I am on my way to the airport. We tried all day (OK, Herbert at the office tried all day) to figure out a way to get me to Kolkata and then out to the US on Friday.  There were 3 legs of the journey that had to align, but the best we could do was get 2 to align.  I am very disappointed. I was looking forward to a drop-in visit with my many friends in Kolkata. Circumstances got in the way (see below). With my work in Chennai complete my thoughts are a long ways away, thinking about 5 people I haven't seen in a while.  I am leaving a day early and even though I am still here I am missing India and my collegues here very much.  I love this country and its people very much and feel in many ways more comfortable and welcome here than I do in the U.S.

It was raining the day I arrived and it is raining now as the same car, same driver takes me back to the airport.

Kind of fitting. 

I have many pictures to post and stories to tell.  Bear with me for a few days as I assemble the posts.

As before, I have many people to thank for this trip.  I will mention just some:  Sathish - we did it.   To my new friends in Chennai, it was a pleasure to spend 3 weeks with you.  

Most of all I want to thank someone I have been thinking a lot about on this trip. My good friend and mentor, George. Without many hours of guidance I wouldn't have had any of these opportunities. I miss him very much.

On my way home -

Shawn

My hotel in Chennai is located on a major street in the heart of the city.  With heavy curtains that close out all light and no alarm clock, I am reliably woken every morning by the sound of horns and rumbling engines of vehicles on G N Chetty Road.  Today it is eerily quiet.  Only an occaisional car races by, there are only a handful of pedestrians, instead of the usual dozens visible.

45 minutes into the strike it looks like Chennai is substantially shut down.

I am going to keep all options open today.  Not totally confident that I will have a flight to Kolkata.  Getting mixed information.  NDTV and BBC are running banners under their news broadcasting showing flight cancellations across the country.   Now, as I write this, NDTV reports that Air Deccan, Jet and others have cancelled all flights into Kolkata.  If true, I am out of luck.

I have been reading Mike Yon, Jonathon Harley and Dan Brown and that has inspired/influenced my decision to go, despite the risk.  It seems like circumstances may intervene where common sense was absent.

I am off to Kolkata tomorrow. Normally a trip to my favorite city in India would be a welcome event.  But tomorrow, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called for a general strike. 

I nearly called off the trip. I set two guidelines for traveling: 1- that the State Department had not issued a travel advisory and that the hotel would send a car to the airport to pick me up.  I had to change hotels, but both conditions were met.

The plan is to fly in, hurry to the car and get to the hotel quickly, without running into a protest or rally. Then hang out in the hotel and wait out the strike.  Our office, and our vendor office will be closed on Thursday, on account of it being too dangerous for staff to travel to the office.

Shawn

After a very interesting and relaxing weekend, I am off to the hill station of Kodaikanal.  It is four hours away by bus.  

I will write later about my experiences this weekend. I stayed at the home of Samuel and Ebenezer Benjamin. Samuel is a Pastor and he and Ebenezer are doing many good things in and around Madurai.

I also took a few snaps around Madurai that I will post when I get back to the hotell.

My plan is to stay in Kodai tonight and be there until about 4 PM on Tuesday, then back to Madras on the Pandian express, picking the train up at Kodai Road.

On the road to Kodai --

Shawn

I think I am in Madurai, and I think I survived the night on the luggage rack.

Shawn

The rumors of a special express train kept me at the station. My rationale was that any seat on the train would be better than a seat on the government bus.

I persevered in numerous lines at Egmore Station for 3 hours before ending up with an "Open Ticket". Total cost: 117 rupee (about $2.50).  What did this great expenditure get me?  I am writing this while reclining on a hanging wood plank luggage rack at the back of a train that reeks of old urine.

I haven't slept more than 4 or 5 hours a night since arriving, except for 1 night in Pondicherry.  I think I will either fall fast asleep and have a sore back tomorrow or be so exhausted I won't be able to do anything.

Not sure if this is better than the bus...

Maybe I will try to snooze while remembering Yuri from Doctor Zhivago riding across Siberia in a very similar train car.  If only I could trade the oppressive heat for the Siberian chill. 

Shawn

When someone you know, trust and can clearly communicate with (ie Jasper) says "Go to 'Current Booking'". -- Go there, not 'Booking'.

When you ask someone "Is this Current Booking?" And they give a weak "yes",  ask 3 other people. 

At Chennai Egmore, Current Booking is on the outside front of the srtation, along the terrace.   The sign says " Current Reservation Counter".

Hoping that the rumors of a special train to Madurai are true.

Shawn

I highly recommend the Villa Pondicherry. Previously in Pondy I stayed at the Executive Inn and the Hotel Suruguru.  Both are excellent in their own right, but neither compare in ambience to the Villa Pondicherry.

On arrival I was greeted my the housekeeper and shown a room on the ground floor, just off the dining area.  The room was comfortably furnished with chair, bed and table you would expect to find in a home.

I was given a padlock for the room and a key to the front door. 

Throughout the house are paintings by the proprietor, Prichaya Manet (a very fitting surname).

The following morning I sat around the table with Pichaya and the other guests (teacher from France, retired couple from Switzerland, aid workers from Belgique).  Though most of the conversation was in French, it was a wonderful way to spend the morning.  The highlight is when the Swiss couple sang a Canadian song (in French), a capella

I found Villa Pondicherry in the Lonely Planet Guide, but the map of Pondicherry shows it closer to town then it actually is.  The map indicates that it is 60m down Ambedkar Salai, but it is closer to 600, past the Sports Complex and across the railroad tracks.   Most autorickshaw drivers will know where it is.

Shawn

Note: I am typing this paragraph last, after hammering out the details below on my Blackberry's tiny keyboard. It occurs to me that I get just as much joy out of the logistics of travel and raw existence in India as I do in the historical and natural wonders.

After a long week of work I wasn't feeling like doing anything except sleeping over the weekend.   I had just enough desire/energy to call and get a room in Pondicherry, just in case.

I wasted a few good hours Saturday morning with indecision as I debated going to the beach in Chennai instead.  Finally at 10:30 I threw a few things in my smaller backpack and took a 3-wheeler taxi to the Koyambedu bus terminal.  

Once there I settled into the TT's seat in the rear of the bus.  My hope was that the TT (ticket taker) would sit up front and not mind and that sitting here would prevent me from getting squished into a bench with 2 other guys.

About 25 people were already on the bus, including 2 French women, 1 who looked completely comfortable, the other completely nervous.  This bus was very dilapidated, with several broken benches and a thick layer of grime over every spot that didn't come into regular contact with a passenger.

After a few more minutes some backpackers (German by the sound of it) got on heaving enourmous backpacks. I smiled, remembering being in that same situation before at almost this exact spot (that day in February I was on the Pondy bus, right next to the bus I was currently on. That day the TT was very frustrated because there was no place to put my pack except on the seat, reducing his revenue even though I offered to buy it a ticket).

I don't know why, but I was slightly annoyed at sharing the bus with a bunch of other tourists.  That soon ended though when a man who had been in the seat ahead of me poked his head in the door behind me and said "That is the bus for Mahabalipuram".  "That bus" had backed out of its stall and was about to leave.  I grabbed my gear and ran off, as I pushed through the German backpackers who were standing outside the rear door smoking.  The french woman called out "Sir, is that our bus?".   With a quick "I think so!". I sprinted off, the bus was starting to pull away.  I shouted "Mahabalipuram?" To the TT of that bus was leaning out the back door. He wagged his head in that Indian gesture seems to mean "you can think that if you want".   I caught up to the bus and hauled myself on just in time to look out the back window and see one of the French women standing behind the other bus. I guess her nervous companion couldn't make up her mind.

Two hours later we had covered the 50km to Mahabalipuram.  Since my true objective was Pondicherry, I decided to make quick work of this place and catch the 3:00 express.  That gave me just over an hour to sightsee.

I will post pictures in a later post. The shore temple and hill caves, the "5 Rathas" where pretty impressive. Especially when considering their age.  One informational sign said that Roman coins. Had been found on the site.

Back at the bus stand I checked again for the bus. This time I was told "3:40". And just as quickly a taxi driver came over and asked if I wanted a taxi to Pondy.  Why spend 300 when you can wait 45 minutes and spend 30.  An auto-rickshaw driver came over and told me that an ECR express bus passes by on the highway every 10 minutes and will stop if people are waiting at the turnoff to this town.  20 rupee to avoid standing around for 40 minutes seemed like a good value proposition.  A few minutes later the driver turned around and said "my sister" as he pulled over.  Three schoolgirls quickly ran up, their excitement at a free ride quickly changed to fear as they saw me.  The sister claimed the shotgun seat upfront, the quicker thinking of the other two climbed in the back and slid as far away from me as she could and motioned for the third to sit in the middle.  That poor girl just stared at me in what was either terror or disgust (I had been sweating in the humid Indian heat for 4 hours, and probably had a disgustingly foreign odor about me). 

Finally, I was standing by myself on the side of the highway.  A couple minutes later two more guys were dropped off as a bus approached. The two men climbed on board. I asked the driver if he was going to Pondy. He said "Yes, yes, Pondy" and I took one step on board.  I couldn't get any farther on because there was no room.  The bus was jammed full of people. Eventually I pushed back enough (because more people got on the bus) to watch a Tamill movie that was not too bad, even though I couldn't follow the dialogue.  That made the 2 hours standing on a careening bus, pressed between 5 other people a bit easier.   With the exception of being thrown forward when the driver slammed on the brakes to avoid rear-ending an elephant, the trip was tolerable. My one wish is that they would have made the ceiling 1 inch higher so I could have stood up straight.

Shawn

To belabor the point from my previous post I saw the following on a sign this morning:

370 New (636 Old) Anna Salai (Mount Rd.) Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu. 

Sure makes things complicated to have two names for everything, on top of two languages.  They had the same address written write below it in Tamil.

That is the last of my words on this topic.

But one other thing that caught my curiosity:  Haven't seen a single cow in this city. Odd?

Shawn

Since it is September 11, I thought I would pass on a couple of links I have found very informative over the past couple of months.

Michael Yon: Online Magazine

The Fourth Rail

The Belmont Club

For exactly the past 4 years I have had a habit of checking CNN.com with a habitual regularity.  It all started 4 years ago this morning when I wondered what was behind the enigmatic email I received from work:  "Due to obvious circumstances the Stock Market and our Trading department are closed until further notice."

CNN.com could barely load, and they had reverted back to their circa 1998 lightweight HTML design.  Since then the habit of regular checking has persisted.   A few months ago I was reading an article that made it seem as if the US military was simply driving around Iraq waiting for bombs to go off.   I decided to dig deeper and see if I could get firsthand accounts of what was going on.  The first of the links above is just that.  A writer embedded with a combat unit in Mosul.  The other two are in-depth analysis of the situation.  

A much different picture than the main-stream media (cnn.com and others) are providing.

It seems to be a clear design of Singapore to have travelers end up with hours long layovers in Singapore, enough time for people to unload hundreds of dollars in the endless shopping center that is seemingly this entire wonderful little country.    I fell for the scheme last time, buying a digital camera and iPod.   This time I had no plans to buy anything.   Instead I planned to see various neighborhoods in Singapore (Chinatown, Little India and downtown).    I stopped by the Tourist Desk in the airport where a nice woman outlined a tour and gave me a 10 trip Metro Pass.

I headed off to the train station, comfortably located within the airport and took the first train to the Tanah Merah Interchange.    The first caution flag came when the door opened and the heat and humidity hit me.    The temperature was 90 degrees Fahrenheit with 70% humidity.    The “Heat Index” was 105 degrees.   I was packing my carry on luggage (a backpack with 25 pounds of computer equipment and books).

My first stop was Chinatown.   I walked through several streets lined with tiny shops.   My unscientific survey shows the following categorization among shops in Singapore

            50%     Clothing, Jewelry or Electronics Shops

            25%     Restaurants or Food Stores

            10%     Architectural or Engineering Firms

            8%       Massage Clinics

            5%       7-11’s

            2%       Other

7-11 was the most prevalent American brand I saw, although I plan on researching whether “British India” is the renamed-for-use-outside-North-America Banana Republic or just a dead on knock-off.

By the time I had walked about 4 km across Singapore I was getting really tired and feeling sick, nauseous and covered in sweat.  I realized that I was getting the initial symptoms of heat stroke and ducked into shops to cool off.

One of the places I thought would be better cooled was the indoor Tekka Market in Little India.  Bad Assumption.

Nothing adds to the nausea of heat stroke more than a hot, stinky fish market.

I made a hasty retreat to the airport and fell sound asleep at the departure lounge, and then again on the plane, sleeping from before takeoff until just before crossing the shoreline on approach to the airport in Chennai.

Back in India.   The Chennai Airport seemed just as run-down as the Kolkata Airport, in fact so similar I questioned my memory and wondered if I had been here before and was confused (not the case, I had only been to the nicer domestic terminal in Chennai).  The upside was that the taxi-wallahs, touts and beggars where must less prevalent here than in Kolkata.  

I saw a man holding a sign for “Shawm Swanmer – Trader’s Hotel” and decided to impersonate someone with a similar name as mine and get a nice ride to the hotel.    I then slept for the better part of 24 hours, sleeping off the heat-stroke and jet lag. 

Once on the plane I settled into a nice window, bulkhead seat and off we went.

The path was a straight out of the runway at LAX, turning right only after we had cleared Ventura County.  We continued up the coast towards Alaska.  Somewhere west of San Francisco I fell asleep (while watching Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Rory Gilmore had better stick to Yale, this movie was not very good).

I was awoken a few hours later by an attendant.  We ran into really heavy turbulence south of the Aleutians.  I had a glass of water in the drink holder and had put my hand over the top of it while I slept.  The attendant had to wake me up to get the glass.   I fell back asleep as the plane followed a course around the Pacific Rim, as if afraid to stray too far from land.

We crossed over Okinawa and landed in Taipei.   After a pointless hour spent sitting in front of several duty-free shops we left for Singapore.  Pretty uneventful.   In retrospect, on my first trip I must have been beside myself with excitement, because this trip seemed like just a longer version of my usual trips to Burbank.

For Ian, as promised, a map of my course across the Pacific.

Made it on the plane. Long check-in and security lines made me nervous. But in the end I had 10 minutes to spare, and 8 or 9 people boarded after me.  

Compared with my first trip, I have been very low-key and matter of fact about this trip,  but I think it is starting to really hit me: I'm going to India!

From the plane / blogging by Blackberry

Shawn

I left Phoenix this morning and spent the day working at our office in Los Angeles. There were so many things to get done that I stayed there until really late. 

I am now in a cab racing to LAX in a scene uncomfortably similar to "The Amazing Race".  

The part that has me VERY nervous is that I have the same driver I had the last time I missed a flight (the time ealier this year when I missed three flights in 12 hours).  But so far we are making good time, so if I miss the flight it won't be the fault of the driver (this time).

From the cab / via Blackberry

Shawn

Gadget List

1. GPS (Garmin Rhino 120)
2. GPS to Serial Cable
3. iPod 20 GB
4. iPod power cord
5. iPod USB cable
6. International power adaptor
7. Laptop (Dell Latitude D600)
8. Laptop power cord
9. India cell phone, with power cord  (advice:  Don’t get a Hutch telecom prepaid phone in Kolkata, it can’t be charged anywhere in the country outside of Kolkata).
10. Digital camera
11. Camera battery charger
12. Camera USB cable
13. Blackberry
14. Blackberry charger
15. Computer headset (for Interwise and Skype calls - I am sswaner on Skype)
16. USB Key
17. Headlamp
18. External Hard Drive
19. Power and USB cable for hard drive
20. 14 AA batteries (4 sets of 3 for the GPS, 1 spare set for the headlamp) 

This is about what I took last time, the difference is that I am not taking a phone and a Vonage router, but I am taking an external hard drive to hold my work files.

Talking less clothes (no hiking boots or cold weather gear) and leaving my "fear of the third world" gear (baby wipes, water purification tabs etc) should hopefully make my pack weight less than 50lbs.

Now, work requirements aside.  What would I leave if I had to:

Everthing but the GPS and the camera.   And if I had (or wanted) a more structured travel itinerary I could probably go without the GPS. 

I will be returning to India later this week.  On Wednesday, September 7 I will go to Los Angeles for the day and then leave for India late that night.   I am taking Singapore Airlines again and will have a 7 hour layover in Singapore before going on to Chennai.

On my last trip I spent most of my time in Kolkata.  This time I will be mostly in Chennai.  My plans right now are to work for 2 weeks in Chennai and then take 1 week of vacation, traveling to Madurai and possibly Kodai.   As before, my work requirements take precendence over vacation, so if I get behind schedule or need to do additional work then it will cut into my vacation plans.  It is going to be a shorter trip this time, but I am sure that I will have time for some interesting experiences.

On the weekends I plan on exploring Chennai, Mamallapuram and hopefully a day or two back in Pondicherry.  

Another morning in India (Pondicherry, February 2005).