Finally Here in India

After 26 hours of travel, I arrived literally on the other side of the world.  I could probably tell a few stories about the travel part, but suffice it to say I have put it behind me.  A few observations:

• I'm a product of US - and particularly Midwestern US - culture.  I like my personal space and there isn't much in economy class anymore.  Every plane was completely full.
• I don't care what you say, using insect foggers after we've all been loaded and locked into the plane stating that they are 'proven' safe does not make me feel better.
• I am forever grateful to my french seat-mate who did his best to stay shrunk into his 17 inches and let me borrow the arm rest once in a while - I think he could see that my african seat mate on the other side was literally twice as broad-shouldered as the seat allowed.  Not overweight, just BROAD.  So I used him as a doorstop when (trying to) sleep upright, breaking my own personal space rule.  But I had no other choice.
• Food on AirFrance is actually pretty good, but do we really need to eat every 6 hours?  When we have done nothing but sit?

We arrived in Bangalore at 1:00 am, India time, on Sunday.  I left KC at roughly 1:00 pm, KC time on Friday.  ECustoms was not difficult.  We were met by Swami, our driver for the week AND Sudjit, from our hotel.  The drive from the airport to hotel was a full hour, and I will be very interested to see it again in daylight.  There was plenty of traffic, lots of honking, vehicles of all make and purpose army-type trucks carrying construction materials, one that looked straight out of Indiana Jones carrying mostly bags of grain and at least one person hanging on the back, taxis, minivans, and the very occasional luxury car.  No painted lanes to speak of, though the road did resemble a freeway  a couple of times - then we would veer off through patched pseudo pavement to a 'frontage road'.  It's impossible to describe.  Along the way you'd see lots and lots of buildings on the side of the road - all heights, many with graphics, some falling down.  Some looked newer but mostly it looked like a patchwork quilt of structures.  I read in today's paper that there is a (new???) rule that apartment structures with more than 25 houses are required to have a way to treat sewage and water.  Yikes.

Then we have our hotel.  It's truly gorgeous... here's the lobby.  It's open air because as far as I can tell, the weather is beautiful here year-round.  Maybe a little hot in April, but otherwise 80 and sunny.

 I'm on the 12th floor, in the 'Eva' wing which was designed for women and is supposedly extra-secure.   I have an on-call butler and a security guard (not always, but sometimes, outside my room... they mostly smile a lot and speak little English).  My maid is Kavya.  She's very sweet, young, and anxious to help.  She drives an hour+ to work each day - I asked her if she liked it and she said it goes from being super-hard to boring depending on how many guests they have.  Evidently not much in the middle.  Went to the pool where of course there was not one but two pool boys anxious to make sure we were well-attended to.  They asked for our sun preference and then dragged our chairs where they would get maximum sun - even though it totally blocked these other people into this garden-courtyard area :)  Spread our towels on our chairs, brought us water.  Here's one of them checking on another guest.   

Had the Sunday buffet brunch complete with live music which Melissa and I found rather hysterical... Indian singers doing everything from George Straight to 80's mix music.  Seriously.  Brunch was $50 though - can't afford that every meal, American or not.  People were quite well-dressed for what I expected, but then I realized it was sunday.  Hard to have a buffet and have to be careful what you eat, but we decided we aren't taking any chances so we skipped the stuff with fresh fruit and stuck to the cooked items. 

Tomorrow we head into the office - it is at least an hour drive away supposedly, which blew my mind.  The issue is not distance but traffic and roads (or lack thereof).  Julie picked this hotel though so I will assume she knows what she's doing.  I included one more picture - it's almost impossible to see the outside world from anywhere in the hotel, and that's intentional.  It's gated and guarded.  But we did find a wall in the pool area that we could peek over, here is what we saw.  You can't see it very well but there was a woman working in a little side yard area of the apartment? building doing her wash - BY HAND.  And hanging it on a clothesline.  It's probably a good indication of the paradox of wealth, caste, etc.  here.

Hope everyone is well.  I'll post more pics as I have a chance to take them.  I need to take some of my room - did I mention my massage chair??? Oh well, another day.  Love you - Laura