It is hard to believe that this is my first new country in over 8 years! And my first time truly traveling alone internationally in possibly 15! I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that I was actually nervous and excited to go to India for work for a week. It is hard to summarize the experience, especially since most of my time was spent at the office, but let’s just say it was an incredible trip and I am excited to get back to see more of the city of Pune and the broader country!
Below are a few ruminations from the trip:
Unlike past experiences with traveling eastbound, the jet lag wasn’t nearly as terrible as expected. I was up early every morning (and in some cases earlier enough to hit the hotel gym) and managed to stay up for dinners out with the teams (although they were forced to eat “early” at 7:30pm so I wouldn’t fall asleep at the table).
I stayed at one of the nicer hotels in Pune, the JW Marriott, which definitely caters to the international business traveler who wants to experience Indian culture through a western lens. I was greeted by every staff member with palms pressed at the heart and a “namaste”, and they always had a musician playing traditional Indian music in the lobby. On any given morning I would hear German, English, American, Swedish and who knows what other languages. It definitely is a hotel for those who want to ease into India. The good thing is I had plenty of co-workers willing to show me the local experience, including driving like the locals do through the packed roads. The only way to describe driving in India is organized chaos. Most roads didn’t seem to have designated lanes and there was a constant beat of polite, happy honks to alert the other drivers that three cars across the width of the road were about to become 4.
The hospitality from everyone is unreal. For example, on my first morning at the hotel, the restaurant hostess gave me a bowl of Asian soup without asking because she said it would be a good, healthy start to the day. She wasn’t wrong. Turns out it was my favorite Thai soup, Khao Soi noodles, that I haven’t been able to find since leaving Switzerland. The next day she grabbed me fruit,and after seeing me struggle to peel some very hot hard boiled eggs she brought me two more already peeled. And this is just one example of many. My coworker insisted on picking me up and dropping me off each day at the hotel on his way to work and another co-worker ensured I was safely in the car to head back to the airport before she went back inside to work.
Eating with your hands really is a thing. The day I left for India the kids watched a show with Martin about India. Martin later sent me a text informing me of some things I should know: In India you eat with your hands and when drinking from a bottle, the glass shouldn’t touch your lips. My very first meal with the team (India food at lunch in the office) two people mentioned that they eat (certain foods) with their hands using a tortilla-like bread. And while they didn’t agree about not touching their lips to the glass when drinking, they in fact did just that later that week at the amusement park.
Overall, the food was incredible. I couldn’t get enough and wanted to try it all, refusing nothing and telling my teams to not hold back on the spice factor.
My two teams in India (the day shift and night shift) couldn’t be more different than day and night. The day team (your standard accountants) were all vegetarians (with the exception of one) and only a few of the ten person team drank alcohol. In the complete opposite was the night shift team (the billing and analytics team) who all ate meat (with the exception of one) and all but two of the ten drank alcohol. However, not surprisingly, they are so similar in the fact that they treat each other like family and look out for one another.
With five days only in town, we did manage to have a team outing to the theme park Imagica on Thursday. It was nice to get out of the city and out of the office and see a little bit of the surrounding area. Between the breakfast stop and the entire day at the amusement park I saw only one other white person. And I got more than a few stares from the younger kids in the park which I am 99% sure was because I was the only white person within miles of the place. It was nice to feel out of my element again after so many years.
Unlike prior travels, I didn’t master the basics of the local language (hellos, goodbyes and thank yous) and I never figured out how to convert INR to USD quickly. For example, I needed to grab some cash out for tips and random things so went to the hotel lobby ATM. Even researching the exchange rate ahead of time I was confused. Not wanting to pull out too much I took out 1,000 INR or the equivalent of $15. It actually lasted through the entire trip.
And my final thoughts, while I was willing to eat almost anything thrown my way (and thankfully not suffer the consequences due mostly in part because I got prescription grade drugs before leaving San Francisco), I wasn’t completely ready to try non bottled water. As a result I unfortunately contributed more than my fair share of plastic water bottles to the ever growing plastic pollution in the world. I will need to figure out a way to offset the damage once I get home.
