Sunday, February 28, 2010

More Pictures

I've uploaded pictures from a walking tour of Kolkata I took a couple of weeks ago along with some random pictures I've snapped of the city.

http://picasaweb.google.com/amdickie

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Bangkok Pictures

I've uploaded a bunch of pictures from Bangkok into my Picasa account.

http://picasaweb.google.com/amdickie/Bangkok

Thursday, February 25, 2010

On eating...and everything else

You can separate my experience with food here into a four distinct phases:
  1. Wow, Indian food in India is awesome - 1.5 weeks - This phase was fun.  There was lots of food, most of it was very good and I ate a lot of it.  I impressed the folks here with my willingness to try anything.
  2. So wait, you guys eat Indian every day? - 3 days - My stomach started letting me know that a bit of variety would be very much appreciated.  I gave it more Indian food.  I was still feeling ok, but I was more than a bit concerned as to what the future held.
  3. Kill me, kill me now - 2.5 weeks - I don't want to talk about it, you don't want to hear about it.  Let's move on.
  4. Everything in moderation - the rest of the time - I still love the food.  I just can't eat a lot of it.  There are a few things that I'll probably never be able to eat again, but since I've never seen those things in the States I think I'll be able to manage around them.
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We went to Bangkok the weekend before last.  In a turn of events that I didn't see coming at all Bangkok made me incredibly homesick.  It turns out that Bangkok is a MUCH more western city than Kolkata.  The roads and drivers are much more western (ie the roads have lanes and the drivers use them).  The city skyline could have been either Seattle or San Francisco (Kolkata doesn't have a skyline).  Even the hotel felt a lot more similar to the Sheraton in Seattle than the Sheraton in Kolkata.  Near as I can figure my lack of homesickness up to that point was due not to my iron resolve, but to the fact that Kolkata is sooooo different from what I am used to that it is impossible to imagine myself at home, which means I don't get homesick.

Other than the homesickness thing, Bangkok was very cool.  We saw a bunch of temples that were like nothing I have ever seen before.  Our itinerary on our first day in Bangkok was crazy.  As we were only there for two days we tried to pack in as much as possible.  On Saturday we did the following:
  1.  Arrived in Bangkok at 6:15 am local time.
  2. Spent an hour and a half getting through immigration.
  3. Toured the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  They don't allow you to wear shorts on the tour so we had to get loaner pants at the registration desk.
  4. Had lunch at a market noodle stall.  Very good.
  5. Took a boat tour of the river.  I pretended I was on my way to invade Burma.
  6. Toured Wat Pho.  That's a big Buddha.
  7. Walked around a city park.  Very pretty and peaceful.
  8. Staggered our way back to the hotel.  Cabbies in Bangkok do not speak English.  At all.  The hotel even gives you a little card to show the cabby so he know where to take you.  Our card didn't seem to work.  We had to take three different cabs to go approximately 8 km.  The second cabby kicked us out almost immediately because he didn't know where to go.
  9. Watched a few Muay Thai matches at Lumpinee Stadium.  We saw a guy get his face smashed by the other dudes knee.  Three times.  I've never seen anything like it.
  10. Walked around the Night Bazaar.  Mind bogglingly big.  We guessed that there had to be at least 1000 stalls.  Capitalism at its best.
  11. Had dinner at a Thai place.  Very good, but it tasted a lot like the Thai place near my apartment in San Francisco.
  12. Walked around Khaosan road.  I've never been to Mardi Gras, but Khaosan road seemed a lot like a cross between that and Vegas.  Needless to say, you could get into a lot of trouble on that road.
Sunday was not quite so intense.  We visited China town, walked around the weekend market and rode the sky train.  Our flight back to Kolkata got in around midnight.  I had a brief scare when it looked like the immigration official wasn't going to honor the multiple portion of my multiple entry visa, but his supervisor pointed out the big MULTIPLE in the middle of my visa and set him straight.  All in all, Bangkok was very much worth the trip.

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The week after Bangkok was a bit of a slog.  I was tired most of the week.  Luckily the pace at the office had slowed down quite a bit at that point so we were able to leave at a semi-reasonable time every day.

This past weekend was spend in Kolkata.  I played cricket with some work colleagues on Sunday.  I don't think the India is going to offer me citizenship in order to get me to play for the national team, but I didn't embarrass myself either.  They even let me bowl (pitch) a couple of times.  My first time bowling I asked for a warm up throw as I haven't pitched a baseball in years.  My first toss had impressive velocity, but my accuracy was a bit off.  It flew right through the space that was soon to be occupied by the batters head and clanged, very loudly, off a metal pipe behind the crease (we were playing indoors).  Half of my colleagues immediately began explaining to me that I didn't need to throw quite so hard while the other half practically had to carry the batter into the crease.  I managed to get through without hitting anybody and I even bowled one guy out.  Not too bad for my first time.

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This coming weekend is going to be in Kolkata again.  I was thinking about going to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, but the flights are too expensive.  Next weekend we are going to Dubai for three days and then the following weekend (my last) we are going to either Darjeeling or Hyderabad depending on if we can get train tickets to Darjeeling.

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I've booked my plane tickets for New Zealand.  We're flying out on 4/9 and we get back on 4/25.  I wonder how the Indian food is in Auckland?

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I know I need to put pictures up on Flickr.  I'll try to get some up this weekend from the hotel.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Return Confirmed

I will be leaving Kolkata on Thursday March 18th and arriving in San Francisco on Friday the 19th.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Finally

We managed to get 12 holes of golf in on Sunday.  We played at The Tollygunge Club in Sourth Kolkata.  The cost wasn't bad for a private club (~$50 for 18 holes) and it was reasonably well maintained.  As it is the dry season here it the ground was hard as a rock.

We were required to use caddies (my first time ever being caddied for), which was fine as it only cost about $2.50 for the caddy.  I ended up tipping mine 200% as I couldn't help but feel that I owed him more than $5.

The hotel provided us with clubs, tees and balls for free.  The clubs and bag looked like they were purchased about 30 years ago, but they served their purpose. 

As I was teeing off on the 4th hole I noticed my caddy running back down the 3rd fairway.  Even with my fairly limited caddy experience I was fairly confident his job as a caddy was to hang around me rather than to head in the opposite direction at a dead run.  Turns out he looked in the bag as we were leaving the 3rd green and noticed that there was no 6 iron in it.  He came back from his run empty handed and extremely freaked out and asked me if there was a 6 iron in the bag at the start of the round.  I told him I had no idea and that even if there was, which I doubt as I don't think I ever used it, it wouldn't be a big deal at all if it was gone as the clubs were ancient.  Unfortunately my caddy's English was not quite up to the task of understanding my complete lack of concern.  He made my colleague call the hotel from the 4th fairway and confirm that there was never a 6 iron in the bag.  The hotels response was...we have no idea and we don't particularly care if it's there or not.  My colleague relayed this to my caddy in Hindi and while he wasn't thrilled he at least was willing to continue the round.

I ended up playing ok.  I had a sandy birdie on the 10th and hit a couple of huge drives.  My putting was atrocious and I was wishing by the end of the round that my 9 iron, PW and SW were with my 6 iron rather than in my bag.  We had to quit after 12 holes due to it getting dark.

I took the picture below from the 10th fairway right before I knocked my 5 wood pin high from 230 yards.  I think my camera may be good luck.




After the round we stopped by the mall so my colleague could make a purchase.  The photo below was taken from the top floor of the mall.