Mombai is known as both the Wall Street and Hollywood of India. There are many companies based in Mombai but it is also the home of India's Bollywood film industry. They make some 1000 movies a year in Bollywood whereas Hollywood makes about 750. They are most all musicals and are very tame by western standards but they are becoming more racy over time. While in Mombai a report came out that a reporter had posed as someone that wanted to be a film star and was lured into a situation where they were expected to have sex with some of the top movie makers in Bollywood. The story was run on a TV channel that was until then someone unkown and the newspapers are undecided as to whether they were entrapped or this is just standard for the film industry. IT didn't help matters much that during the same few days some Bollywood producers were arrested for the hanging of 'indecent' posteres adverstising their movies. Indecent doesn't refer to exposed body parts but more suggestive than is the norm in India.
Recently it was in the paper that US$45M were approved for the upgrade of the Mombai and Delhi airports. Arriving at the Mombai airport I saw that there were a huge number of people outside. They were getting in lines to have their baggage scanned through x-ray before being allowed to go into the airport. India is not without their own enemies from within and from outside. Only people with tickets are allowed to enter the airport terminal and only if their baggage has been scanned and a plastic band has been put arond it to prevent it from having been opened. Once inside we needed to make our way to the Jet Airline desk. Everything went pretty smoothly at that point. Nobody checked my ID as it was a domestic flight. The terminal was hot inside and there were two kids sitting in a little booth selling coke and bags of chips. In another boot there was a guy sitting with one of those instant coffee machines. I guess it is too much to have people press the buttons themselves. Instead of a news stand with books and travel guides there was a vending machine selling books.
The plan was an older plan of the type I don't think I've seen in twenty years. Unlike the planes of today there were no LCD screens in the back of the seats, no televisions hanging from the ceilings, no place to plug in earphones for musical entertainment. It was the first flight I'd been on this trip where there was not a single empty seat. At the start of the flight they broght around cold damp towels whereas all the other flights passed out hot towels. Perhaps this has to do with the heat of Mombai. They also passed out candy at the start of the flight. Jet had just gone public the month before and was just passing from debt into profit. The seats were a bit cramped for my long legs but I was happy enough.
The Delhi airport was packed with people. We walked around and found a guy with a sign that had our names on it. He introduced himself as the hotel's Airport Officer and gave us his card. He walked us out and met another man who would be our driver. Together they walked us to the car and off we rode.
Sitting in an Irish pub back in Melbourne watching an Australian Footy League game on the large-screen TV (Kangaroos vs Carlton Blues) I realise that I should have written more about India while I was in India but it was quite a bit to digest. Bombay was renamed Mombai back in 1996 in an apparent ploy for votes. Mombai is the local tongue name whereas Bombay is in the Queen's English. Interestingly many locals are adamant in maintaining usage of Bombay. I have a feeling it is a socio-economic issue.
Heading into the actual city of Mombai during the morning from the outskirts the buildings became more urban, quite unlike the tin shacks that surrounded the hotel. There were still tons of people milling about. There were plenty of advertisements for new cars and home loans and most of all for cell phone providers. There are a good number of Toyotas and other familiar cars on the streets but also a large number of cars by the local manufacturer Tata. Some of the Tata cars are apparently resold as Rovers elsewhere in the world.
On the way to the Taj Mahal Hotel the driver asked us if we'd like to stop at Ghandi's house. Ghandi's house is on a small residential street with other houses that are three and four stories high. It reminded me a bit of Ben Gurion's house in Sde Boker. Along the walls are pictures of Ghandi in various stages of his life. There were pictures of him in South Africa, studying law in the UK, picking up salt from the ground during the Salt March. Now, I don't know what the Salt March was all about but it seems that the ability to use salt in India was once dependant upon what caste you were a part of. The two most interesting things to me were copies of Ghandi's letters to Hitler and Roosevelt. To Hitler he wrote in the late thirties. He said that Hitler was the only person that would be able to stop the impending war. He wrote to Roosevelt in 1942 or so telling him that while the Indians had been careful not to pressure the British while there were busy fighting the Axis that only if the Indians were independant could they take part in helping to end the war. As we went back to the car there were a few people trying to sell us postcards. It was pretty similar to the kids on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Even when the door to the car is closed they knock on it and try to convince you. At the few traffic lights there are also people begging. usually it is young boys or young girls holding their babies. On one occasion one of the beggars was a man with only a stub past his elbow. Besides beggars there were lots of people selling books. Most popular were John Grisham books and copies of the Harvard Business Review on Marketing and Management.
From Ghandi's house we headed to the Taj Mahal Hotel. All in all the Taj Mahal was about an hour drive from our hotel. The Taj Mahal in Mombai is a beautiful hotel. While the Grand Hyatt in Mombai is brand new with high ceilings and large open spaces, the Taj Mahal is much narrower and much more ornate. We were told back at the Hyatt to eat at the Indian restaurant in the Taj Mahal and it was quite good. After dinner we headed across the street to the Gateway to India.
The Gateway to India is a large arch that the British built shortly before being thrown out of India. Picture the Arch de Triumphe in Paris sitting on the edge of the water with the Arabian Sea surrounding it on three sides. As we walked through the parking lot a little boy approached my colleague. "What's your name?" "Where are you from?" "How many brother's and sisters do you have?" "I have the same number!" "Give me some money." I guess I'm callous but I knew from the get-go to just ignore the people trying to talk to me since at the end of the day they are just going to want money. As we went around the end of the arch a man came over with some red and yellow colored yarn. As he tried to put some crystals of salt or something in my hand the little boy was saying "Holy man! No money!" The man repeated the same and assured me that there was no payment needed, he just wanted to give me a blessing. Not that I beleived him but I acquiesed and stood still. He then wrapped a piece of the yarn around my wrist and someon else started to say, "Money not for him, for hungry people." At this point he wanted to put some flower petals in my hand. I started to walk away. He followed me saying "Money for hungry people." They didn't stop following us until we crossed the street and disappeared back into the hotel.
At this point we figured there must be some place in the city that we could wander and look at the shops without being hounded. We ask the concierge and are told that if we went out, turned left, went three blocks, then left again we'd be on the XXXX Causeway. There were shops there were were assured. So we headed out. Not 20 feet along and a woman is trying to tell us that we are going the wrong way. We should come with her. Another woman with a baby said, "Don't beleive her, she lies, I know her," and pointed in the direction that the hotel had told us. As we continued walking she'd look back now and then and smile and nod to reassure us that we were in the right direction. We started to make our way down the road past the shops. There were shops on either side of the sidewalk and it reminded me much of the Arab market in the Old City in Jerusalem. There were shops selling cheap watches, t-shirts and the odd guy selling 'hubbly bubbly'. Now and then a more serious shop selling clothes with a guard at the entrance. At one point we saw a western couple sitting in a shop with Iranian food and the prices were well below what we were paying at the hotels. Other than that couple we saw only one other pair of westerners walking down this street and they were clearly backpackers.
We noticed that the woman with the baby was still ahead of us and looking back every now and then. She stops and lets us catch up to her and asks if we can help her baby. We keep walking and eventually she says, "No money, come over there and buy milk for my baby." We'd learned from the experience with the Holy Man and simply never responded to her and carried on with our stroll. Eventually we find a cross street with the sea at the other end. I figure that if the sea is there then the hotel can't be far. We head down this street and get to the side of the hotel. We walk down the side of the hotel to the first entrance so we can avoid bumping into the crowd at the Gateway to India again.
The most dependable way to get around is to hire a car from your hotel and have the driver either stay near you or give you a number to reach him. As we wouldn't be at the Taj Mahal for long we told the driver to stick around and got his cell phone number. When we were ready for him to come get us we called his phone and within five minutes he was in front of the hotel. We didn't know where to go and I'd forgotten about the plan to head to The Fort so we just said to drive us around a bit. He drove us first to the port. In the port were lots of men, women and children cleaning fish. In groups there were cleaning different types. Some were cleaning off scales while others were cleaning squid. I then noticed that the fish and squid and whatnot were simply on the blackened ground. There was no cloth or canvas or anything under these fish, they were on the asphat or tar or whatnot. When they were done they'd put them in the back of an open dump truck.
From there we headed to the Afghan church and then to an area called Santa Maria. The name stems from a church at the top of the hill in the middle of this neighborhood. The spot we sat at had a beautiful view of the sea and a walkway along the top of the stone wall that ran along the sea. Evenly spaced along the wall were couples. It seems that this is a place where couples of all ages come to gain some privacy and enjoy the beautiful view and each other's company.
As we headed back north towards the hotel the drive asked if we wanted to see the laundry. We were in no rush so we agreed. He took us to a bridge running over some railroad tracks and suddenly stopped at the side and said that we should get out and go look over the other side. Taking our lives in our hands we crossed the road darting between cars and over the other side was a huge area with people doing laundry. There were large stalls to do the laundry, billows of steam rose over pots and in the distance clothes lines with dyed garments all in the same style. The driver told us that in the city there are small shops that take laundry from people then send it here to have it washed before it is delivered back to the shops.
India has a large traffic problem. There are more and more cars and the narrow streets twist and turn through the neighborhoods. Above these main routes they are building raised roads. These roads are about three floors above street level and twist and turn in the same route. They cut down the time for travel since you don't have to go through intersections. In Delhi they are building a raised road like this and we were told that when it is done in three years it will cut time travelling to the center of the city from an hour to eleven minutes!
As our plane began to approach the airport in Mumbai (Bombay), India at 10:30PM I noticed something a bit different than I'm used to seeing when looking at a city at night. Normally you see large areas of lights that are in orderly rows. These might be roads with the lamps evenly spaced, rows of houses that are easily or tall buildings in a business district where the lights in the offices are evenly spaced. As I peered out the window I realised that there didn't seem to be any pattern to the spacing of the lights over the landscape. Although it was very dark this pointed to a place where things must not be built according to a plan but thrown up where someone decides they want something.
As the plane was landing the pilot stated that the temperature at our destination was 33 degrees celsius and 88 degrees fahrenheit. This is pretty warm and if you take into consideration that it was 11 at night you realise that the next day is going to be a scorcher!
The airport in Mumbai seems pretty old. In that respect it reminded me a bit of the old Ben Gurion terminal though not as well kept up. I was concerned that I might get some trouble going through customs since the picture on my passport is 9 years old, pictures me with a beard, and is very blurry. The woman didn't even give me a second look. There was a man waiting for us outside with a sign to take us to the Grand Hyatt hotel.
On the way there the streets were far from barren. There were plenty of people wandering the streets and plenty of people working. As we left the area of the airport we past a parking lot which must have easily had 500 of these narrow black taxis. These taxis share the streets with a sort of hybrid of a motorcycle and taxi. It has one front wheel and the driver uses a motorcycle handlebar but it has pedals, two rear wheels and the driver and passengers are all sitting inside. So far I have seen one red light and nobody seemed to pay it much attention. The way to the hotel was filled with small groups of people sitting outside their tin shacks around fires. It seems that this part of the city is a shantytown calle Santa Clara. I was quite surprised and asked how such a Spanish-sounding name ended up here in India. It seems that Western India was actually ruled by the Portugese for hundreds of years, from 1510 to 1961.
This morning as we drove through the city it seemed that everything was under construction, water piplines, underground cables, and everything was done by lots of people without much machinery. I even saw a man moving some stuff around with an elephant! Today I was told that this is not the real Bombay as it is not the actual city. Tonight we'll venture into the city and see what the real Bombay is like.
Singapore Airlines is perhaps the best airline I've flown so far. The service was very good, the food selection was quite wide and the number of moves playing was large. If a stewardess can't do something right now she asks if she can come back later to bring you this or that. The interesting thing is that they remember and do come back.
Hot towels were passed around at the start and the end of each flight. The passed out a menu of the choices for meals that was very detailed. The menu selection is tailored to the palate of the place you are coming from and going to as is the selection of onboard entertainment. As we flew from Melbourne to Singapore they offered Singapore cuisine and several English-language movies. Real glasses are used as well as metal flatware. They served ice cream at the end of the meal which is something I don't think I'd seen before.
The Singapore airport has an impressive array of shops and there are free Internet kiosks all over the place. I bought a 128MB disk on key for about US$28 for work. There was a fast food sushi place with the plates on a conveyor belt between the booths and I finally saw how they keep track of who ate what. I never understood how they calculate the bill before but this time I realised that the items are on plates that are different colors. To calculate the bill they simply come over and count the plates and note the colors.
The flight to Mumbai (Bombay), India had a large selection of Bollywood flicks and there was an Indian vegetarian meal choice. I had the Kadi Morg Palaw which was Chicken in Persian rice with a lentil mash. They provided a side of pickled mango chutney which is a bit like Israel's amba. I spent too much of my time playing Nintendo on the back of the seat of the person in front of me when I should be sleeping. I really should see if they have a way to block out the Nintendo for my seat next time.
Well, I'm currently in the Singapore Airport en route to Bombay. Australia was nice and I'll be back in a week or so. I finally found the billboard at the entrance to the Bourke St. mall. It seems the "Bald Pussy" billboard is in fact for a bikini shaver. I got a picture of the billboard and will post it when I get home and get it developed. I'll have more about Australia I imagine but right now am a bit too tired.
You know that part of Pulp Fiction where they talk about the fact that McDonald's Quarter Pounder is called the Royale in France? Well, Burger King is not called Burger King down under. They call it Hungry Jack's!
The logo looks the same and the names of the sandwiches and whatnot are the same other than the extra stuff they have. Most notably they have the Aussie Burger. So I ask, "What is the Aussie Burger?" Of course they don't look at me sideways as you might look at someone asking what is on a Big Mac since my accent gives me away as being a foreigner. The Aussie Burger has the roll, burger, ketchup, cheese, egg and beetroot! Finally someone figured out something to do with those beets kids don't like. I mean the egg was pretty obvious as I understand that Aussies put egg on everything, but beets?
Now the same night that I discovered this was a night that I was wondering around Melbourne until my feet gave out. I didn't have my camera but there was a billboard that said "Give your love a bald pussy." I'm assuming that a bald pussy is something other than what it sounds like but I can't find the billboard again to photograph it and figure out what company it was for. I'll make an effort to do so.
So I'm supposed to meet a guy today that I knew from Amdocs some 6 years ago. He relocated to Australia with the company and now doesn't work for Amdocs but still lives in Australia. The idea was to catch a ferry to a place called Putney to meet him. I missed the Ferry by a good minute and a half and a ferry isn't exactly the kind of public transportation that you can run after.
Before heading to the ferry I went to the mall to walk around and had some Kentucky Fried Chicken. They had a very odd combination meal. It was two pieces of chicken, a roll, mashed potatoes with gravy and french fries. The roll is pretty standard for them but why in the world would you have potatoes andfrench fries? They don't offer ketchup or have it at a condiment station, you pay 25 cents for a packet. That's Australia cents so about 20 US cents. Anyway, the chicken was good but I still missed the ferry.
As I write this from my hotel room in Sydney, Australia I have been working my new job for 12 days. The first week or so I spent configuring my laptop and getting the product installed. I should say installing the product, not getting it installed as very specifically one of the goals was that I be able to get everything up and running on my own. It is very important that should I find myself in some remote location, which are really the only kind I'll be finding myself in, that I am able to reinstall and reconfigure everything so that I can make sure that I'm able to show the product to potential clients and partners.
As I write this from my hotel room in Sydney, Australia I have been working my new job for 12 days. The first week or so I spent configuring my laptop and getting the product installed. I should say installing the product, not getting it installed as very specifically one of the goals was that I be able to get everything up and running on my own. It is very important that should I find myself in some remote location, which are really the only kind I'll be finding myself in, that I am able to reinstall and reconfigure everything so that I can make sure that I'm able to show the product to potential clients and partners.
Three days ago I left Israel en route to Sydney, Australia. Getting to Sydney is about a 25 hour journey. Our flight was very empty so I had two seats to myself. If I were a bit shorter I might have tried to grab a four seat middle row for myself to sleep. I was easily able to sleep the vast majority of the flight. Interestingly El Al is promoting an ethnic menu. They are going to serve foods that represent different large cultures in Israel. This month is Iraq month so they served Kubbeh with Okra. It wasn't half bad and they passed out a booklet with the recipes for all the ethnic foods they are serving.
As our flight began to descend over Thailand I noticed a windy river. I hadn't really thought about the overall landscape of Thailand even though I'll be there in two weeks time as I'll be spending all of my time in the hearts of the cities of the places I travel. The river got my attention as there aren't really any long flowing rivers in Israel, just little streams that we call rivers. Closer to Bangkok there were rows and rows of what appears to be farmland. The parcels of land seem to be very narrow and long. Flying overhead it struck me that as we moved the angle changed and some of the rows seemed to shine brightly. These parts were just as long, stretching into the distance, and very narrow. Though I don't know what they are growing there it would appear that these are irrigation canals. At one point a very straight highway crosses the farmland at a 25 degree angle.
My colleague had asked me back in Tel Aviv if I played golf. Though I don't play the Thai are apparently very serious golfers. So seriously that when the plane landed at the airport I was astonished to see that there is actually a golf course, complete with carts and caddies, between the runways. Even more interesting is that to get to the golf course you drive your car across the tarmac! I can't imagine how they allow this as it would seem to me that it'd be easy to stick a small missile launcher in a golf club bag.
The Bangkok duty free looks much like any other duty free area. The same perfumes and bottles of alcohol are sold as any other duty free. The difference is that I saw three massage parlors in duty free. They seemed pretty busy with lots of people waiting for a massage. A back, head, neck massage for half an hour is 600 Baht or about $18. I didn't get a massage this time.
The flight from Bangkok to Australia was a British Airways flight under a Qantas ticket. It was also empty enough that my colleague and I were able to split up so we had more room to spread out. It has been a long time since I was on a flight as rough as this one. Also since I slept so long on the flight to Bangkok I was hardly able to sleep on the way to Sydney and the flight seemed to be extremely long.
Australia has very strict quarantine laws to prevent bringing diseases to the island continent. You are not allowed to bring in any kind of meats or plants or perishables. They show a movie about it on the plane and go over the information on the loudspeakers. As the plane reached the point where it will begin the landing pattern the stewards walk through the cabin and spray some sort of disinfectant. Getting through customs was pretty quick. When the taxi driver opened up the trunk I noticed that in the back there was a large round tank. Apparently Australia is rich in natural gas but not as rich in oil. They have converted cars to run on natural gas instead of gasoline. Apparently only older cars have tanks in the trunks as most of the new cars can be bought with the natural gas tank already installed.
Last night we all went out to a place called Kingsley's Steakhouse and Cigar Lounge. It was very good and the atmosphere was great as we were in a private dining room. Tonight we went to the harbor to a place called Nick's. I figured I'm in Australia and never know when I'll be back here again so I ordered a nice Kangaroo steak. It was done medium rare and tasted a good deal like tenderloin.
G'day!