round trip to india
Welcome sign at the HP CSC office
Last week I again had the opportunity to visit one of our office in Bangalore, India. As it was a very short and hectic week, I didn’t post much during my days there, only some picture and tweets using my mobile phone.
As always, a lot of things happened and I have many good stories to share along with some pictures. Do expect in the next few days some nice updates from me, either in Dutch or English.
For the people that already read my tweets and saw my pictures, more to come as I haven’t revealed all yet! 
Flooded Bangalore Airport
Because of my travels I have seen many airports. Some airports are state of the art, some are still developing. Not all of them have shops, lounges, bars etc but at least in most of them you can sit and just wait until your flight leaves.
Last Friday when I went back to the airport in Bangalore it was raining (did I already mention it was the rainy season?) and when getting closer and closer to the departure terminal I noticed that the water was rising and rising. And indeed, at the moment I had to leave the cab and go into the terminal, the water was higher then my ankles, resulting into wet shoes, wet socks and wet pants.
In the terminal I wanted to quickly pop open my suitcase and get some dry socks, although I succeeded in doing that, security wasn’t really happy with me opening my suitcase in the middle of the terminal. Luckily my Kannada was even worse then their English so by the time we finally understood each other, I already closed my suitcase.
In the lounge, there wasn’t much left then to take off my shoes and socks and hang them to dry. With the new pair of socks I at least had dry feet for the remainder of my journey.
Pictures Bangalore visit
The camera is one of most precious things when I am traveling. It allows me to either capture the experience in one frame or in a short movie clip. This all for my own memory and to help me tell my story.
As you will see, I am not on the pictures that often, only when somebody else is able to get my camera. So mostly you will see some scenery pictures.
You can find all the pictures for this trip on my Flickr-page. The movie clips can be found at Youtube. Even though you find all pictures on the Flickr-page, I still wanted to quickly list some of my favorites;
Meeting other teams
The good things from working at HP is that you get to know a lot of people. Bad thing of it is that most of the time, you will never meet the people in real live. (90% of the people I work with aren’t even in the office I am in.)
Since the moment I knew I was travelling to Bangalore, I was trying to setup meetings with most of the people that I know that work in Electronics City, Bangalore. So what you can see on the picture on the left, I also succeeded in doing that! Strangest thing is that the team on the picture, I already worked with them for 3 -- 4 years but never met them in person (except for Reuben, on my right hand side). So it as great meeting them shortly and just have a chat without having to use technology!
Now in most cities, HP has either one big building or one big campus. In Bangalore, they own/lease multiple buildings in Electronics City and guess what, nobody is in the same building. So to meet the guys in the picture, I again had to sit on the back of a motor bike and drive through traffic in Electronics City.
Luckily for me, there was very little traffic but still, the ride was bumpy
Try before you die
I always had a list of stuff I wanted to try before I die. The list itself is not really spectacular but to me, the items on it are interesting or things I just wanted to do. Some items on the list are already completed like;
- Shark cage diving
- Visiting Alcatraz
- Standing on top of table mountain
The list itself is of course never complete as I will always think of new things or come across things I have never thought of before, like riding on the back of a motor bike in Bangalore rush hour. The fact remains, people here are used to it, they are raised with the situation on the road and know how to anticipate on it. If I would drive a car or bike here, I would for sure cause accidents. Next to that, I had a great driver (Sujit!) who just made sure I was fine at all times. Also what is great is that on the road, the “jungle” rules. The ‘smallest’ person on the road is always right. So a motor bike will give way to a pedestrian, a car will give way to a motor bike and so on. But a lorry truck remains the king of the road. The truck is always right…..
Enough said, I made some short movie clips on the motor bike so you can really see the experience. Just try to imagine the wind, the dust, the heat and the excitement.
