Electricity

Electricity is something we tend to take for granted in most places in the world.  Not so much in India!
The electricity goes out inexplicably at least a dozen times per day here, sometimes for hours on end.  I am fairly lucky because where I spend all of my time, the hotel and the office, there are back up generators.  These kick in within 10 to 60 seconds if the power goes out so that I am not left in the dark for too long.  Not so for a lot of the people living and working here without back up power.  In the papers, I daily read about the lack of power in Bangalore (and most other parts of the country). It is a common complaint with everyone here.  Upcoming scheduled outages are often published in the papers, but there are many more unscheduled outages that occur on a daily basis.

It has taken some getting use to, but now the outages do not faze me too too much. At least at work, the lights go out for a minute or so, but the computers are rigged to be never without power so that work is not interrupted.  This is not the case at the hotel.  I have lost count how many times I have lost power at the hotel while on the computer.  The computer automatically shuts down - this is due to the fact that the battery is completely shot and the computer needs to be plugged in at all times to work!  It takes me at least 5 -10 minutes to get back up and running again.

Then there is the TV at the hotel.  Now that the Olympics are over, I have not had the TV on as much, but it takes about 1 to 2 minutes for the TV to reset itself and for me to get back to the channel I was previously on.  Very annoying as well.

But worst of all are the elevators!  So far I have been caught three times in the elevator when the power went out.  Twice at the hotel and once at work.  Being stuck in a pitch black elevator, even for a minute is not a pleasant experience.  I swear I dropped about a meter in the elevator the other day.  I was alone in the elevator going up and everything went black and I felt it fall.  Fortunately it stopped itself and then took about minute to recalibrate itself and then had to go down and start over at the lobby level.  A little freaky to say the least.  I would take the stairs everywhere if I could, but because of security concerns the hotel staff does not like you to take the stairs at all and at work you can only take them down - which I do.

My work week

Just finished my first week at the office! This week went by very quickly and very slowly at the same time. There was a lot of material that was covered, but the team did a very good job and seemed to catch on very well. 8-9 hours each day at the office plus many hours before and after getting ready - I am pretty tired now.

Some interesting notes made this week:

Security is very high in Bangalore. At least at the hotel and the office. The hotel is gated and there is security that checks under the car and also inside the car every time we drive in. We have to pass through a scanner whenever coming into the hotel. The office has a security check to get into the complex and security men at every floor in the building.

Food is really cheap - lunch at the food court is about 40-60INR or less than $2CND.
Dinner at the hotel restaurant is about $10CND (without alcohol). Breakfast is free as it is included in the room rate. You might be interested to know that my chocolate consumption has decreased quite a bit. With the change in eating schedule, I just don't feel like eating as much - shocking, I know.

At the office they have staff where their only duty is to make tea or coffee on demand. You are not allowed to make it yourself.

There is no tipping anywhere here that I have seen.

Here is a picture of me, my driver Narayan, and Marc-A (MAM). MAM is here for two weeks from the Montreal office to work with me on training the team. Also MAM and some of the offshore team trying to stay awake!

My Digs

Vivanta by Taj is the hotel I am staying at and I am told it is quite a modern hotel for India. Not that I have much to compare it to but, but I would have to agree. I quite like the aesthetics.

I tried the gym and the pool today. The pool which you can see in the background is just over 20 metres - which is great because it is quite big for a hotel pool. However my swim today has me a little worried as the water was freezing! I was determined to swim for half an hour and really had to force myself to stay in that long. The temperature outside was about 27, but the water temp must have been about 17. Next time I will try to go when the sun is shining on the water and not when it is in the shade like it was today. I was so cold afterwards that I couldn't stop shaking and ended up going to the gym to spin on a bike to warm up!

My room is small but big enough for me, and comfortable. This is the view from my room. There is a big field beside the hotel and from what I could determine a group of men spent the whole day bending piles of straight rebar so that it could be loaded onto trucks. Not the best view, but at least it is not looking straight into another highrise. I went wandering on the other side of the hotel where there is a small industrial park with some large office towers and a mall that contains many odd stores - mostly composed of banks, food kiosks and other odds and ends to cater to the office workers I suppose. The Aon office is not in this area, but will see how it compares when I go on Monday.

Made it to India!

Got into Bangalore just before 2:00am - about 24 hours after leaving Vancouver. My driver as promised was there to greet me and whisk me off to the hotel.. Actually the airport is about an hour away from the hotel so I didn't really feel whisked!

I was pretty tired from travelling for 24 hours without much sleep, but managed to notice that even though the traffic was quite light, for that time of the night at least, my driver had to concentrate on his driving more than answer all of my questions. The drivers (mostly trucks at that time) like to drive in between lanes and about 25% of them did not have any back lights! Did see quite a few of the wild dogs I was warned about roaming around. They actually don't look that wild, just homeless and harmless, but then again I didn't get to close to them.

Have now slept for a bit and am off to go wander. Probably won't wander too far today, just get myself acclimatized to the heat and humidity. The hotel is on the outskirts of an industrial park. There are some shops around which I will go check out and perhaps use the pool and fitness facilities later.