Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Goa
I went to the Goa beach town and Mumbai this weekend. Goa has been my favorite so far, it's more relaxing and people don't bother you as much as a tourist. The best food I've had is there too because it's fresh seafood and not spicy. I had their local fish for lunch, king fish which is good. I had it with a sweet, coconut based sauce at a beach restaurant and was sitting right in front of a palm tree and the ocean. I got a good picture from my view. For dinner, I walked to another beach restaurant called Zeebop by the sea and had the Goan speciality, grilled fish with butter and garlic, very good and had a salty kick. I had it with "chips" aka french fries and basmati rice. I did sightseeing of churches and temples. It is a unique town because they were colonized by the Portugeuese and are mostly Catholic. I also found a place that does elephant rides, and only $13. They took a lot of photos of me on the elephant with my camera. I've only let 2 people use my camera for me because they're guides, so they won't run away with it. I wouldn't give it to anyone else. After morning sightseeing, I did afternoon beaches. The Indian tourist Colva beach was for adventure sports and was crowded and tacky. But I walked 20 minutes down to Benaulim beach and it is only with a few foreigners and very picturesque. I went into the ocean near my hotel and the water is very warm. I walked on the beaches too saw fishing boats. Women here go in the water fully clothed in their saris, while fat European men go in gross speedos aka banana-hammocks. The water wasn't as blue as I thought it would be, maybe because it's the Arabian Sea and not the Indian Ocean. I'll write about Mumbai next time, complete opposite enivronment of Goa.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Taj Mahal Summary
I'd post more Taj Mahal photos but the uploading here is too slow and times out a lot. The flight to Agra was full of white tourists. When we landed, there was a pre-paid taxi stand as usual that is safe to take, but this time they offered a package for round-trip taxi and drives to the Taj Mahal and Fort Agra. It was worth it since I wanted to do all of that, and it actually turned out to be a tour guide and driver as well. That was good b/c the locals swarm at you b/c it's such a tourist town. So the guide stood by me the whole time so I felt more protected. He also took pictures of me at the Taj so that was even better. Usually I can't take pictures of myself and the background b/c it's too close up with my short arms. So I got some good photos of me with the Taj.
We went to Fort Agra first which is large and has a lot of open stone rooms. Intricate stone work and the Indian army still uses half of it. It's also known as the red fort because it is mostly made of red sandstone. Very thick looking walls in the front. Then we went to the Taj Mahal for the sunset. It was crowded b/c it was the day before India's second largest holiday, the Holi festival. The Taj is definitely better in person, huge and very detailed. It took 22 years to build and the emperor built it to mourn his only wife that bore him 14 children, very romantic. Later his greedy son imprisoned him and he died, tragic. It is all white and there are no factories allowed in Agra so that it stays white. There are a lot of foreign influences in the architecture too b/c he hired different architects and flew in different materials. It has a lot of small colorful stone inlays, not paint. They restrict what visitors can see on the inside. You can see a replica of the inside tomb and 2 other small rooms, but that's about it. The mineret towers used to allow visitors but they closed that off in 1985 b/c too many people fell out to their deaths. There's also 2 other buildings to each side of the Taj. One is a mosque only opened on Fridays to worshippers. There's also a gateway building. The grounds are pretty with a lot of grass, plants, and flowers that they re-plant every season. The water reflects the building so everyone takes those photos of the Taj in the water, including me. There was also a stray dog that went into the water to cool down, and a guard chased him out, haha. He did it before I could get a picture of it. It's very hot here, 95 degrees, but everyone covers there legs. I wore pants too, but then next day I wore shorts b/c I saw other tourists wearing the same. A lot of Russian tourists here in India. I had dinner at the 5 star hotel, Oberoi Amarilas, which I wasn't that impressed for being a thousand dollars a night. The good thing here is that meals are really cheap, like $3, so there idea of really expensive meals is like $20. I had chicken tikka masala b/c an Indian friend says it's really good in India. It was, but tasted similar to Indian in the US. They give a lot of included Indian breads though.
The next day was the Holi festival and I had no idea how large an event it was. It's when they through colored powder at each other. They've done this in the Amazing Race once. Everyone is head to toe in colors, like a smurf. The guide said I shouldn't go out though b/c it's dangerous b/c they drink and drive all day starting at like noon. I was back at the hotel by then. Everything was closed but luckily the Taj wasn't, which is where I wanted to go to again in the early morning to see the sunrise. Books say to see it at both sunset and sunrise, b/c the stones glow differently in the light. I guess it looked brighter. This time, it was really empty b/c only tourists were there while locals took the day off. I explored by myself this time and was able to linger more. I took some more up close and artsy photos. I also sat down and just stared at the building from different distances to have it in my memory rather than just always taking photos. I met a Canadian-Asian guy who asked if I could take a picture of him with his camera. He's been backpacking India for 2 weeks. Then 2 random Indians with popped up collars came up to me and I thought they'd ask if I could take their picture with their camera. But they asked if they could take a picture WITH me! I was like, uh ok and they put their sunglasses on to look cool and put their hand on my shoulder, baha. That actually happened to me once in Miami too, weird. But that time I declined b/c I was in a rush. It reminds me of when Japanese girls ask to take pictures with blonde American boys.
Then I ate lunch at my hotel on the top level that had a view of the Taj in the distance. I had some good chicken and fish kabobs with naan. Probably the best food I've had yet. I've been having trouble with eating spicy all the time. Even the corn cheese grilled sandwich I had at work lunch had a kick to it! BTW, corn in sandwiches are good. The trip was short b/c I only had the weekend to go back to work in Pune, but that's really all Agra has anyways. They say not to go shopping there b/c it's a tourist rip off, plus I was tired of them all trying to sell me stuff. The tour guide also brought me to a carpet and marble store. I didn't even ask to go there, he probably gets commission. I did see a scooter/motorcycle accident and there was a big crowd of 20 people yelling at each other, on my way to the airport. When I got back, my Pune Westin hotel had actually had a Holi powder throwing event for the hotel guests in the hotel. That would've been fun if I was there, safely throwing powder and colored water at white businessmen.
We went to Fort Agra first which is large and has a lot of open stone rooms. Intricate stone work and the Indian army still uses half of it. It's also known as the red fort because it is mostly made of red sandstone. Very thick looking walls in the front. Then we went to the Taj Mahal for the sunset. It was crowded b/c it was the day before India's second largest holiday, the Holi festival. The Taj is definitely better in person, huge and very detailed. It took 22 years to build and the emperor built it to mourn his only wife that bore him 14 children, very romantic. Later his greedy son imprisoned him and he died, tragic. It is all white and there are no factories allowed in Agra so that it stays white. There are a lot of foreign influences in the architecture too b/c he hired different architects and flew in different materials. It has a lot of small colorful stone inlays, not paint. They restrict what visitors can see on the inside. You can see a replica of the inside tomb and 2 other small rooms, but that's about it. The mineret towers used to allow visitors but they closed that off in 1985 b/c too many people fell out to their deaths. There's also 2 other buildings to each side of the Taj. One is a mosque only opened on Fridays to worshippers. There's also a gateway building. The grounds are pretty with a lot of grass, plants, and flowers that they re-plant every season. The water reflects the building so everyone takes those photos of the Taj in the water, including me. There was also a stray dog that went into the water to cool down, and a guard chased him out, haha. He did it before I could get a picture of it. It's very hot here, 95 degrees, but everyone covers there legs. I wore pants too, but then next day I wore shorts b/c I saw other tourists wearing the same. A lot of Russian tourists here in India. I had dinner at the 5 star hotel, Oberoi Amarilas, which I wasn't that impressed for being a thousand dollars a night. The good thing here is that meals are really cheap, like $3, so there idea of really expensive meals is like $20. I had chicken tikka masala b/c an Indian friend says it's really good in India. It was, but tasted similar to Indian in the US. They give a lot of included Indian breads though.
The next day was the Holi festival and I had no idea how large an event it was. It's when they through colored powder at each other. They've done this in the Amazing Race once. Everyone is head to toe in colors, like a smurf. The guide said I shouldn't go out though b/c it's dangerous b/c they drink and drive all day starting at like noon. I was back at the hotel by then. Everything was closed but luckily the Taj wasn't, which is where I wanted to go to again in the early morning to see the sunrise. Books say to see it at both sunset and sunrise, b/c the stones glow differently in the light. I guess it looked brighter. This time, it was really empty b/c only tourists were there while locals took the day off. I explored by myself this time and was able to linger more. I took some more up close and artsy photos. I also sat down and just stared at the building from different distances to have it in my memory rather than just always taking photos. I met a Canadian-Asian guy who asked if I could take a picture of him with his camera. He's been backpacking India for 2 weeks. Then 2 random Indians with popped up collars came up to me and I thought they'd ask if I could take their picture with their camera. But they asked if they could take a picture WITH me! I was like, uh ok and they put their sunglasses on to look cool and put their hand on my shoulder, baha. That actually happened to me once in Miami too, weird. But that time I declined b/c I was in a rush. It reminds me of when Japanese girls ask to take pictures with blonde American boys.
Then I ate lunch at my hotel on the top level that had a view of the Taj in the distance. I had some good chicken and fish kabobs with naan. Probably the best food I've had yet. I've been having trouble with eating spicy all the time. Even the corn cheese grilled sandwich I had at work lunch had a kick to it! BTW, corn in sandwiches are good. The trip was short b/c I only had the weekend to go back to work in Pune, but that's really all Agra has anyways. They say not to go shopping there b/c it's a tourist rip off, plus I was tired of them all trying to sell me stuff. The tour guide also brought me to a carpet and marble store. I didn't even ask to go there, he probably gets commission. I did see a scooter/motorcycle accident and there was a big crowd of 20 people yelling at each other, on my way to the airport. When I got back, my Pune Westin hotel had actually had a Holi powder throwing event for the hotel guests in the hotel. That would've been fun if I was there, safely throwing powder and colored water at white businessmen.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Taj Mahal this weekend!
Going to the Taj Mahal this Saturday and Sunday! Looking forward to taking lots of pictures and seeing how giant and beautiful it is. The popular places are the Taj Mahal of course, Fort Agra, and I'm going to eat dinner and sightsee at the Oberoi Amarvilas. Room rates there start at $600 a night, up to the thousands! Dinner was recommended by the NY Times and entrees are a more reasonable $10-30. Hopefully there will be some good shopping vendors there too. Work pays for all my hotels here even if I'm travelling on the weekend. And I think they pay for most of my flights too since I can't "go home" every weekend. It's called flex trips and I just pay the taxes. If they can't reimburse me, that's ok, b/c then I'm just paying for personal weekend flights.
The Accenture Pune is in a gated IT community, but still some dirt roads and ok infrastructure. The building itself is pretty decent. The 16 person team is very nice and they take me to the cafeteria for lunch, which is really the only place to go b/c the surrounding area is empty. Lunch is 30 rupees, which is like 70 cents! Mostly vegetarian and they have fruit which I am so tempted to eat everywhere. Only peelable fruit for me though. But they have lots of curry, spiced food, rice, naan and roti type bread. They are all right out of college except for the supervisor who I am on the same level with. Surpringly a quarter women on the team, but the rest of the building is heavily male. They took me on a stroll outside after lunch around the building. They are from different places in the country but leave in apartments near work now since they were placed at this office.
I eat whatever Indian cooked food that looks good and write down what it is if it's labelled at the hotel. The included breakfast is awesome in a beautiful restaurant called Spice Kitchen, both Indian and American food. And freshed squeezed juices, like orange, pineapple, watermelon, a delight. I've eaten medu wada, aloo paratha, poori, rice congee, aloo bhaji, pongal, sambhar, and idli. It's buffet style so I just get a little of everything. Not eating Indian 3 times a day anymore b/c it gets old, so eating continental food too a little bit. It would be different if it were Vietnam, I could eat that all the time. But a lot of India reminds me of Vietnam, in terms of 3rd world but still good cultural aspects.
Looking forward to weekends when I can actually get out and do fun touristy things. Scheduling my next weekend trip to Goa beach town, and I think my last weekend will be Mumbai. I want to visit some temples. I brought a head scarf at the advice of a friend, and hope to see colorful scarves to bring home too. Don't know how I'm gonna fit much in my full suitcase though. Wanna ride an elephant like another friend suggested, but don't think I'll have time to visit a reserve. The Holi Festival is this weekend. According to Wikitravel, it's the Spring Festival of India with lots of colors. It welcomes spring and wins the blessings of Gods for good harvests and fertility of the land. It's the second most important festival in India after Diwali. Said to be full of fun, frolic, and exhuberance. They throw colored powder each other and one guy told me they even fill balloons with the powder to hit people with.
In the mornings I eat breakfast outside near the waterfall walls and sometimes sit by the pool until the hotel car takes me to the office. Most of the people are older here but there was one cute young guy with glasses and we were the only ones sitting outside. The only sucky thing is the hotel's 45 minutes away with all this traffic and I'm getting the worst motion sickness from the stop-and-go. I asked to be driven in a van tomorrow b/c that's the only car I haven't gotten nautious in, and I'll ask to sit in the front. Still trying to get fully onto Indian time, I'd say I'm half way there. Gotta force myself to sleep on a regular pattern.
The Accenture Pune is in a gated IT community, but still some dirt roads and ok infrastructure. The building itself is pretty decent. The 16 person team is very nice and they take me to the cafeteria for lunch, which is really the only place to go b/c the surrounding area is empty. Lunch is 30 rupees, which is like 70 cents! Mostly vegetarian and they have fruit which I am so tempted to eat everywhere. Only peelable fruit for me though. But they have lots of curry, spiced food, rice, naan and roti type bread. They are all right out of college except for the supervisor who I am on the same level with. Surpringly a quarter women on the team, but the rest of the building is heavily male. They took me on a stroll outside after lunch around the building. They are from different places in the country but leave in apartments near work now since they were placed at this office.
I eat whatever Indian cooked food that looks good and write down what it is if it's labelled at the hotel. The included breakfast is awesome in a beautiful restaurant called Spice Kitchen, both Indian and American food. And freshed squeezed juices, like orange, pineapple, watermelon, a delight. I've eaten medu wada, aloo paratha, poori, rice congee, aloo bhaji, pongal, sambhar, and idli. It's buffet style so I just get a little of everything. Not eating Indian 3 times a day anymore b/c it gets old, so eating continental food too a little bit. It would be different if it were Vietnam, I could eat that all the time. But a lot of India reminds me of Vietnam, in terms of 3rd world but still good cultural aspects.
Looking forward to weekends when I can actually get out and do fun touristy things. Scheduling my next weekend trip to Goa beach town, and I think my last weekend will be Mumbai. I want to visit some temples. I brought a head scarf at the advice of a friend, and hope to see colorful scarves to bring home too. Don't know how I'm gonna fit much in my full suitcase though. Wanna ride an elephant like another friend suggested, but don't think I'll have time to visit a reserve. The Holi Festival is this weekend. According to Wikitravel, it's the Spring Festival of India with lots of colors. It welcomes spring and wins the blessings of Gods for good harvests and fertility of the land. It's the second most important festival in India after Diwali. Said to be full of fun, frolic, and exhuberance. They throw colored powder each other and one guy told me they even fill balloons with the powder to hit people with.
In the mornings I eat breakfast outside near the waterfall walls and sometimes sit by the pool until the hotel car takes me to the office. Most of the people are older here but there was one cute young guy with glasses and we were the only ones sitting outside. The only sucky thing is the hotel's 45 minutes away with all this traffic and I'm getting the worst motion sickness from the stop-and-go. I asked to be driven in a van tomorrow b/c that's the only car I haven't gotten nautious in, and I'll ask to sit in the front. Still trying to get fully onto Indian time, I'd say I'm half way there. Gotta force myself to sleep on a regular pattern.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Arrived in Pune
landed in pune after the 30 minute domestic flight from mumbai this morning. the are 2 separate security lines for men and women, which is awesome because the women's line is so short. from the car ride, pune seems cleaner than mumbai. still lots of traffic with cars inches away from each other. even though it's short distances, it takes a long time to get anywhere b/c of congestion. my office is 7 miles away but they said it'll take 45 minutes to get there.
they let me rest today since i'm jet lagged, and go into work tomorrow morning. free wi-fi in my room is great so i can function normally. this pune marriott is even better than the mumbai one and cheaper since it's in a smaller city. the service is very good, they even took my picture so the staff knows me since i'm here for a month. one person already recognized me and said my name. it might be a little too polite though b/c everyone feels the need to talk to me and do things for me. the hotel's gated and they do security for everyone who comes in.
i get free breakfast and executive lounge access with continental/indian happy hour food. there's enough food that i could just eat free dinner there, but i won't every day so i can eat real indian food too. eating at the hotel's 3 restaurants and pretty cheap indian room service might be easier though b/c i'll have to take cars to go to specific restaurants in the city. maybe it will be easier if i do it right after work. the mini-bananas are delish, which is good because i can only eat the fruit that is peelable and that's difficult to remember when i see raw vegetables and fruit that i want to eat but can't. they even had a "vietnamese spring roll." i've been collecting water bottles for drinking, brushing my teeth, and washing my face. i have like 6 in my room.
i met a person at the lounge b/c we were the only 2 people eating there at 8pm. his name is alister from scotland but lives in san fran with his wife, who has 2 vietnamese adopted brothers. he owns an outsourcing company and one of his clients is yelp. he's here for 2 months and prob in his 40s. any younger single ones? i explored the hotel. the outdoor pool is also very nice and has great padded lounge chairs, so i will lay out there some times. i prob won't be in pune on weekends, so i'll go in the morning or after work. i'm planning to go back to the hotel pretty early after work so i'm not in the city by myself when it's late. the hotel's driving me to work, so i can prob arrange for them to pick me up everyday too. there's a nightclub which i heard funny indian dance music coming out of for a convention party. there's supposed to be a rooftop restaurant opening up, i hope while i'm here. the hotel's actually very new, opened in november 2010. this was prob more info than you wanted to know, but the blogs are a good memory saver for me too. good night.
they let me rest today since i'm jet lagged, and go into work tomorrow morning. free wi-fi in my room is great so i can function normally. this pune marriott is even better than the mumbai one and cheaper since it's in a smaller city. the service is very good, they even took my picture so the staff knows me since i'm here for a month. one person already recognized me and said my name. it might be a little too polite though b/c everyone feels the need to talk to me and do things for me. the hotel's gated and they do security for everyone who comes in.
i get free breakfast and executive lounge access with continental/indian happy hour food. there's enough food that i could just eat free dinner there, but i won't every day so i can eat real indian food too. eating at the hotel's 3 restaurants and pretty cheap indian room service might be easier though b/c i'll have to take cars to go to specific restaurants in the city. maybe it will be easier if i do it right after work. the mini-bananas are delish, which is good because i can only eat the fruit that is peelable and that's difficult to remember when i see raw vegetables and fruit that i want to eat but can't. they even had a "vietnamese spring roll." i've been collecting water bottles for drinking, brushing my teeth, and washing my face. i have like 6 in my room.
i met a person at the lounge b/c we were the only 2 people eating there at 8pm. his name is alister from scotland but lives in san fran with his wife, who has 2 vietnamese adopted brothers. he owns an outsourcing company and one of his clients is yelp. he's here for 2 months and prob in his 40s. any younger single ones? i explored the hotel. the outdoor pool is also very nice and has great padded lounge chairs, so i will lay out there some times. i prob won't be in pune on weekends, so i'll go in the morning or after work. i'm planning to go back to the hotel pretty early after work so i'm not in the city by myself when it's late. the hotel's driving me to work, so i can prob arrange for them to pick me up everyday too. there's a nightclub which i heard funny indian dance music coming out of for a convention party. there's supposed to be a rooftop restaurant opening up, i hope while i'm here. the hotel's actually very new, opened in november 2010. this was prob more info than you wanted to know, but the blogs are a good memory saver for me too. good night.
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