wherein I discover that Mumbai is not what it used to be.
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Monthly Archives: July 2008
Almost there … part 2
wherein I get to Frankfurt and wander around and reminisce…
Almost there…
Greetings from Mumbai. There is apparently free wi-fi here, and I can connect to the access point and that’s it. So this may probably not get posted until much later.
It’s 3:00 am in Mumbai and it was pouring when we landed. There was so much water on the runway that the pilot used reverse thrust to slow down the 747 and did not hit the brakes until we got almost to the end of the runway. My travel adventure (part 1) hasn’t ended yet. I have another flight to catch (this one, to Goa’s short – only about an hour) and then maybe an hour’s taxi ride to my sisters house in Santa Cruz, Goa.
The last time I had a chance to sit and open the laptop was in Chicago. Where, (naturally), the United flight to Frankfurt was delayed (only by two hours). I wasn’t in any state to do anything in Chicago, so I just sat there watching a 747 come close enough to kiss the terminal as it pulled into its gate. Everyone ooh’ed and aah’ed appropriately and then we stood around and watched for a bit and then drifted off.
As we boarded, I noticed that some of the passengers were especially bitchy and realised that maybe some of my fellow SFO-ORD-FRA re-routees were happy with having to dash to the airport on short notice. Me – I just wanted to get it over with. That didn’t leave any time or energy to be bitchy about anything.
Chicago-Frankfurt, the captain was very apologetic about the delay. Turns out that the plane was delayed getting in from Beijing, and he said that they had loaded up extra fuel and would be travelling a little faster than normal (at 0.86 mach) to try and make up for any lost time.
Read more…
The Adventure Begins
This morning I was finishing packing and was about to leave a note for my house sitter when I got a text message. It was United Airlines, saying that my 1:55pm flight to Frankfurt was delayed and would now be leaving at 6:00pm.
After a heartstopping moment of realising that I would miss the Frankfurt-Bombay, and Bombay-Goa flights, making my journey take 4 days instead of the three. Thanks to the power of the internet, I quickly called customer service.
That’s right, in the internet age, you’re much more likely to get your problem solved by calling a real person.
Off to Goa
wherein robbers made off with the copper cable connecting the only telephone exchange in the town my parents live in to the rest of the nation, leaving the place without any wired telephone or DSL service. Hence, this may be my last post while the local government department gets its act together.
So what is Goa like? Let me offer up three “news” articles from local newspapers
1. Faithful throng Talaulim for Touxeamchem Fest
Faithful throng Talaulim for Touxeamchem Fest HERALD REPORTER PANJIM, JULY 27 — On a Sunday marked by some heavy downpour, Talaulim in Tiswadi invoked the blessings of its patron saint (St Anne), even as people of all faiths thronged the historic 16th century St Anne’s Church to make a wish at the traditional Touxeamchem Fest.
Touxeamchem translates as “of the cucumbers” (or can be translated a little loosely as “our cucumbers”). To continue…
More famed for its miracles of gifting the childless with children, this year too couples brought their gifts (children) and placed them at the feet of St Anne’s statue. Fr Lourdinho Pereira said around 28 childless couples, who received favours, met him personally.
Wow. Someone’s been busy. Note that neither the reporter nor the editor saw anything wrong with this bit.
2. Age-old ritual kick-starts fishing season in Agonda
Age-old ritual kick-starts fishing season in Agonda HERALD CORRESPPONDENT CANACONA, JULY 27 – The traditional fishing season has commenced in Agonda on Sunday with the commemoration of an age-old annual ritual at both ends of the shore. Traditional fishermen from coastal Agonda annually carry out customary puja, where hundreds of coconuts are broken and cocks are sacrificed offering them to Hill Gods, while feni and toddy is poured into sea to please Sea God.
No, not those cocks.
Feni and toddy : local moonshine made from cashew (fruit) and coconut sap.
3. Stray cattle menace on the rise in Salcete
Stray cattle menace on the rise in Salcete NT NETWORK MARGAO: As stray cattle become responsible for road accidents in the city and other areas of Salcete, the Margao Municipal Council and respective Panchayats are yet to take action with regard to the same. According to sources in South Goa Collector’s office, the South Goa district administration has asked the Margao Municipal Council to take strict measures to prevent the cattle menace.
That’s right. Goa has stray cattle that menace traffic. Soon to be a horror film. Maybe they can convince Buffy that the cattle menace is a harbinger of the evil horrors to come.
This is also notice that my English speaking and writing skills will regress to 19th century British governmentese.
Orchid porn
From the Bird Park, I took a taxi to the Orchid garden. And it finally dawned on me that Singapore was a really small country. The map showed the Jurong bird park at the western end of Singapore, with the Orchid garden at the northern end. The taxi ride took about 10 minutes and cost me S$12. Rumor has it that it takes about 90 minutes to take a taxi cross country and costs around S$35.
When I got to the garden I was a little hungry and decided to eat at the cafe inside. I got my food ticket and looked around for a place to sit. The place was packed and most everybody had a beer or two in front of them and didn’t look like they would move anytime soon, so I started to see if anyone would be willing to share their tables. I shared a table with a couple (and their baby boy and puppy), who were working in Singapore. I got to know about the expat community (very insular, there’s very little contact between groups) and the attractions of Singapore (the food, the apparent safety) and the downsides (no freedom of speech, expensive real estate). And then my food arrived. I had ordered a Nasi Goreng.
I like to consider that I am a good tourist and that I’m accustomed to café style food, but oh my god, even the deli food here is better than good. I kept eating, talking with my mouth full while they laughed and agreed that yes, the food at the café was really good.
Hunger satisfied, I walked inside. The Orchid garden is actually a small portion of the Singapore Botanical Gardens. It has one of the few dog-friendly parks and jogging trails, and there were a lot of joggers and dogs there. I walked over to the Orchid garden, passing what looked like a gorgeous outdoor performance venue.
The Orchid garden was completely awesome. Every few steps/turns, there was another gorgeous orchid, just blooming there.
Get all your Orchid Porn here.
I learnt something new:
The vanilla bean is the fruit of an Orchid
On my way back, I took a taxi to the subway station, and made an offhand comment to the driver about how well the roads were maintained, since I didn’t recall seeing a single pothole in all the time I was there.
And given that this was Singapore where they have a freaking death penalty not just for possessing drugs, but also for having drug metabolites in your system! I expected a brief propaganda speech about how great Singapore was and why every country should be like that. Instead, I seemed to have let loose a torrent of pent up frustrations.
“Yes, of course the roads are good”, he said “they fine all of us and use it to pay the politicians millions and use the rest to build the roads.”
Singapore’s politicians are the most highly paid public servants in the world, with salaries in the millions of dollars.
“They don’t give a damn, they only give fines. Fine on this, fine on that, Singaporeans are opressed, ministers are paind $4 million, they don’t care about being corrupt or how the rest of us live”, he continued.
“Are the taxi fees a lot too?” I asked.
“Yes, yes – there are fees for driving taxi, I have to pay the government ninety dollars for the taxi every day, even if I don’t drive it. I have to renew license every three years and they make you take a physical exam and take more money for it. Driving is even bad – they are charging for driving on the road now. How are we supposed to live?”
Wow, I should have expected that not everyone would have drunk the cool aid.
The rest of the trip was spent in the driver enumerating all his frustrations with the way things are done in Singapore. And no, he was not an immigrant, he was a native Singaporean, watching the cost of living increase (due to the extremely large influx of well-paid expats).
Although, I really liked the Singapore model of congestion pricing: it is dynamic, with the toll adjusted to keep the average speed of traffic on the road to 45 (kmph). The tolls therefore are not a revenue generation mechanism, they’re a speed regulating mechanism.
I could fully understand the cabbie’s frustration. They were not exempt from the tolls, and had to pay them even if they were empty and cruising for passengers. Naturally, there are no taxis cruising around on streets that are only accessible via a toll road. It also drives more traffic onto “free” roads, making it even harder to get around. Wonder how long people will put up with that?
Jurong bird park
Saturday morning dawned and the sun rose at around 6:30 am, giving the clouds a pink-orange lining. I went and had a breakfast (mostly papaya) at one of the food stalls and then set off for Jurong Bird Park. Ignoring all advice to take a taxi, I took the subway there. The names of the stations gave away some of the history of Singapore. Names like “Novena”, “Commonwealth”, “Dover”, “Buona Vista” vied for dominance along with “Plasir Ris”, “Kranji”, “Sembawang” and “Boon Lay”.
I got to the end where the park is located and it promptly started raining. In one way it was good – the absence of the sun made the humidity a little bearable, while the rain made it impossible to walk, so I ended up taking a taxi from the station to the park which was about 2 Km away.
Just outside the main entrance there was a talking bird exhibit, along with a bunch of realistic looking bird cutouts.
In addition to selling tickets, they were also renting out wheelbarrows and strollers you could put your kids in and pull along.
Right inside the park, there was an African wetlands exhibit, with one of the residents (a shoebill) being extremely interested in the ground dwelling bipeds taking pictures. That bird would keep turning round to face a camera brandished by a tourist and stare it down.
The park is not very large, (about 8 square miles) and it has a monorail that goes around the park, stopping at two stations along the way. At this point, I was already drenched in sweat, so the decision was an easy one. The first stop was at the Lory Loft, named after the main inhabitants, the Lories (Lorikeets – a type of parrot). The nice thing about this loft is that it’s a free flight enclosure, with a lot of Lories, who are native to Australia. The first thing that struck me as I walked in was the noise. Those parrot wannabes are loud. And pushy.
You can buy S$2 cups of nectar to feed the birds, and they have become so accustomed to those feedings that the minute someone approaches the railing, they flock, demanding to be fed. I had a red lori scream at me while I fumbled with my camera:
Next to it was a Hornbill and Toucan exhibit. I’d never seen a hornbill before and waited around for the show and tell.
I had a lot to learn. Hornbills are one of the few birds with eyelashes; they need them to keep the moisture out of their eyes in a tropical forest.
And they take their parenting seriously. The female seals herself into the nest, which is a hole in a tree, leaving a tiny sliver open for the male to push food through. The food, usually berries and fruit (and sometimes a small rodent) is picked carefully by the male, since the female is supposedly a picky eater.
Yes, that is a live, full grown tree inside the “cage” (if it can be called that). I estimated the size to be around 10′ wide x 20′ deep x 20′ tall. Some of the birds are housed in such “cages”.
After walking around a bit, I hopped back on the “train” to go see the waterfall aviary.
And while staring at the waterfall, I discovered that they take their parks seriously too.
Obviously, the 90+ degree humidity is not enough and they have to spray yet more water in the air. (That was a snark from a sweaty tourist, gentle reader. In a real tropical forest, the sunlight does not reach the ground, and mist is continually formed and the plants have evolved to needing it).
Also, the birds there obviously can read.
Night Safari
The Singapore zoo has a section open at night (from about 7:00 pm through 11:00 pm) and there are walking trails and guided electric bus tours. I went on it last night.
There’s a bus that runs from Orchard road, stopping at various hotels and goes to the zoo, so I decided to take that. The first problem came up when the bus arrived outside my hotel and it was almost full. There was a large crowd waiting, and clearly the operators had not expected that many people. They scrambled to get those of us who could on board, and tried to soothe the people who couldn’t by trying to arrange for another bus to arrive. The people at the other stops were also a little miffed to put it mildly, specially the German and Danish tourists.
Well, we got to the zoo and I walk in, there’s a tribal dance with fire eaters going on in the outside courtyard. There are also fast food (local equivalent) restaurant selling $4 bottles of water. Inside the paid area, there was a line of around 400 people waiting for the guided tour.
The guided tour takes place in a “tram”, which is essentially a low slung, electric “bendy” bus, with the sides cut away. I wait, get on and we set off with warnings about not using the flash on your camera and dire warnings about keeping all your body parts within the confines of the bus.
We set off and soon the atmosphere changes. Parents hush their kids, other parents get into long winded descriptions of what their kids should expect to see and the couples start cuddling. Us foreign tourists just look around with bemused expressions and smile at each other.
The zoo is simply amazing. They have managed to replicate the natural habitat of different asian and african wildlife, from the spotted hyena, to the giraffe and the elephant. There’s also nothing like rounding a corner and coming face to face with a rhino. Those things are scary. (That’s when a few children started screaming.) The hippopotamuses (hippopotami?) were cute, snorgling in the water. The papa elephant seemed a little depressed, was shaking his head from side to side, and mama and baby elephants were nuzzling over in the meadow on the other side.
About a tenth of the way into the tour, we were given the opportunity to get off and go on walking trails. These were marked trails through the jungle. On foot, the experience was completely different – I was much closer to the smells and sounds (and in the fruit bat habitat, the touch). It was funny watching some people get freaked out by the fruit bat. It’s a fruit bat people, it’s not going to suck your blood. It was also amazing watching someone trying to impress his friends by leaving the trail on the “leopard trail”. It’s a leopard fella – to it, you are prey. Do not leave the trail. Fortunately a trail warden prevented disaster. (And no, I’m not sure if he was ‘fined’ 
).
While leaving for Singapore, I was debating whether to carry my fast lens. I decided to save weight in my bag and not carry it. So, unfortunately, I don’t have too many good photographs.
Pictures from the night safari
I’m hoping to get better ones today at the bird sanctuary and the orchid garden.
Around the city
Woke up this morning and had the buffet breakfast at the hotel. Unfortunately, they were all out of Mangosteens. But they had papaya! After breakfast, my colleague and I went to Chinatown. We got there a little early, at around 10:00am, most of the shops weren’t open yet.
We took the subway to Chinatown.
I had to buy a ticket
The subways are amazing here. There are 3 main subway lines (and 4 light rail systems) that cover most of the country. A network of buses makes up the rest. Most people here do not have cars, and it’s a fun place for a pedestrian (that is if you don’t mind the heat and humidity).
The things you can get fined for in the subway
Note that technically, while the durian is banned on the subway, you’re not fined if you bring one on.
The old parts of Singapore are a maze of tiny alleys and sidewalks, reminding me of Bombay.
That’s one steam boat I’d have liked to have taken
My colleague had a lot of shopping to do, so I just wandered around. After all the shopping, we went over to the Raffles hotel. Of course, I walk in as if I’m a guest there (the room rates at The Raffles start at $800/night) and try to find the bar. And fail. We finally give up and go ask the concierge, who promptly whips out a map and draws directions to the Long Bar. Oh yeah, it’s that sort of place. You need a map to get to the bar.
The inside of the hotel is just amazing. Redolent of the colonial era, with high ceilings, white-washed walls, rattan chairs… it was a little surreal.
I guess they didn’t want people to turn around and leave…
Back in the day, this was all the air circulation you got
The bar was also full of tourists, taking pictures of the waiters in their dhotis:
Now, I could wear that!
And the litter on the floor, since it turns out that in colonial times, the uppity locals just swept the crumbs from the tables on the floor. That tradition seems to have continued, although I wonder what happens when there’s a large influx of tourists. Does the floor get ankle deep in peanut shells?
We finally got our drinks – the whole point of going to the Raffles in the first place:
The skies then opened up and let loose with a torrential downpour, putting paid to my plans of walking back. I let my colleague convince me to take a taxi back to the hotel.
The food, the food.
Oh my god. The food. The food.
First day here, I have breakfast in the hotel, get into the office and spend the morning in meetings where we discuss business processes and how technology should be used to make them work. I was to understand later how this becomes relevant.
I get to talk to the other folks here – all of the technically competent. And the people here are a very diverse group. Right now the Filipinos have the edge, and the Singaporean, Indian and the Chinese are right on their heels. The Germans, British and Americans are a decided minority. I was glad to see that a very large proportion of the developers here are women (close to 35%). That is compared to the 7% or so we have in San Francisco and was a nice change to be in a normal environment like that.
The only problem I see is that the culture here is very heads down and task focussed. They’re all like “give me my task, tell me when it’s due and go away”. Which is not the way my company works. We like a lot more collaboration – mainly because some of these processes are dynamic and change during the process of code development.
So lunchtime rolls around and a group of us decide to go for Indian. We go downstairs, hop into the subway (more about that later) and go to Little India. Once there, we walk into a cute little South Indian restaurant, looking just like one would in Bombay and place our order. Which is where their business process falls down. The meals come with a free drink. And two of us in the group did not want a soda with our dosa. Which was a problem, because their ordering system would not accept a meal order without a drink. After some back and forth while we desperately tried to avoid doing any tech support, we went ahead and got bottled water with our meals.
The food is incredible. I sat there eating my idli and vada and dosa, breaking the idli to dip it in the sambar and licking my fingers clean after each bite. Mmm. And this was just my first meal here.
That evening, we went out for drinks and later, everyone wanted to go eat at the buffet in my hotel. Now, used to hotel food in America, I was naturally horrified. And everyone kept assuring me otherwise. So I decided to go ahead, since I could satisfy my food explorations another time.
The hotel buffet is a restaurant inside the lobby of the hotel. It was surprisingly packed and we had to wait 30 minutes for a table. We had our beers so we didn’t mind waiting. Once inside, we hit the buffet: it was less of a buffet and more of an attempt to duplicate the hawker stalls, There were different food stalls inside, and you could walk around sampling a little of everything. There was Thai, and Singaporean, and Indian and Chinese and Korean food.
I had Singapore’s national dish: Chicken rice. The dish is exactly what it says. The chicken is boiled, and once it’s cooked, dunked into ice water. The broth is used to cook the rice. That makes the rice extra delicious. The highlight of the evening was discovering that the fruit bar had fresh mangosteens. I’d never had one before and oh wow, they are yum. I think I’m going to find a grocer that sells those and get some to eat over the weekend.
