Snow at last

I titled this blog because I was hoping to be able to do lots of gloating about the bad weather in Minneapolis compared with here. Unfortunately (for this goal at least) this winter has been really mild back home, especially compared with the crazy amounts of snow and cold we experienced last year. But finally today there's been a decent snowfall in Minneapolis, and at the same time it's 86F and sunny here.

Sri Lanka

We just had a totally great family vacation to the beautiful island of Sri Lanka. Emma went there a couple of months ago on a girls' weekend, and loved the place, and seeing as my mum and brother are visiting, we decided it would be great to go back and explore a bit more. Emma designed the itinerary and did a totally great job. It's a very quick flight - about an hour and a half direct - so super easy to get to. When Emma visited she stayed only in Colombo, but we thought that a trek to the center of the island would be excellent. It's a fairly long journey from the airport, about four hours, so we stayed the first night close to where we arrived.

Because of the flight schedule, we arrived quite late at night, and stayed at the Tamarind Tree Hotel, a 10-minute bumpy ride from the airport. We were slightly concerned when our driver wasn't obviously waiting for us after we got through customs and immigration, but we eventually found him thanks to some surprisingly nice guards who let us back into the airport terminal to hunt him down.

The Tamarind Tree is pretty nice in that all the rooms seemed to be mini-villa style on beautiful grounds with gorgeous trees, but it is quite basic - the rooms and food were quite utilitarian, but it was great for one night near the airport.

Next morning our driver from the Heritance Hotel, Mohan, showed up in a very neat van, and looking very neat too. He was very friendly and he took us the 4 hour drive to the Heritance. We stopped at a touristy coffee shop/restaurant on the way - different from India in that it's all very clean and we weren't descended on by people asking for money. This theme continued all through our stay - the roads were all in really good shape, and unlike India there was no garbage around, and no speed bumps on the road! Also different from here was the fact that cars generally stay in their own lanes, and people only cross the roads at marked crossings. It was all very civilized.

The Heritance is stunning - it's built into the rocks by the side of a lake - with green roofs (cactus and other plants growing out the top) and rocks along all the walkways outside rooms (no enclosed corridors). Lots of wildlife too - geckos everywhere, slightly too many bugs near the lights, swifts and bats zooming along the hallways, and loads of monkeys around. The snack restaurant is open-sided with amazing view over the lake and the monkeys stole a lot of food from people, including from David! The staff were all very friendly, however, and took it in their stride. When David's sandwich was swiped, they brought another one really quickly and a waiter stood guard near his table for the rest of the meal. 

(by the way you can click on any of these pics to see them full size in Picasa, and you'll also be able to see the whole photo album, not just the pics in this post)

We were fairly worn out after the drive so we had a relaxed late afternoon, and enjoyed the buffet restaurant for dinner. There was a dress code and quite a few visiting bus tours of older people, so it felt a bit cruise-like. Great food though.

For our first full day we got up early for a bird watching walk. We had a really nice old guide who was very proud of his English skills. Saw lots of birds on the lake, tons of egrets and ibises as well as stunning kingfishers. Also saw the Sri Lankan national bird, the jungle fowl, which looks a bit like a cross between a rooster and a turkey. Some beautiful birds as well as deer, more monkeys, and tracks by the lake from a fishing cat.

Later in the day we went to the Dambulla Cave Temple, only 15 minutes away. Quite a climb up a rock in the heat, but well worth it. The temple is built into caves, as you would expect from the name, and had lots of buddha statues and frescoes on the ceilings. Very old and beautiful, and the general feel was what I imagine Egyptian pyramids to feel like, with the ancient paintings and statues. There were quite a few traders along the way, one of whom sold us beautiful lotus flowers to give as offerings, but we had to be careful how we held them so that the monkeys wouldn't steal them from us - they seem to like to eat them like they're artichokes. The humidity broke with a big rainstorm, but we found a good place to shelter on the way down the hill. The rain stayed on most of the evening, with some spectacular thunder and lightning. 

We were booked to do a balloon ride the next morning but it was called off because of the weather, so we decided to make the longer trip to Sigiriya rock fortress. It's a UN Heritage site with lots of fairly recent excavation of the gardens, swimming pools and palace rooms. We got a great guide who took us right to the top. It's a really long climb - over 1,000 steps, including some in very rickety metal spiral staircases and walkways tacked on to the side of the rock. One good thing about the guide was he made us stop every now and then to show us stuff, which meant that we could have a bit of a breather - it was really hot and hard work. The final climb was up a crazy metal staircase to the peak - I made it about 1/2 way before chickening out, although David found that there were guides specially to help people who were anxious. David and Toby made it to the top and said the view was totally stunning. Getting down was almost more scary than going up, and our thighs were burning by the time we were done. Cool thing to do though. 

Later that afternoon mom and Emma went on a boat ride across the lake, while I took Toby and Dara on a pony ride. It was Dara's first time and she really enjoyed it. We got to see the four other hotel ponies at their stable, and also saw the hotel snake catcher in action as he caught a large cobra.

Back at the hotel, swimming at one of the three pools. Loads of monkeys came down to the water - around 40, and many of them were drinking from the pool, so we could be only 3-4 feet away.

Next day we got up at 5am for the hot air balloon ride. Toby, David and I rode in the back of a very bumpy jeep to a muddy field where they were inflating the balloon. The pilot was an English bloke who has been flying in Sri Lanka for 7 years, and in other places for many years before. Great sense of humor and no-nonsense style, which really helped me get over my nervousness about heights. It was a truly amazing feeling to take off and go above the trees and just float along above the palms and paddy fields. Loads of people waved at us as we floated by - it was almost Disney as they would come out of their houses and smile up and shout good morning. The pilot said he took Prince William up five years ago - he said all the waving was good practice! We flew for about 50 minutes and landed in a rocky clearing, and immediately loads of people appeared to watch us and say hello. Kind of strange to be in the middle of it drinking champagne, but really fun.

After breakfast it was time for the drive back to the coast, again with Mohan. We stopped at Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage - it was amazing to see so many large and small elephants up close. It sounds like there have been questions about how well the elephants are looked after - most of them seemed pretty happy and healthy, but obviously I'm not an expert. The only thing I really didn't like was that after paying a large fee to get in (which seemed fair enough if that's what's helping look after the animals) the elephant herders asked for money for allowing us to be near the elephants for photos. However it wasn't that big a deal, and the guy I gave money to turned out to be great with ensuring that we got good pictures with the kids.

After we'd met the elephants we got to see them take their daily trek down the road to the river for their bath. This means that they have to cross the main road of the town, and down a lane lined with tourist shops. We saw a couple of elephants try to swipe things from the stalls! 

We eventually got to Colombo fairly late and checked into the Galle Face Hotel, which is where Emma had stayed previously. It's a bit of a strange place - it was opened in 1864 and has quite a reputation as a grand old dame of Asian hotels. There are plaques all over the place featuring dignitaries who have stayed, especially in the Classic wing, which is where we non-celebs stayed. It was a bit creaky, but we had quite a view of the Indian Ocean from our window:

The restaurant, bar and pool are right by the ocean, so we actually ended up spending a lot of time just hanging around there. I stupidly got sunburned (still recovering a bit) as the ocean air and cool salt water of the pool meant that I didn't realize how much sun I was getting. We did have excursions to a couple of places in town - quick auto rides to the Sri Lanka national museum, which was really beautiful, and for some touristy shopping. The second evening David and I wandered round the corner to an Irish pub, which unfortunately didn't sell Guinness or indeed any beer darker than Carlsberg, but we did OK. There were a couple of guys playing guitar and bass who were surprisingly good, but it was quite surreal being there as they played the theme song from Friends.

All in all it was a totally great time. Really friendly people, easy to get around, very safe-feeling, and beautiful. We're already planning our next trip!

Toby update

It's been a little while since I've written about the kids, and seeing as it was Toby's ninth birthday on Wednesday, I thought it was time for an update.

Actually both the kids are doing really well still, but I'm going to focus on the birthday boy. He is still really enjoying school, and each morning he gets to the bus stop at least ten minutes before the bus comes so that he can hang out with his friends and climb trees. Last week I was finishing my morning run and passed by the other side of the street from the bus stop, and saw him horsing around with his buddies - he was having a grand time. He seems to be doing well at school too, judging by the quality of his homework and although he never really wants to do it, it seems to be a lot less of a struggle these days. He's always liked doing math and other things where the answers are either right or wrong; the challenge was often in more creative topics where he didn't like the ambiguity, but he's getting through it.

One things we're really liking about his school is that there's a really good balance of academic and sports, and Toby's enjoying that too. Last term his chosen sport was tennis, but seeing as he already does taekwondo and swimming we thought it would be good for him to do a team sport this term, so he's signed up for soccer (which he already insists is called football now). His reports of matches seem a little random, including kids switching teams partway through matches, but it sounded like on his first session he scored a winning hat-trick, and the following week in goal he saved every shot. Assuming this all to be true, I guess he's doing well! He's also enjoying swimming class, and a couple of weeks ago was in an inter-school swimming tournament where he won his backstroke heat, and came fourth in the final which he was pleased with, and most importantly really enjoyed the experience.

Anyway, he seems quite happy to be nine. Somehow he seems bigger than he was last week! He got great presents from family, including a box set of Tintin books, some more Asterix books to add to his collection, and DVDs of Harry Potter 3 and 4. I watched some of part 3 with him last night, and it was a treat to see his face and how into it he was.

One thing we didn't know about is that in Indian schools apparently on your birthday you don't need to wear school uniform, but he was fine being in uniform on Wednesday. Today is the last Friday of the month, so they have "mufti day" where the kids can wear casual clothes, or they can dress in the theme of the day. This month it's role models, so Toby decided he would wear a red t-shirt and khaki trousers, so that he looked like a Target team member, just like his dad. Very flattering!

Countries for Expats

One of my friends here found this article in Forbes about countries for expats, which I thought you might like to see. Overall it looks like Australia and New Zealand come in very high. And here’s what they had to say about India for countries most challenging for expats:

India ranked in last place for the second year in a row.

“India is simply a minefield of relentless mental, emotional and practical daily challenges for most non-Indians,” according to Denmark native Pia Mollback-Verbic, the director of a Mumbai-based qualitative market research firm who relocated there via the U.S. in 2007. “It’s nothing less than a riddling obstacle course, which only can be navigated with a healthy dose of humor, expansive capacity for patience, and tolerance for the illogical.”

Sounds about right to me, and I think this explains why I'm totally exhausted by Thursday morning every week!

Jobsworths

I haven't been shopping here in ages, partly because Emma has been taking care of the household things so well, and partly because my long work hours, including a couple of hours of evening calls two or three times a week and my travel schedule, have meant that I haven't really had time. Today we decided to go out to a new mall which just opened and is fairly close to where we lived - Phoenix Market City. As you can see from the website it's pretty nice, and while it's still filling up it has some decent stores, including Zara, Marks and Spencer, Aldo, Bebe, and some restaurants - our first California Pizza Kitchen being one of them. Not exactly the high life - certainly not the amazing shopping we saw in Hong Kong - but not bad.

We had a good time looking around and a really good lunch at Cafe Nero, which is a local French-style chain, and got a couple of shirts for the kids at Zara. Then Dara and I went to a couple of shops to get specific things we needed, like a new speaker thing for iPods as our current one is on the wane, when I realized the annoying side of Indian shopping.

There's always tons of security at Indian malls - you have to go through metal detectors to get into the store (although they never seem to beep, and on the rare occasions they do, nobody does anything) and there's security guards at every entrance. I suppose with Things These Days it's kind of fair enough. However what really bugs me is the fake security at loads of stores. This starts with the fact that many shops make you leave any bags at a bag drop place round the corner from the main door. I always get kind of riled at this but I was particularly maddened by it today, when Dara and I were going to go into Reliance Digital to get iPod speakers, and as soon as I walked in, carrying a very small bag from Zara, the "security" guy at the door barked at me to leave my bag at the bag drop place. Everything at Reliance is either locked in a display cabinet, or it's a big TV which would be impossible to get into a 6" x 10" bag, but apparently I look like some kind of criminal so I had to leave my bag if I wanted to enter the store. So I left. Sale lost to the jobsworths at Reliance. Congratulations, guys.

While Dara and I were apparently shiftily shopping, Emma and Toby had gone to the supermarket in the mall to get some things - it's actually a really nice supermarket with tons of fresh stuff really nicely displayed. However once again at the door the little security guy told me I couldn't go in if I was carrying my little bag. I was pretty mad by this point by this ridiculous nonsense but I took my bag round to the bag drop place and slammed it on the counter. The guys behind the desk didn't really seem to notice my hissy fit but it was a little cathartic for me I suppose. I'm not sure what would have happened if I'd just refused to drop my bag off - would he have tackled me or something? But I had to go in because Emma and Toby were already in there and didn't want to cause too much fuss because Dara was with me.

This kind of thing is made worse by the fact that there's always another "security" guy at the exit of supermarkets who has to check your receipt and for some reason punch a hole in it. I have no idea what he's actually checking for - at the checkout the assistant will have already bagged your stuff, and in the case of Food Bazaar will have tied the bags and even put zip ties around the top, so nobody can even see in the bag. But oh no, man in uniform has to make you stop and get your receipt checked. Again I'm not sure what would happen if you just ignored him - I must try sometime - and maybe that'll be another blog post.

Malnutrition

I must confess to something bad which I've done since I arrived in India. I've gained a few pounds. Not a million, but a few, as a consequence of not running four or five times a week as I was doing in Minneapolis, and the fact that I really like the food here. Plus I'm driven door-to-door to and from work every day, so any exercise isn't really happening. I need to get moving a bit more.

What makes me feel especially bad about this, however, is that I work in a city which is booming because of companies like mine, and at least for somewhat well-off people the food is good and it's plentiful. But of course it's not like that throughout India, or even throughout Bangalore. In fact a recent study found that an almost unbelievable 42 percent of Indian children under age 5 suffer from malnutrition. Think about that for a moment. With over a billion people in this country and what seems like cheap and plentiful food, tens of millions of children don't have enough to eat. This results in all kinds of things: stunted growth and lack of education being key. In fact 20 percent of all Indians are malnourished, worse than many developing African countries. The most recent "Global Hunger Index" shows that two-thirds of the 122 developing countries studied had reduced hunger levels in recent years, but that hunger levels in India have increased.

India does have a large food program, but of course like almost all other government programs here it's rife with corruption and mismanagement. You can see evidence of government corruption and ineptitude almost everywhere, especially the pitiful state of roads and transport, the piles of trash everywhere, the crappy (literally) water supply, the shaky electricity supplies, the obscene wealth of politicians, and ineffectiveness and indifference of government officials you interact with. Almost every day I get mad at the traffic and how long my commute takes, and when we're travelling we find that tourist facilities are pretty pathetic - those are our little frustrations. But that's really nothing compared to the important things, like starving children.

Another thing which got me thinking about this was on my recent trip to Lucknow, interviewing business school graduates. We had them do group discussions, and one of the questions was whether the amount of money in cricket is impacting other sports. The really surprising thing for me was how many of them talked about the government's investment in cricket and the government as a solution to funding other sports. Not one person talked about what the government's real priorities could be.

Work travel

In the last week I've been zooming about for work to a couple of cities in India, visiting college campuses. Last Friday I went to Hyderabad, which is about 6 hours' drive from Bangalore, or an hour on the plane (which was my mode of transport). It was a really long day, getting up at 5am and not getting home till 1am, but interesting to go to a new town and to visit the business school campus which was very new and smart. What I saw of Hyderabad seemed pretty nice - good roads and interesting rocky scenery - and although it's not that far from Bangalore it seemed a lot more northern India, with the houses looking a lot more middle eastern, more mosques, and signs in Urdu as well as English and Hindi.

After a weekend of recovery, I went to another business school on Monday, this time in Lucknow, which is near New Dehli. This meant a 2 1/2 hour flight to Delhi, and another hour to Lucknow. Although it's the capital of Uttar Pradesh it did seem a lot more shambolic than Bangalore, although we drove past some pretty impressive buildings and parks. The roads were a lot more crumbly, the traffic was much less car-based (lots of horses, oxen, bike rickshaws etc) and lots of roadsite tents. The college campus was older than the one in Hyderabad, but in a nice big estate - all very green, and I saw a couple of peacocks wandering around. The main problem was that it was really cold and foggy, only about 15C, and there wasn't much heating in the rooms, so a rather shivery day. Long days too - leaving the house at 7am Monday, working and interviewing till 11:30 that night, starting again at 8am Tuesday and not getting home till about 1am Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of either place, but I did stop at a market in Lucknow to get a couple of shirts for Emma, and tried some delicious food from a tiny hole-in-the-wall cafe on the way to the airport.

The main challenge of the trips were the way people behave on the planes here. The pushing and shoving in the airports is insane, in every line. It's a battle to get through security, and the security guards really frisk you - it's rather over-personal. Lucknow airport is pretty rough and ready, kind of like Bangalore's used to be, with loads of mosquitos and disgusting toilets. It's sort of an adventure but also kind of gross. Also as soon as the plane lands loads of people undo their seatbelts, which seems crazy to me - even when the plane is taxiing you can have sudden stops, and surely it's not too uncomfortable to wear a belt for a few minutes till the plane has stopped? And when the plane does stop everyone jumps up and starts getting their bags down much more aggressively than plane travelers in the US do, to the extent that a guy hit me in the head with his elbow and his bag, and I almost punched him back. I should be used to the fact that there's not much personal space here, but it was a tad over-crowded.