks fantastic!

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And yep, I got a small temp tatt on my left forearm . .

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So my friends, this is the end of this Blog . . I hope u enjoyed it . . I definitely did. I'm amazed at the number of followers from Australia, India and abroad!!!
It’s an awesome place here with such great people. . . And along with that goes some very sad sights and stories . . . such extremes and contradictions . . . I wish I could stay longer and I mean it!
I hope to be back soon . . . Reminds me of what our Tour Guide said to me as we were leaving the Taj and turning a final corner where you would no longer be able to see it . . . . He said “Do as I do” . . . He turned around and nodded at the Taj and said “Thank You, I’ll see you soon”. . .
When is ‘soon’? Who knows . . . An unknown I feel content with . . .

Thanks for following,

Jase

Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Day 10

Tired . . and getting ready to depart this awesome place. I’m already feeling sad in that there are people and things I’ll miss . . . The people at work are amazing, they are such beautiful people . .

Me aside, our colleague Yvonne, had her Wedding Anniversary today!!! What’s great is that her Hubby arranged for some stuff (flowers etc. . . ) for her at her room . . . Nice work Allan!

On top of that, the Hotel here knew and made a cake etc . . . with a bottle of Champagne as a celebration!

Grabbed some pics below . ..

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Monday, 28 November 2011

Day 9 - Interim #2

Well, Today we got to the Taj before Sunlight!

It was an awesome experience . . . the sky was misty . . . I've grabbed a few pics and uploaded . . . . You cannot take Pics inside so what you see now are ones of us all outside in various areas.

The pics don’t do it justice tho . . . totally awesome . . . 8-)

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On the way back to the Airport we were driving behind a Truck with people sitting out back, as you do . . . We did not take much notice of it but there were 2 large blue buckets hanging out the back . . . All of a sudden the driver pipes up in his pigeon English and points to the buckets and repeats a word and smiles.

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Randima, being in the front seat and being the courteous and polite girl she is felt obliged to acknowledge and at least try and understand what the driver was saying. Now before this he had pointed out places where Rice had been grown, Corn fields, Ox food etc . . so when he said “peas” or something similar we thought ok . . But we were wrong . . he kept repeating himself and Randima kept guessing at what he meant until it dawned on her what he was saying . . . Her response? "Nooooo . . .Noooooo . . . Really? Nooooo"

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Now her look says it all. . she was slowly melting into her seat in shock when Yvonne got this great grab of her face!! Ha ha ha ha. Thanks Randima, it’s given us many hours of amusement!!

Reader - if you want to know what the Blue Buckets are about, ask Randima!!

Friday, 25 November 2011

Days 8

Well, Today was getting to the Taj . . . we left our Hotel at 5:40AM with the aim of getting to the Taj for Sunset. We head off to Bangalore Airport and feel pretty good as we did the web check-in the night before . . . with only carry on luggage we waltz on in and decide to have breakfast near Security to the Boarding Gates. It was a relaxing time . . even funny . . as I went to the ‘chemist’ and described I had a slightly runny nose in which he handed me a rack of pills . . Pharmacy Grade . . (I checked the active ingredients) . . and said yep, they’ll do the trick and asked how much? He said 25 Rupee which is Aus 50 cents. I handed over 30 and he threw back a packet of gum as change . . .

When it came time to get through the security gates we were told we needed a ‘stamp’ . . for what, we had NFI . . we proceeded to run around asking etc . . got mixed stories as u do . . . We split up and Jenny managed to find the correct place that we needed to check in with . . the girls were sorted quicker than Brian and I (not sure what happened there as they are frisked in Private . . ) . . Anyway, with minutes to spare, Brian and I got through security after being groped and fondled by a security man . . Brian wanted to check out Polo shirts but with an Airport Staffer prompting us to Run and then running ahead of us it was easy to convince Brain that his Polo shirt can wait! We finally arrive at the door to the plane where it’s totally full except for us . .

So there’s 5 empty seats remaining near the front . .and in the sixth against the window is a girl that looks famous, Bollywood like material . .
She sees us and pulled a facial like moan . . like she thought she had the seats to herself. . . well that’s what I convinced myself of . .

We sat, fake smiles all around and began relaxing . . . We finally pushed off and got away on time . . . The air crew were drooling and pampering over this girl all the way . . Was quite funny to observe. We were gentlemen and did not hassle her . . 8-) Brian sat next to her.

So we landed in Delhi at around 11am and met our driver to take us to Agra.
We thought it would be a 4 hour drive as informed by various sources. . . Clearly not. It ended up being about 6 hours.

Below is a pic of a guy selling car keys on a corner we passed .. . .
Fantastic!! Just name your model and I reckon you’re sorted!!

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Was never a boring trip . . the sights on and off the road were always interesting!!!

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So we got there but missed the sunset and the Taj was closed. We had the driver park up and got a horse drawn cart up to the gates anyway just to suss the place out . . . It was interesting, met a lot of peddlers and sharks . . . and kids wanting to sell us stuff. Some of us ended up buying some quality things which was great as we knew we may not have time the next morning . . . So we headed back to the car on foot . . walking past guards with AK47, UZIs, handguns . . . amongst peddlers wanting to sell Hashish Pipes (or Tokes on), Hooka rigs etc . . what an interesting mix! We had to get firm with some of the peddlers as they kept hassling us . . He he. Got back to the hotel, booked a good tour guide, got fed and watered and crashed out . . . such a long day with such little return!!! Oh well . . .

Day 7

A different kind of day today . .

We finished work at 11am local time which was pretty much 5pm Aus time.

A team meeting was held and some awards handed out for exceptional performance in various areas to the IBM testers. It was a great time, even though everybody understands the importance of this phase of the project.

I grabbed one pic below as we were milling around before the meeting started . .

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We then loaded up in cars to head for a lunch at KFC a short distance from the office . . And yes, they cater for vegetarians.

As we departed I grabbed a shot of the building site across the road with some of the workers sitting around doing something I think . . . now some of them did not look very old at all . . could not zoom as we were moving . .

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So we get to KFC and had a meal . . . some great entertainment is put on . . one of the guys sings to us all . . some local songs . . and he’s brilliant!!!

Anyway, some pics of the casual lunch . . There were heaps of pics taken but I’ve only got the few ones from my i-phone . . in fact, flashes were going off for 2 hours running !!!

Shindu and Yvonee

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Boys will be Boys . .

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Smiling Sam

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Mukund and Me

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So we finally left and headed back to the hotel . . ready for a mammoth weekend at the Taj. Getting there is not a small journey . . .

Snapped this guy on the truck . . interesting ride I suppose, not that comfortable tho!

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Enjoy

Day 6

Another quiet day . . . Still pretty tired . .

So I decided to leave a bit earlier than my colleagues so arranged for my own car to pick me up from the office and deliver me back to the hotel. So I wait outside the building at the allocated hour . . and waited . .and waited. After over 30 minutes I went back inside and called the hotel. They informed me the driver was there, just waiting around the corner . . WTF? They always come and pick us up at the same spot outside the building . . like I’m going to walk around amongst the other hundred or other private car hires and find him? Doesn’t work that way . . . Anyway, he came on foot and found me. I reckon he was late big time! Ok, I was ok . . no dramas . . but I got this sob story all the way home about how little he makes, his wife and children to feed . . . his ‘little one’ in school . . this guy was in his 50s . . he drives 24 hours on and has 24 hours off . .. I did not prompt this at all and was not in the mood . . anyway, got to the hotel ok.

After resting up and doing some work stuff that I cannot do at the IBM office (Network issues), Jenny and I headed to Commercial Street to get some more gifts and cool things. I bought more than I intended to, but hey, that’s ok, I can live with that!

We did well with pricing . . we haggled down big time. As we were tired, we basically told them we are walking out in 30 seconds . . with or without the goods and we named our price. The haggling was shortened to under 30 seconds and we mostly always got what we wanted! We had little or no patience. We were not rude, just did not have the energy to haggle too much! We knew what was an excellent price and put it on the table. It seemed to work pretty well!

When we were ready to go we found a Tuk Tuk driver wanting business and asked for the cost to take us back to the hotel “without any stops”. He quoted 160 . . I said “no way, we got here for under 80”. He made some excuses and we started to walk off . . he then said ok. Some girls standing nearby said “nice work” and smiled . . he he, well yeh, ok . .but really, I felt a bit bad as we’re only talking about the difference of AU$1.60. So we got the trip for AU$1.60AU instead of AU$3.20 . . .still excellent as the ride is both exciting, dangerous and everything else !! he he.

Anyway, below are some pics of the surroundings as Jenny and I made our way around . . .

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Enjoy

Thursday, 24 November 2011

Day Five

Was a pretty non-adventurous day today outside of work . . No adventures to speak of . . . I’m pretty tired and with the massive weekend coming up sleep is what I need!

There is some construction going on around the office. Now India being an equal opportunity place both men and woman work on the construction sight. This small group just got off a bus and are heading to work. As soon as I got this shot a security guy came up to me from behind and barked something . . . I just put the phone away . . I know I'm prohibited from taking pictures inside at work but I did not think it extended to outside . . Oh well. The yellow things u see in their hands are their hard helmets! Goes well with sandals or bare feet! Safety is everything! Ha ha.

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Oh, equal opportunity but No Children allowed . . . I wonder what the definition of a child is as I saw some kids that were clearly under 12 years old . .

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And as per usual, the obligatory explosive detection test upon entry to the hotel . . .

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Apologies for the lack of content today!

Enjoy