India without sleep

I was on the morning flight to Frankfurt, then a quick plane change to get on my way to India. A busy schedule ahead and a 2 week trip away. Flying with Magnus on a business trip to promote TagMaster meet partners and attend an exhibition. The flight was comfy as were flying business for a change, so we have time to eat and discuss the plans for the coming weeks ahead. We’ve had to make some last minute changes to our schedule due to a water-right strike being threatened in Bangalore. We land in New Delhi later than planned and don’t get to the airport hotel until 3 in the morning… then up again at 7 to catch an early flight to Hyderabad. By the end of the day I’m so tired I can hardly stay awake in our meeting. The landscape in Hyderabad is interesting with a mixture of round boulder outcrops and small hills. The lake next to their office has a heard of water buffalo taking a dip…the farmers stand and watch them, and the cars and workers rush by in some strange contrast to the relaxing heard, this is India… with its constant mixture of life styles.
We have another early start with a 7:40 flight to Bangalore. This is a very busy city with smaller streets and the usual mixture of cars and cattle, poor people and rich, all massing around in a constant horn tooting chaos. We get collected at the airport and go straight to our first meeting, then on to IBM for another meeting before going back to the hotel. Get just a short time for catching up on mail and then off to dinner with our partners. Another early flight to Ahmadabad and I’m beginning to get very tired of this week already. First meeting with our partner, Rajesh, who’s a very friendly guy, and we also have dinner in the hotel that evening with all his family and parents. In the evening I finally get round to re-organising my various blog stuff and start my new private diary blog. Post a new list for Caro, who’s very happy with its content. We haven’t had much contact so far with the time difference and work. On the Sunday I finally get a break and sleep in till 11. Go for a swim in the pool and sit in the sun until 1, when we meet Rajesh again and he and his wife take us to lunch with two friends of theirs. It’s a very traditional Indian vegetarian curry and the food is excellent. Then we visit a Muslim Mosque from the 13 centaury and a fantastic Hindi Temple with its incredibly intricate stone carvings and shrines.
I manage to talk a bit on the Sunday with Caro, as were ending a quick tour to the place where Gandhi lived and worked by the river. Its very tranquil here and you can imagine how he managed to write his thoughts here. It’s good to hear Caro’s voice and I wish I could get right on a plane to Köln… hmm still a week to go before we will meet again.