Tuesday, May 9, 2006

India wrap-up

Overall, I didn't get a chance to see as much as I would have liked; the already compressed schedule got further compressed by arriving a day late, and the very hot weather (42-45).

I was _very_ impressed with the caliber of students in my class. They were bright, well educated, and motivated -- this made for a great class experience, and we had a lot of fun. The food was good, and all the people I met (well, except for the shopkeepers and hawkers) were very nice. Indians seem very protective of Westerners; they expressed
constant concern that the weather or the food might be hotter than I could take.

I was truly impressed with the industriousness and resilience of the Indian people. No matter how poor, it seemed everyone was working hard to raise their situation. Everyone is a businessman; we could learn a thing or two about capitalism from them. And my god, there are a lot of people there. Everywhere you went, even outside the city, it seemed to have the population density of Grand Central Station.

The roads are mind boggling. A mix of cars, scooters, bikes, bicycle taxis, mini taxis, and cows, all going different speeds and sometimes different directions. Clearly they play this game by different rules.

I took a day trip to Agra and saw the Taj and the Agra Fort, and got one afternoon in Delhi to do some additional sightseeing and shopping. Unfortunately, I managed to get a spot of Delhi Belly on the last day, which lessened my motivation to leave the hotel for further sightseeing. And man, was it hot. 42-45C (110-115F) in the shade. Power outages were frequent; every day the paper reported the net power shortfall.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for visiting India. But you visited the wrong place (Delhi) during this time of the year. You should have asked your customer to arrange for the class in Bangalore. Temperatures reach a maximum of 80F in Bangalore in summer. But there is no Jaipur or Taj Mahal nearby.

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