QATAR - Doha (2008)

Doha: 15.11.2008

This was a short tour of three days and that too to a GCC country in the neighbourhood, so I thought a day-by-day and blow-by-blow account would stretch the patience of the reader a bit. I guess a collage of impressions would suffice.

Qatar is a small country and oil-rich. The average Qatari, one a population of mere 300,000, is quite well-to-do. Almost every Qatari owns a Land Cruiser or, lately, a Nissan Patrol. The older Qataris, ie 60 years and above, have old-world courtesy and the two I met in the course of business were well-educated, rich and very polite. However, it seems the younger set (below 40) is very arrogant. They have not really seen poverty and the collective golden spoon seems to them part of the cultural physique.

I did not have enough time to get into the history of Qatar, but culturally Oman seems to be a better bet, more full of traditional values and practices. Okay, let’s consider Doha as a city. By square km, smaller than Muscat, but more spread out, chock-a-block with traffic. It takes three tries to clear a signal. If you look at the architecture, the office area sports skyscrapers, which look ultra-functional, a robotic tower of metal and glass reflecting the bright Arab sun. Either rectangular or circular. I did not find any hint of Arab influence at all. Moreover they looked dead to me. It’s like a lot of money handed over to an architectural firm and told to make a latest-American office. Apart from being congested, the roads are not well-maintained at many places. Parking is tight. However, driving on the roads, one gets the eerie feeling of there being lots of cars and no men!

We had only an hour of a drive-around in terms of sightseeing. The Cornice was nice, like marine drive, U-shaped, and the tall towers visible on the other side remind one of Dubai creek or the Sharjah cornice. There are areas that remind one of Ruwi High Street as well.

The Islamic Museum was being inaugurated on the 22nd, the day I arrived, and the city was full of security and traffic was unusually slow. There were a number of Arab dignitaries from other countries as well as various diplomats present in town. This has been my luck on various occasions. Today, as I am leaving, the Jordanian King is landing.

Weather in Doha was pretty nice – 29/21. Our hotel Ramada Plaza had a few eateries around – KFC, Caravan, Pizza hut, Dairy Queen etc, so we were never stuck for variety in food. We patronised the hotel restaurants as well and found both the Indian as well as the Chinese pretty good. The hotel was also top-notch (at RO 100 per day it had better be!). We used to be quite busy right from 9.00 am to 9.00 pm, with a 2-hour break in the middle and so the hotel amenities remained unutilised. The Salsa classes had looked particularly interesting …..

Taxis were a difficulty. The ‘blue’ taxis, belonging to the only transport company called ‘Karwa’ were very scantily spread, the hotel limos were very costly, and the all-day taxis we tried to fix privately kept on taking off at intervals to do other errands.

Like Oman, Malayalis abound here, in all walks of business and especially in spare parts. I was quite excluded from the business discussions at most places as my colleague Krishnan, who was fluent both in Malayalam and Tamil, used the ethnic line to build rapport. There are also a number of Phillippinos in business and Sri Lankans in salaried positions. Apparently Qatar govt has currently stopped issuing employment visas to Indians.

Here also, people have the tendency of overstaying. A number of the Indian managers we met were here for 10-20 years, the loyal servant. The Qatari boss is apparently not very business-savvy. He likes to fling money around for building another structure or buying a business, but may be stingy in paying for material purchased. One of the Qatari arbaap we met was just happy that his business was employing 25 ex-pats and their families. In this scenario, no doubt dependable ex-pats are required.

Qatar has become extremely costly in the last three years or so. Rents especially have become 10 times !! A small shop (‘shutter’ as they call it) will have a monthly rent of QR 20,000 in the industrial area (ie RO 2,000). Even residential rent has become 3-4 times and are wiping out the savings of a lot of ex-pats. Those Qataris who own land or built-up structures have become even richer. There is one chap who owns a few supermarkets whose monthly income is QR 10 million.

Bottomline – Qatar is like a noveu-rich Oman.

BANGLADESH - Dhaka/Chittagong (2008)

Dhaka:  21.10.2008

We spent last night in Kolkata at our house. It was indeed a good opportunity to meet my parents, albeit for a few waking hours only. Caught up on their latest treatments as well. Easwar stayed with me, sharing the bed.

We had an early-morning flight today morning at 7.00 am, which meant we left house by 4.15 am, startling the crows. Stopped on the way at Salt Lake to meet Panna’s mother and hand over a few gifts that I was carrying. She was very happy that I had visited practically their old homestead. I gave her a japa-mala made of jade beads.

We checked into Dhaka Sheraton with very little sleep under our belt, so crashed for an hour before getting ready and visiting the market. Dhaka is still the same younger Kolkata sort of place. Only the traffic is terribly congested and unruly now. However, there are some improvements as well. Rickshaws have been banned from a lot of roads. All autos are on CNG. A number of cars are of CNG as well, and I could feel the lessening of pollution compared to my visit 5 years ago. Running cost of CNG in city traffic seems to be around 2 taka per km against a pertrol consumption of around 4 taka per km. More smart youngsters on the streets. More restaurants to eat at (and not just Chinese).......

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Our evenings here are likely to be full. As it is the customers are open till 8.00 pm. At 8.30, our scheduled dinner host will land up promptly, straight from the shop, giving us just enough time to change into T-shirt and slippers. Today we went to a Thai/Chinese/Indian joint and ate Chinese and Indian mixed up.

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As expected, the people are fairly thrilled that I speak Bengali and open up immediately with issues that they would not have shared otherwise. The flip side is that they would have booked all our meals if they could and we could reduce the number only by skipping lunch every day and saving the appetite for dinner. After interacting so much in Bengali, I was getting infected by the sing-song intonation!

Dhaka:  22.10.2008

Working day here is more of ‘walking’ day, as the market is close to the hotel, so we go walking, and there also we walk around from shop to shop. Good in a way, as the exercise burns off the breakfast calories, as well as the calories in the 7-Up cans that we are sometimes lovingly wrapped around. Bengalis are very serious about hospitality, whether there is any business coming forth or not, and consider it a major mishap if a guest goes away from the premises without taking ‘something’.

Today also our day ended at 8.15 pm and our dinner hosts arrived at the hotel at 8.35 pm to take us to a ‘Chinese’ dinner which took place in Santoor – a totally Indian joint. Food was excellent. There was a local group of dealers around 8 in number who well all customers of our host, so he was probably showing off them to us and vice versa.

Tomorrow afternoon we plan to fly to Chittagong and return the following night.

Chittagong:  23.10.2008

Morning was a bit of catching up and revision work in the market. Our flight was at 4.00 pm and in spite of all the buffers that we had built in, we found that we had finally checked out of our hotel and boarded the taxi at 2.45 pm, expecting the journey to take around 45 mins! Anyway, the good news is that we caught the flight. It was a stressful period, though.
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A small propeller-driven plane, some clouds, green fields, muddy river Karnafuli, and we were landing at Chittagong one hour later. The customer’s car met us. Chittagong is also fairly challenged traffically and the jam started from the airport. The drive to this guy’s office had once taken 3.5 hours! However, today seemed to be an average day and we took only an hour for a road that should have taken 20-25 mins on a free day.

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While driving down, I had serious doubts about visiting Cox Bazaar tomorrow morning and driving back the same day to catch the 9.00 pm flight to Dhaka. CB is 4 hours driving distance and a total tooting around of 10 hours was not my idea of a holiday, even though CB did sport the longest beach in Asia (some 80 km of it). So what – you can’t see 80 km at a stretch anyway. So we cooked up a story about my needing to be in office on Saturday morning, in which case I needed to catch the night flight from Dhaka tomorrow night instead of day after, so could our tickets to Dhaka also be preponed to mid-day tomorrow? Our escort in the car obliged and even before we had reached the customer’s place, we had talked to our office in Muscat as well and re-aligned our departure.

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Chittangong visit was reduced to a 2-hour discussion and a visit to the premises. Peninsula Hotel 12th floor gave us a good view of the roads of Chittagong. We had dinner at the hotel itself and went to sleep anticipating a non-working day tomorrow.

Dhaka:  24.10.2008

The morning was a relaxed affair, thanks to the revised schedule that dropped the Cox Bazaar trip. Our customer was still disappointed (“Kichhui korte paarlaam na…”). A leisurely morning of report-writing followed by a leisurely drive to the airport along roads that were thankfully sparsely used today, being a Friday. The last approach to the airport is actually along a narrow single-track road that winds through hutments. And this for an international airport! Our aircraft was still the same propeller-driven one, with the air-hostess still serving biscuits and juice only. We landed in a wet Dhaka, where the temperature had gone down by at least 5 degrees.

.We had lunch at Sheraton itself. Easwar was still trying to avoid the people who were trying to get us for dinner, saying that we were still at Chittagong and were flying back only by the 5.00 pm flight and Mr Rajat certainly cannot attend any dinner-shinner and for himself he will confirm. We wanted to keep some time free for shopping and went to ‘Vasundhara’, a truly impressive mall near Sherton, 7 stories high with a full-fledged Cineplex and food-court. Being a Friday, the place was like a railway-station with the escalators groaning under the load of people coming in. We bought some Tangail sarees, which was a fast affair by women’s standards, but for us the half-hour spent was a very high level of commitment. Also picked up the ‘Friends’ series (copies of course). Bangladesh copies are supposed to be good.

.Easwar could not get his schedule preponed and is leaving next day. There is enough to occupy him still. He had scared me with his earlier experience of long security queues in Dhaka and I arrived in the airport with a fairly good safety factor of 2.5 hours. Picked up a collection of novels by Humayun, a famous writer of Bangladesh as per the shop-keeper.

.Signing off at the Emirates business lounge at Dhaka.
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MYANMAR - Yangon/Pegu (2008)

Yangaon: 17.10.2008

Even from the air, the countryside of Burma (sounds so much better than Myanmar) looked a lot like Bengal, although the latitude is more like Madras. Green, with lots of single-story houses. Although boasting of a swanky new airport inaugurated early this year, the roads remain simple, the vehicles very old and the tuk-tuks overcrowded..

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.What reminds one again of Calcutta are the old British government buildings, made of red brick, placed in huge compounds. Unfortunately, after the official capital was shifted to Napido (70 km away) some time ago, all the buildings are in heavy disuse, overrun by shrubbery and put up for lease. Apparently the Chinese are bidding for all of them.

Burma has a military government for the last 26 years. “The old general doesn’t die also”, exclaimed our customer. Although the junta government has ensured ‘safe streets’, the development of Burmese people in terms of education, or of industry in Burma is at a very poor stage. Its comprehensive range of imports is supported by export of fish, teak and precious stones. Its relationships are strong with Russia, India, China, Kuwait – ie whichever country not in the lap of the US. In fact, after the cyclone, the government had refused aid from UN and managed to revive based on funds from the business community.

Like Bangkok, Yangon was hot and sultry. People here said that the climate of Yangon area has changed after the big cyclone last year that wiped out around 70% of the trees in the region. After that both heat and dust have gone up in the city.

Overall the people are friendly, and quite good-looking. Cost of living is not very high, but availability of essential commodities sometimes becomes a problem. Like I mentioned earlier, cooking oil may suddenly vanish. Petrol and diesel are of poor quality and regularly spoil carburettors and oil-pumps. But a very peaceful place otherwise. The hotel we have put up in, Kandawgyi Palace is actually like a palace and situated by a lake; so the view from the window is really very nice. But there are only two other 5-stars here, one of which is a branch of this one.

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.Panna’s mother’s family had migrated to India from Burma during the Japanese aggression. They used to live in Pegu, a city 40 km (around 1 hour drive) away from Rangoon. Will try to pay a visit on Sunday and take some photos of the current Pegu.

After one customer visit in the morning, we came back to the hotel and had a Thai/Burmese lunch. Everything very tasty but also very spicy. I had, in a misplaced spirit of bravado, ordered a dish prepared in ‘hot chilly sauce’. Hoo-hoo. “Spicy, no?” asked the waitress sympathetically, not at all deceived by our jolly grinning faces, and replaced our sodden napkins with fresh ones.

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We were picked up by a second customer after lunch for business discussions. He was of Chinese origin. More than half the population of Myanmar constitute people of Chinese and Indian origin. Prior to 1980, Indian population dominated. However, after the current junta government took over and most of the infrastructure was nationalised, a large chunk of the Indians left, who were in service in various departments here. Even in the current business community, Indians are just behind Chinese, with Burmese a poor third minority. There are around a 100 Bengali families still living here (told by a Gujrati friend, whose community had only 15 families left). The new Indian ambassador is also a Bengali (Alok Sen).

Yangaon: 18.10.2008

During the day, Yangon’s seams came out a little more. Dilapidated buildings, bumpy roads, ill-lit streets. Not that Myanmar’s revenues are dwindling. Around 10 billion USD per year from exports of gas, timber and jewels. However, it is mostly consumed by the military generals. There is also a strong ‘license raj’ in process. Licences to import are issued to only select few companies who then sell them for premiums to those wishing to import. The item whose control is heaven right now are new cars (import of used cars have been banned) and these licenses are held by a few people in government who hand them out as favours or even as a substitute for cash. Import prices of cars in Burma are 3 times higher than normal. Even GSM connections cost USD 2500 and are permit-based!......

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We visited the largest used-part market in the world. Around 10,000 sqm, with a variety ranging from small tail-lights to full-engines for trucks. Our Chinese customer is also a vehicle-manufacturer. From import of used components he is manufacturing a perfectly serviceable ‘Dagon Jeep’ of 2000 cc capacity! As it is, most of the vehicles on the road are 10-20 years old, due to the import problems, and are veritable rattletraps in the bargain. These small colourful jeeps (costing 10,000 dollars) make a very important fashion statement around here.

We were taken by a Tamilian-origin customer to an Indian restaurant and were treated to an excellent dinner. Although Easwar and I stuck to veg out of choice, it was a welcome relief. Our Tamil host spoke Tamil and Burmese. He was okay with Easwar. He had with him a Gujrati friend/partner, who was speaking Hindi and Burmese, and took care of me. Between themselves, our hosts spoke only Burmese! We also visited a very old Perumal temple, renovated recently, and offered puja for our families. The Burmese government are fairly sympathetic towards the religious practices of Hindus and there are 3-4 temples, including one for Durga Mata, where Dussera was celebrated mightily recently. Comparatively, Muslim religions do not receive as much sympathy, as per our hosts.

Pegu: 19.10.2008

Today was a Sunday, one that we had deliberately put aside for sight-seeing (not that we do not do it on working days, if it comes our way).

Today was a scheduled visit to Pegu (or Pago or Bago), around 60 km from Yangon. Apart from the fact that Panna’s mother lived there when she was young, before the family fled to India at the time of Japanese aggression, Pegu is well-known for its pagodas. In fact, Pegu and Tatho, an ancient port town around 200 km away, were the first places where Buddhist settlers from India landed and propagated the Buddhist culture. The area was originally called Suvarnabhumi and was an extremely rich place, fertile, full of precious stones, and the kings who greeted Buddha on his visit are depicted as bedecked in jewels and sitting in elaborate courts and palaces. Some of the palaces still exist, of course. These areas also had large Indian settlements (non-Buddhist as well). Myanmar is said to have more than 50,000 pagodas, big and small, and lower Myanmar, where the erstwhile Suvarnabhumi is situated, has the lion’s share. Buddhist spread to upper Myanmar slowly, along the river banks. While the statues of Buddha in upper Burma (closer to the Indian border) are mostly standing, those in lower Burma are mostly ‘sleeping’ or actually lying down with eyes wide open. There is one near Tatho that is 300 ft long and 75 ft high and has five stories inside.

We visited 5 pagodas in Pegu, the most famous ones, with varying architecture, some with domes and some without, some with sleeping buddhas and some sitting. In Pegu actually there are 3 big sleeping Buddhas – Diamond, Gold and Ruby. All the structures use the gold colour generously and they have mostly been renovated of course, where the original structure is left untouched, it shows up as a simple brick structure with vegetation growing out of it.
v Shwe Maw Daw
v Sein Tha Laung (sleeping – diamond)
v Double bird pagoda
v Mya Tha Laung (sleeping – gold)
v Min Tha Gone

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In all the places, families were arriving in their tuktuk buses (that is, Hilux with benches fixed to the back loading bed and stuffed to the gills with smiling Burmese). This being a Sunday, pagodas were sort of places of picnic and families were happily laying out tiffin carriers. Really, seeing pagodas were hot work and the tiles were gradually growing hotter. We called it a day and returned to Yangon.

Panna’s mother’s family were staying in a place that sounded like New Le Bin and meant ‘four banyan trees’. Our friend could not locate it exactly but said that the last two pagodas that we visited were in that general area and localities there were named after trees. The old house was not expected to be there now anyway.

We returned to Yangon and had lunch at the buffet set out in the Traders Hotel where Sunday was a special buffet day. Indeed the spread was fantastic, from oriental to continental to a bit of Indian as well. We sampled everything (except sushi) and felt like bursting. The cost was only USD 16 per head, cheap by our expectations.

After lunch, our host suggested a massage. This was a tricky one. We had no idea what a Burmese massage entailed and said diffidently that we did not feel like it on a full stomach. Our host said he was suggesting only a foot-massage which would be very relaxing. Okay, we said, that seemed down to earth anyway.

We parked at a ‘Reflexology Centre’ and after a bit if wait, were ushered into a dim room with four foam-cushioned reclining chairs which four of us clients occupied. The Burmese girls who gave us the massage were young and very thin. Where the thinness becomes relevant is that elbows are a major tool in a Burmese massage! The initial foot-washing and sole-massaging and toes-pulling were all very well but when they started pressure tactics on the sole with a pointed thing and then attacked calf muscles and lower thighs with their elbows and the bonier parts of their forearms, we did not find it very relaxing. Between the pokes that sometimes became severe tickles, I hoped they were working deeply inside the body that will bear fruit later on. Even at subconscious levels will do. Our host kept cracking jokes with the girls who giggled practically continuously and I am sure some of the jabs at my lower anatomy were more spasmodic that therapeutic.

After it was over and the girls had retired outside, our host smiled and said there was more to come. After half-an-hour of poking and prying, more to come? Yes, he said, hands-shoulders-neck, and the thin girls returned, cracking their knuckles. Having discovered all the sensitive points on my hands and arms, she finally stood on a stool and bore down on my neck muscles with her elbows! At the end of it all, I had aches in various parts of my body and was actually feeling quite relaxed, basically since I had been pretty tense all this time. An hour had passed quickly. I have to take the Thai foot massage now, if for nothing else than to revive my faith in massages, and to be reassured that there is also a school of massaging that rubs, instead of prodding.

A bit of rest, and another friend arrived at 7.30 pm to take us out to dinner. We were non-plussed as to how to tell him that we were not at all hungry. Luckily he took us to a roadside kebab joint doing roaring business Bare-miya style. The boti-kebabs and parathas were heavenly, soft and low in oil. Afterwards he asked: “Kidhar jana hai bhaiya – baal-waal katana hai to bolo.” We wordlessly dived into his car and sat tight till he followed suit and dropped us back to the hotel.

Yangaon: 20.10.2008

We are leaving for Kolkata today by a mid-day flight, reaching late afternoon. So we had decided that the big pagoda, Shwedagon, which is close to our hotel, can be visited for an hour this morning.

The premises are really huge – 114 acres, with the central shrines occupying 14 acres. The insides are teeming with structures, mostly golden coloured, but some, including the high central dome, plated with gold. There are more than 1000 buddha images in the temple, of varying shapes and sizes. We took a guide and spent around 45 mins going around.....

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A new thing I learnt was that the Buddists here recognise 4 Buddhas, with Gautama as the last and most revered. I do not remember the names of the first two, but the third was Kashyap (our mahamuni?). All four sit in the central area in four shrines, facing east, south, west and north in that order.
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The shrines also have small Buddha images for celebrating the worshipper’s day of birth (Sunday, Monday, etc). Each day has an associated planet and an animal. Mine turned out Venus and Guinea-pig. So I poured 9 cups of water on Buddha’s head, 3 cups on the Burmese King standing behind Buddha, 3 cups on the pillar behind signifying the planet concerned, and 3 cups on the guinea-pig.

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Hindu influence on the architects is also evident. There was one pagoda which was in the style of the Meenakshi temple. The decorations and ornamentations are quite intricate. Work on gold is there. Wooden pagodas have detailed filigree work. There are those financed by Thai people where mirror-work is predominant. There are also lot of picturisation of events on the walls and the workmanship on that is of relief type, with the human figures protruding at an angle with the result that from the waist up the figures are standing free.

However, this pagoda, although the most famous and is like a Mecca for Buddhists the world over, is not the tallest one. The first pagoda we visited in Pegu yesterday, Shwe Maw Daw, is taller by 14 metres. It is however, extremely popular. We were advised by the guide to come after dark as well as the temple lightings are superb. Won’t have a chance of doing that, though.

We are now waiting for the IC flight, which is late by 30 mins and will be full of Buddhists travelling to Gaya on a pilgrimage. For this reason the flight is going to Gaya first and then to Kolkata. Such a waste of time for us. Maybe they will make up a bit in the air.

LINK TO MYANMAR ALBUM

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THAILAND - Bangkok (2008)

Bangkok: 15.10.2008

My first visit to Thailand started on a groggy note as the midnight flight was for 3.5 hours and allowed for very little sleep.

Bangkok seemed to be a brother of Kuala Lumpur – same sort of streets, traffic, flyovers, MRTs. It is a bit more cheerful though. “The land of smiles” as the Thai promotional posters glibly announce. But the biggest turn-on in Bangkok is the food. Right from stalls to posh restaurants, the cooking is good and light. We had lunch at a food court in an industrial area for just 40 baht (~ 500 baiza) of pork in soya sauce with rice. We had a similar thing at night at a proper restaurant and the bill was the same! Amazing.......

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The whole day went in chasing one customer from one of his branches to another and we found ourselves at MKB finally, one of the biggest supermarkets in town, 7 stories high, with a MRT station attached. That place was wasted on us – totally meant for wives, though the floor-full of electronics and mobiles and software held us no end. Every product was cheaper than you would expect, varying from 10% to 50% cheaper than gulf prices. Goods mostly made in Taiwan. Easwar bought a dual-SIM gsm, with touch screen and TV, for just RO 45/-.

People here are friendly, but it is soooo difficult to understand their English. Becomes quite embarrassing sometime. The whole nation seems to be like my son before his tongue operation. Very nice to hear, but cannot understand a word.

In the morning, we also went to the Myanmar embassy and applied for Myanmar visa, where we were scheduled to travel 17th morning. I was talking to a Punjabi who had settled in Myanmar. Why was HE applying for visa? It seems most of the companies in Myanmar are unregistered, as registration fees are exorbitant, so the companies do not have labour clearance. Therefore he is working on a series of business visas for both himself and his family! The place is extremely safe to live in, he says, with crime practically non-existent, thanks to the government’s intolerant attitude towards criminals.

We had dinner at a restaurant at MBK itself and returned around 10.00 pm by Skytrain, which has a station fairly close to the hotel.

Bangkok: 16.10.2008

Another working day in Bangkok, with some sightseeing thrown in. We had a little time in the morning and went to see the Grand Palace and the big Sleeping Buddha, but as luck would have it, we reached at 12.00 noon and the premises were closed to non-Buddhists from 12.00-2.00 pm. We had not time to hang around like that so we saw a Standing Buddha nearby and left..

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Had lunch at a new Indian food place who, after serving lassi to Easwar, forgot that we had ordered two veg thalis and took up the matter when we reminded them after 30 mins. Then we collected our passports from the Myanmar embassy with their visa stamped and went back to MBK because Easwar was having some minor hiccups with the gsm he had bought yesterday. I walked around severely resisting temptations and almost bought things like 8” DVD players and CCTV for doors. We took the skytrain again and the transport is very efficient and popular.

There is really not much to see in Bangkok itself otherwise. There’s the ‘night market’ of course, as the Thais call it, but we didn’t go that side. The customer whom we met in the evening took us for dinner (at 7.00 pm – they have early dinners here) to a seafood joint and we had the mostly delicious crab-meat curry and lobsters. In spite of not being the least hungry, we did great justice to the food.......

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Our customer was describing the hullaballoo going on in Thailand for the last few weeks. The ‘people’, a protestant group, have camped in the government house and not allowing any official proceedings to proceed, in protest against the way the Prime Minister is conducting the country. They are supporters of the King. Meanwhile, border skirmishes have broken out between Thailand and Cambodia. The inside news is that the PM, aware that there is oil just across the border, has made a deal with the Cambodian King that Thailand will ‘capture’ the area after some fighting and then lease out the oil-producing land to Cambodia.

All in all Bangkok is a good shopping and eating place. Of course a full travel of Thailand would show up many beautiful spots and it is a place to be visited with family. We leave early tomorrow morning for Yangon (earlier Rangoon) by the 8.00 am flight.

LINK TO THAILAND ALBUM

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SRI LANKA - Colombo (2008)

Colombo:  12.10.2008

Sitting in Taj Samudra writing the journal. I had visited this city maybe 5 years ago, but not much has changed.

In this tour of 15 days, I’ll be passing nights in 7 cities – Dubai (airport), Colombo, Bangkok, Rangoon, Kolkata, Dhaka and Chittagong.

I travelled to Dubai last night, landing at 9.30 pm, with a connecting flight at 2.30 am. Business class lounges are a relief. This time I am carrying my laptop, so I brought some movies as well (having bought a pair of Sony ear-phones to enhance the experience). So I watched “The Last Lear” to while away the time. Bachhan, Preity Zeinta, Arjun Rampal et al – a very nice film. A Rituporno Ghosh film, by the way.

This Emirates flight was very nice and the Business class seats were those types that become totally flat, giving the allure of a bed without its comfort. Vibration massage built in as well.

Today is a Sunday, so we can relax a bit, although there is a customer meeting at 5.00 pm. However, we learnt that day after is also a monthly holiday here, ‘poya’, the day of the full moon. That leaves practically one working day for us. And one more forced holiday on 14th, the night of which we are leaving for Bangkok.......

After a late Chinese lunch at the hotel restaurant, we slept for 90 minutes and were met at the hotel by a soft and humble customer who took us around some supermarkets. It is raining here (unseasonal, as the season is usually Nov, like Chennai) and the weather was fairly cool. There was tight security with gun-toting military lurking around corners, in view of the bomb-blasts continuing upcountry.

Colombo:  13.10.2008

During breakfast at the hotel, I had the typical Sri Lankan aapam called "hoppers" here. They are made in a bowl and shaped like it and in villages the accompanying curry is often served inside the hopper itself. Interesting.

Today was a fairly busy working day. The auto market is located in a street chock-a-block with auto shops, called Panchakawattah Road. Unlike Kirinyaga Road in Nairobi, where one has to do scared rabbit-hops from one safe shop to another, here we could go around with no tension, as if we were in Chennai.

Military police has set up lots of check-points and we were stopped a number of times and asked who we were. “This war”, wailed all our customers, "will drive away all the business. Upcountry buyers are not coming to Colombo any more. The world financial crisis is not depressing them as much as the continuing fighting with LTTE rebels. Surprisingly, the checkers would invariably ask “Indians?” with a big smile and wave us on, as if Indians were no source of trouble at all, but Iraqis beware! On top of that my friend Easwar was an Indian from Chennai.

Our customer Marlon took us for dinner at the Capri Club – “Very exclusive, only 600 members”. We had a very very light dinner. When Marlon was ordering main courses, we thought that were appetisers and went really easy, saving our appetite, only to find him ordering dessert next. That too papaya. I had another round of Pasta Carbonari in my room at 11.00 pm.

For once, both nights, I was having trouble going to sleep. Finally I would nod off after 1.00 am, with lights on. My kriya and meditation were being pushed back to the evening.

Colombo:  14.10.2008

Today is a holiday here, courtesy the rotundity of the moon that has achieved full figure this day of the month. ‘Poya’, as they call it, is a holiday every month and is a Buddhist thing, and duly observed since more than half the population here is Buddhist.

However, we had official work with a customer in the morning, in fact right till 1.00 pm. Our friend Ranjan had offered to take us to the Elephant Orphanage in the afternoon, with an early start at 12.30, so as to reach well before 4.00 pm, when the elephants were all led out to a nearby river for a daily bath and the cavorting herd was watched gleefully by bipeds strategically seated at a high gallery on the riverbank.

However, we could reach back to our hotel and push off immediately only by 2.00 pm. The orphanage is situated halfway to Kandy and 2 hours away by car. So some sharp turns by Ranjan, supported by lunch collected on the fly, enabled us to hit the gates by 4.15 pm.......

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The roads of Sri Lanka are very well-maintained, though single track in the hilly stretches we passed through. Today traffic was supposedly light but we would be invariably reduced to the lowest common denominator of the speed of a state bus in front of us. It was cloudy and dripping moisture and as soon as we alighted at the gates and prepared to dash in, rain came down in torrents, forcing us to take shelter at a curio shop in front and gaze interestedly at fat smiling buddhas. Finally Ranjan bought two small multicoloured umbrellas that the elephants had hopefully been conditioned to seeing suddenly on a rainy morning, being quite a contrast to the serene landscape befogged by the downpour.

Our second disappointment was that the bathing ceremony had been completed in the morning itself and we would have to see the elephants in the orphanage, in their small jungles and kraals. That was also a nice walk amongst green grass and red pathways, the soil flowing like anaemic blood. If you see an elephant through the drizzle inside dark foliage they seem somehow more sinister than nature intended. We saw one adult with an amputed foot. Maybe the authorities here collect abandoned and damaged elephants like this from the wild and take care of them here, hence the name Orphanage.......

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We were quite drenched actually, Ranjan being the most, having been the subject of the hospitality of both us umbrella-wielders, and thus having caught two sets of marginal drippings. A warm tea in a café and cold AC in the car dried us out during the next 3 hours of stop-go driving. However, by the time we reached Colombo again by 8.00 pm we were quite chipper and a bit hungry and so paid a visit to the food-court at some place that sounded like “Chriss-cats”. But it cannot be. I had Thai food, Easwar had Sri Lankan food, and the Sri Lankan had Malayasian food. Nice.

We checked out by 10.00 pm and went to catch the Thai flight to Bangkok departing at 1.20 am. This entry is being made sitting in the Business Class lounge at Negambo airport.

LINK TO SRI LANKA ALBUM

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KENYA - Nairobi/Mombasa (2008)

Mombasa: 25.04.2008

Woke from a dreamless sleep at 8.00 am. This is the room was on the ground floor. Light was filtering in through the lace (yes, lace) curtains. Moreover, the bed had a stylish mosquito-net running on rails all around. I was enjoying the ephemeral atmosphere lying in bed wiggling my toes and feeling quite the heroine in a Jane Austen novel!
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The hotel White Sands is actually a resort, quite spread-out with all sorts of facilities. I could not get to see the beach till evening, when it was high tide and shrunken to a 20 metre strip, but it seemed to me that while the Seychelles stay was good in ‘beach’ while plain in ‘hotel’, the Mombasa stay will be good in ‘hotel’ and okay in ‘beach’.
......

.Mombasa has a population of 1.2 million, a figure that has quadrapled in the last 5 years. While this makes our dealers happy, this no longer supports the existence of a sleepy laid back town, close to the backdrop of the famous ‘Man-eaters of Tsavo’ by Jim Corbett. My last visit in September 2001 had left an impression of a dormant town. Quite bustling now, although crime rate is still nowhere near Nairobi.
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Kenya has just been through a difficult election in January, when President Kibuki was accused of having rigged the results. After much negotiation, the ruling party and the opposition have decided to split the ministerial seats 50-50! The street-fights and riots have stopped, although the common man is still trying to work out how it impacts him. They have a sneaking suspicion that an alternative scenarion would have worked out no better.
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We had a ‘little thali’ lunch at a Gujrati veg joint called Chetna Restaurant. The Indian cuisine was very nice, though slightly marred by the fact that the sambar was rather sweet.
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We returned to the hotel at 6.00 pm, changed to bermudas, took a walk along the beach and fixed up a boat-ride tomorrow afternoon (Saturday being a half-holiday) to the coral reefs. An evening drinking session sitting on garden chairs in front of a roaring sea and sighing junipers, below glittering stars, ended the day nicely. So lost were we in time, we could get only dessert as we had overshot the dinner hours!
......

.Both during breakfast, as well as during dinner, we saw mainly Kenyans and Indian-origins — very few whites. This was unusual as Mombasa is a cheap getaway, popular to the European crowd. Sep to April being the tourist season, this place should have been plasterd with pale skin. The political disturbance and riots in the first three months of the year have indeed taken their toll on the tourism industry. Economically this will be a bad year for Kenya.
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The average Kenyan, apart from having a head for business, is well-educated and well-behaved and is quite the preferred employee in other African countries. I was surfing Kenyan TV channels (as they are in English) and found discussions, chat shows, reality shows, documentaries on artists, technical talk and what not. Even the boatmen on the beach speak very good English with proper accent!

Mombasa: 26.04.2008

A relaxing and entertaining day. This being a Saturday, all business closes by 2.00 pm, so we perforce had to return to the hotel after half a day’s work.

.Yesterday we had fixed up with a youngster to take us to the ‘Marine Park’ on the coral reef in a glass-bottom boat for the princely sum of 2500 shillings ($40). If it had been a good season, it would have cost twice that. We were supposed to buy tickets for entering this ‘park’, although we could not see any enclosed area anywhere!

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After the commissions had been settled down the value chain, we were invited to wade out to a boat anchored some 50 metres into the sea. We pushed through warm clear water, along sandy paths beaten out from the bed of dark seaweed that the ocean floor hereabouts seem to contain in abundance. We waited a few minutes for a Kenyan couple to join us, a fat lawyer from Nairobi with his heftier wife, and then we were off to the coral reef, visible as a line of breakers stretching parallel to the shore. Our lawyer friend James said although this coral reef makes the shoreward side calm, shallow and good for bathing, it also stops cargo ships, because of which the Mombasa port now lies beyond the stretch of the reef.......

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The floor of the boat had a couple of 4’x2’ glass windows through which right now we could see only seaweed. As we approached the reef, we could see a large number of floating white bouys defining a narrow channel, where a motorboat belonging to Kenyan Wildlife was parked, who collected the tickets and waved us on! The Marine Park is a large area just inside the coral reef, marked off by a string of white bouys. It is a natural preserve where even fishing is banned..

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Now when we looked through the glass windows on the floor, the sea was teeming with fish — round and flat, big and small, striped and plain, in shoals and alone. We could see some coral formations as well. The boat stopped mid-sea and the boatman offered snorkels, which we declined. Radha and James went down into the water for a swim with the fishes. There was another boat parked nearby from which some goras were doing scuba-diving.

.Our boat went a little closer to the reef and unloaded us onto a patch of muddy coral that is usually submerged in high tide but was exposed now, being low tide. I was thinking that it would be a fine pickle if someone became stranded on this strip and high tide started! We saw seaweed and ichens, sea spider and sea cucumber, as well as sea urchins in nooks and crannies of the reef body. Water was rippling over the whole mass, surprisingly warm. It gave us an impression of magically standing on water in the middle of the ocean.
......

.On the 20 min ride back, we sat on the roof enjoying the colours of the sea, which were light and dark green within the reef (dark where seaweed was growing in shallow waters) and deep blue beyond the reef where it was deep sea. As a marker between the two, white wave crests breaking along a long line for miles. Beautiful!

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We waded back the last 50 metres again and promptly headed for a couple of Tusker beers, the award-winning Kenyan formula. The bar was a pool-side one and people were also sitting on submerged stools inside the pool, being served pinaccolada and what not.......

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After lunch we rested a while and spent an hour contemplating our reports. Then we sat on chairs facing the sea and relaxed from 6.00-7.00 pm, enjoying the breeze while the sunlight faded. The breeze in Mombasa was constant, unlike in Seychelles, and very sweet and invigorating. It was easy to just sit there and drop off to sleep. As our sitting continued to a Bacardi session, sleep also encrached very fast, so we hurriedly completed our dinner by 9.30 pm.

.Tomorrow we will leave the seaside and travel inland to Nairobi, where a lot of serious wheeling-dealing awaits us. In Mombasa, we met a few businessmen from Nairobi, who know some of our customers, so we will be having more talking points during our Nairobi visit.

Nairobi: 27.04.2008

This was the third time I was visiting this city — once earlier on tour and once with family.

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Our morning flight was delayed by 2 hours and we finally reached Holiday Inn at 2.30 pm. Seems to be quite an old hotel, a 2-storied structure with red-tiled roof and inn-looking finish, with a labyrinth of passages. Our rooms overlooked the small swimming pool and food would be served along the poolside, so it’s just a short walk down.

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Unlike in Russia, we had been doing quite well in the food department here. Breakfast spreads were good, sometimes ‘chana daal tarka’ found its way into the dinner menu and my last two meals had been Indonesian ‘Nesi Gerang’ (rice with barbecued chicken) and Thai rice with mutton curry, which satisfied my Asian palate quite adequately.

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We had a solid 2.5 hours of sleep after lunch and are expecting a customer to arrive and take us out for dinner.

.To my mind, Nairobi is still a scary city in terms of street-crime. It seems to have been beautified to some extent in the last few years and seems more like a capital now. The weather was rainy and chilly till yesterday but today it is clear and warm, perhaps a bit of Mombasa influence.

.Rajubhai picked us up at 8.00 pm and took us to the Gymkhana Club for a few drinks before dinner. He is a typical representative of the Gujrati business community here — third generation, hard-drinking, children settled in UK. Culture has remained the same. The men close shop at 5.00pm and hit the bar, going home for dinner. The ladies shop, go to the gym, drop and pick up kids from tuition and gossip. The Indian business community here is just 100,000 strong, said Rajubhai, but they control 90% of the trade. Gujratis have 50% of the cake.

.We went to an Indian restaurant called ‘Handi’, as the two of us were missing Indian cooking. Very good food indeed.

Nairobi: 28.04.2008

Today we had work in the Industrial Area and returned to the hotel at 6.00 pm. Lunch was on a customer, actually on his office-table, ordered up from an Indian restaurant downstairs. Paneer masala and black daal with chapati. Soothing.

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In all our meetings with customers, we came across a note of cautious hopefulness that political peace will prevail now with the coalition govt in place. Although the displaced and dispossessed in upcountry towns have not yet been taken care of fully, the political parties, basically tribal-based, will now get into the serious business of deciding who will loot which ministry, for loot they will for sure. Nobody seemed to mind, as long as there was peace on the streets. As per the businessmen, it would take 2-3 years for the loss of these 4 months to be recouped.

The sun had been hot, the streets dusty and we had been mostly walking around. All the traders, whether black or brown, were extremely hospitable and seemed uniformly offended that we could not give them company for lunch or dinner. The evening remained free for us to relax in. We bought some Tusker beer from a petrol pump and whiled away time sitting beside the pool. Dinner was at Pepper restaurant next door — rogan josh, dum aloo kashmiri and garlic naan, preceded by a split-soup. Very good cooking indeed and it cost only 1200 shillings ($20).

Nairobi: 29.04.2008

Today our work took us to another auto market called Kirinyaga Road. This was one of the scarier parts of Nairobi. When I had visited 6 years ago with Easwar, we had left our watches and purses with one customer and then scurried from shop to shop, not allowing the jobless loiterers realise that we did not belong, which would have set us up as prime suspects for mugging. Even visually the street had appeared dark and threatening. Today it seemed just like a busy street with lots of narrow by-lanes, but people seemed to be busy and not loitering. Kenyan ladies were also walking around, something unheard of earlier on this stretch. An improvement, no doubt.

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At lunch hour, on a customer’s advice, we hunted down a nearby Indian joint called ‘Sun Sweet’. There is precious little choice on Kirinyaga Road itself, although this place would have been voted just a couple of levels above starvation as a choice. The owner lady was sorting daal on one of the tables and a black cook was slicing white onions on another table. We were offered a package lunch of lassi, a plateful of various bhajis, sambhar, three types of sabjis, salad, salted chillies, chapati & rice, followed by a sweet. Sounds a nice spread, but everything, except the hot fresh chapatis, seemed to have been cooked with strange ingradients and spices. Perhaps the Kenyan cook had not adapted to the Indian recipes too well.

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We were taken for dinner by our oldest customer here to ‘Spice’ restaurant where we had a few beers and dinner.

Nairobi: 30.04.2008

Today’s work was also full-day with a similar set of customers. Luckily we had lunch in a small Sardarji-run Indian fast-food joint whose ‘thali’ was quite palatable.

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Today’s dinner was in the hands of the same customer as yesterday and he was determined to give us a ‘good’ evening, since tomorrow is a holiday (May Day). Radha was saying that knowing these chaps it would most likely get over only by 3.00 am! It was therefore with some trepidation that we allowed ourselves to be picked up around 8.00 pm and taken to the ‘Patel Club’, now renamed ‘Premier Club’ since the govt banned clubs promoted by communities. The place was packed with serious drinkers watching the end of an IPL match. We practically heard nothing but Gujrati for the next four hours! I had targetted four small beers as my quota but ended up having four small rums as well.

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Our host seemed to have emotional disputes with many friends and the only apology they would accept was ‘one round’ for him and his guests! In the end there were 7-8 of us in the club bar with discussions at tops of voices and gaalis galore. We went down for dinner at midnight (not too bad) and had paya, chicken saag and daal with chapatis. All very good. Our host wanted to start off on liquore rounds or some ‘night life’ after dinner but we firmly refused and were dropped back at the hotel feeling sleepy and grateful.

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Tomorrow we leave Nairobi in the afternoon and I would be reaching Muscat via Dubai day after early morning.

LINK TO KENYA ALBUM

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SEYCHELLES - Mahe (2008)

Mahe: 22.4.2008

Muscat to Dubai to Seychelles was a 14 hour journey, including the 4.5 hour stopover at Dubai. Seychelles, a group of 173 islands, of which only 57 are inhabited, lies off the coast of Kenya, around 3 hours away from it as the jet flies. The flight from Dubai was over deserted sea, when suddenly, out of nowhere, we landed on a bigger speck called Mahe Island, the main landmass of Seychelles.

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We rode in on an airbus, all of 350 passenger capacity and full to the brim with gora tourists. A few Seychellois and we two ‘pore’ Indians were feeling throroughly minoritised. They were all looking forward to a few days of toe-wriggling in the sand. Some would stay for a week, some for a month. April to October is season time at Seychelles.

First thing that struck me about Seychelles was the greenery. Whenever we think of Seychelles, we usually thinK of sun and sand and a beautiful woman on the sand soaking up the sun. Perhaps selling sea-shells as well. But the place is absolutely verdant. There are hills with lots of trees and lakes between them. From the airport, which is on the eastern shore, we had to cross to our hotel on the western shore and the road took us across a small hill with mildly winding roads, with glimpses of houses on the mountainside, the sea below and islands in the distance. The ‘information’ girl at the airport was saying that tourists to Seychelles nowadays enjoy the hills as much as the beaches!
......

Seychelles has a population of 85,000 inhabitants only. Victoria Town, which is the capital, has a town-centre that is hardly a kilometre long and is perhaps the only road with a divider! All other roads are single-track and fairly narrow, so much so that a Terios practically looks like a Prado on them! But we were really impressed with the cleanliness. Given the fact that here the climate encourages the locals to be mild, friendly and easygoing, the municipal authorities are doing their jobs well. However, public buses are few and far between and dependence on taxis quite high.

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The ride to our beachside hotel ‘Coral Islands’ took around 30 mins, which, by Seychelles standard is a long distance and cost us 200 Rupees ($25). It’s an oldish hotel, tourist-oriented, which meant that the rooms were small and functional and had no TV (you were supposed to be outside enjoying yourselves!). But it had a private beach and a swimming pool and that’s all the holiday-makers wanted. The hotel was full. We freshened up and rested for 1.5 hours before leaving for our first appointment at 11.00 am.......

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The son of our customer came to pick us up, in T-shirt and three-quarters, for an official meeting. I tell you, in full shirt and trousers, we were feeling like monks at a carnival! We saw his outlet, visited the boat pier where the ferries for the other islands leave from, and finally got dropped near the Clock Tower (city centre), where we dived into a restaurant for a spot of lunch. We had had breakfast at 3.30 am and so were spoiling for a fight!

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The place was, as expected, full of holiday-makers. The main industry as well as forex-earner for Seychelles is tourism, followed by export of fish (canned and raw). They import everything else. Last January, the Rupee was devalued by 43% against the Euro and prices of commodities have practically doubled. As per our customer who came for tea in the evening, an average Seychellois with a large family will have a very tough time making both ends meet. He himself has a bunglow nearby facing the sea where he lives with his girlfriend; they are DINK and so find it comfortable. Otherwise, the government is now selling islands to Arab sheikhs to get foreign exchange.......

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We spent the evening on my room balcony drinking Bacardi Rum, looking over the pool, the poolside restaurant and the rock band, and the sea at high tide — and realised that all the restaurants had closed. We were left with the wide choice of a tuna pizza vs a tuna burger as room service and we polished off a large tuna pizza with a lot of valour.

Mahe: 23.4.2008

Woke up at 7.30 am and went for a pre-breakfast swim. We walked along the beach for some distance before taking a dip. The sand was white and fine. There were hardly any brown grains. No sea shells, at least on this beach. The water was lovely, absolutely clear, low in salt and smooth at the surface, ideal for floating and snorkeling. We dried off standing around in the sun and Radha impressed the goras by doing a head-stand at the water’s edge. We then had a hearty breakfast and went for our morning meeting.

Our hotel is actually at the wrong coast compared to our main business area but it was one of the cheaper decent hotels (at $133 per day) and it took us only 20 mins to cross over anyway. Seychelles is about to go through an inflationary spiral and all rates will probably go up in the near future. Fuel prices have also risen from 6 Rupees to 15 Rupees per litre and THAT is going to cause some distress, for sure.

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Here people, though easygoing, are quite punctual. They do not have the laziness of the typical African, and do not like to consider themselves African for that matter. Apparently the Creole spoken here is quite different (and superior to) the Creole spoken in Mauritius, which is not too far away.......

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Our lunch was at the same cafe as yesterday, at town centre. Whereas today I had roast chicken, Radha repeated his plate of french fries. We followed this up with a stict at an internet cafe, sending off e-mails and reports, and returned to our hotel to await our pickup at 7.30 pm for a Creole dinner.

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I woke from a brief nap at 6.00 pm to find the sky overcast and the ground wet, the leaves dripping. A stiff wind was blowing droplets off the palm fronds in front of my balcony. It was very reminiscent of Indian rains. In Seychelles, such sudden showers happen throughout the year. Although April to September is the declared season time, winter is not at all cold. Now the tropical atmosphere is almost palpable, the air full of scents, the breeze sluggish — it all makes you feel like lying down on a deck chair and putting your feet up!

Our customer hosted the dinner at ‘Boat House’ near our hotel, famous for their Creole cuisine, with a variety of fish dishes. Surprisingly, there was a wide veg spread as well, including avocado and breadfruit. Fish dishes included dried fish ‘do-piyaza’, fish curry and tuna steak. Chicken additionally. We tasted the local beer as well and it was quite smooth.

Dinner here is an early affair and we wound up by 9.30 pm.

Mahe: 24.4.2008

Our last morning at Seychelles went quite well, starting with the pre-breakfast dip, as usual. The sea had more waves and swells today, and the temperature was cool enough to wake us up. We had a meeting at the hotel at 10.00 am and another one on the way to the airport.

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At the airport, we found that our flight was delayed first by one hour and then by another hour. When we told Kenyan Air officials that we’d miss our connecting flight to Mombasa, he smiled and said that the delay was on account of a group of Indians coming to Seychelles via Nairobi, who had gone missing at Nairobi airport. Bit of national guilt being dished out, I’d say. We did end up missing the connecting flight although we practically sat on the head of the Immigration Officer at Narobi to give us our visa quickly (Our visa application forms were the worse scribbles ever). The next flight was at 10.30 pm, 3.5 hours later.

.Weather during the last few hours at Seychelles had been sunny and sultry, which had cooled down around 2.00 pm after a heavy downpour. Nairobi, in contrast, was a pleasant 20 degC and Mombasa, when we finally landed, was at 25 degC. The White Sands hotel was a big resort-type one, located by the sea, although we were too tired to investigate. Since dinner was part of the tariff, we dozed through a couple of courses and hit the bed at 1.30 am.

LINK TO SEYCHELLES ALBUM

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RUSSIA - Novosibirsk/Irkutsk/Krasnoyarsk/Kemerovo (2008)

Novosibirsk: 19.03.2008

7.30 pm local time, 5.30 pm Muscat time.
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This belt of Russia that we are covering now – Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Kemerovo – is neither east nor west Russia but bang in the middle. It was a long journey – 12.30 am departure from Muscat, 6.00 pm arrival here (local time) via Dubai and Moscow.

.In Russia March witnesses the death-throws of winter. Novosibirsk temperature is 0 degC to minus 5 degC. There is snow on the ground, there are flakes drifting down, but the ice has started melting and the roads are wet, muddy and slushy. All the cars are terribly dirty because I am sure liquid water is at a premium in sub-zero winter!
......

.Although food was at odd hours (dinner at 4.30 am, lunch at 4.30 pm), food was not an issue this time (compared to the last time I travelled in this region), because (a) I am a non-vegetarian again, which makes a big difference to the available menu in Russia, believe me, and (b) since I am flying Business Class, the cuisine is upper European, low in oil and spice, therefore easy on the stomach. We are flying Aeroflot in most of the sectors and it is not bad at all.
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The city was founded in 1893 as the future site of the Trans-Siberian Railway bridge crossing the great Siberian river Ob and was known as Novonikolayevsk after Saint Nicholas. It also was the name of the Tsar ruling at that time Tsar Nicholas II. The bridge opened for traffic in the spring of 1897. Its importance further increased early in the 20th century with the completion of the Turkestan-Siberia Railway, connecting Novosibirsk to Central Asia and the Caspian Sea.
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[For further details, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novosibirsk ]
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Novosibirsk has a population of around 2.5 million and seems quite a prosperous town with a large number of business visitors. We could get a booking only in Hotel Novosibirisk, a 4-star, but quoting a tariff of $250 for quite normal rooms!
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It was only in the evening that we could catch up on our morning ablutions, which was embellished by a long soak in a hot bath with a glass of vodka. Then we put on our togs again and prepared to go out for dinner.
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Out of my two colleagues, Arun and Ramesh, Ramesh is vegetarian and had been starved all day, but Novosibirsk offered no relief in terms of an Indian restaurant. The available leaflets all offered nightclubs where a peaceful meal was likely to be disturbed by a bunch of dancers posturing around our table. So we took a walk and found KFC right next door! However, in deference to Ramesh’s need for a ‘good veg meal’, we passed that up and entered an Italian joint that offered pizzas, spaghettis and pastas.
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We also ventured a post-prandial perambulation at minus 5 degC and wind that challenged the insulation our clothes quite strongly.

Novosibirsk: 20.03.2008

The day dawned bright and clear. I looked out of my window on the 23rd floor and saw a white world. It had snowed at night and the roads, pavements, esplanades, rooftops, cartops, treetops, were all bathed in white. Numerous black figures scurried about like insects and snow-shovels paraded back-and-forth like mowing maniacs. Satisfied with the state of affairs, I did my kriya, dressed up befittingly and went down for a continental breakfast, Russian style.......

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We met three important customers today. Russia is still severely restricted in terms of foreign exchange regulations, so corruption also exists, but Russians by and large deal straight. Nothing like Africans, or even Indians for that matter.

.The roads were full of slush from the melting snow, especially at the edges of the roads, which were waist-high banks of snow from the road-clearing activities. Temperature was minus 4 degC and cap and gloves were absolutely required. But the snow is really endearing. Especially in areas where it was undisturbed, like the roundabout circles, it looked like softy ice-cream laid out on pancakes!......

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We had a quick lunch at ‘New York Pizza’ where nobody spoke in English and the menus were in Russian, but by virtue of some forgotten pantomime skills, we got what we wanted. Dinner was at the hotel, preceded by a few pegs of vodka, where Arun gave me company.

Novosibirsk: 21.03.2008

Today was slightly warmer, at 3 degC, and we are getting used to it. Although it had not snowed afresh, the white layers are as solid as ever. We had to get into some by-lanes today and there the snow lay really thick and quiet.......

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In a snow-covered park with black-and-white juniper trees rising starkly from the ground, a boy was throwing snowballs for his dog. It was eerily beautiful, like watching a silent black-and-white film on TCM!

.We had lunch at ‘Makaroni’, an Italian-based upmarket place. The Russian populace is quite stylish, with a definite preference for black. And compared to Asians and Africans, quite straight in business dealings. Arun, who had dealt with African customers till now, was in a continuous state of pleasant surprise. Most of our Russian customers know passable English and Ramesh knows kindergarten Russian, so we managed without interpreters today.

Novosibirsk: 22.03.2008

This was our last day in Novosibirsk, with a flight to catch at 8.30 pm. We would reach Irkutsk at 12.30 am after a 2-hour flight (Irkutsk is 2 hours ahead in time).

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Apart from business visits, there is no particulate tourist spot in Novo. We saw the Theatre building and the Library, and we crossed the river Ob a few times while on our rounds. The sides of the river were frozen over with the central stretch having some running water.......

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But it was all made beautiful by the snowscapes. Although around 7 degC now, snow was everywhere and the parks in particular were really like dreamlands.
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We had lunch at New York Pizza once more, being a fast-serving place. Sergei the driver faithfully came in with us. We do not normally think of sharing our table at a restaurant with our driver, but he was a middle-aged dignified chap and not at all out of place.
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It’s a Saturday. Weekened has started and New York Pizza is full of youngsters and families. The Novo teenagers are a decent lot. Not loud, in dress or manner, quite unlike the punks and razmatazz that you’ll find in Moscow. “More tra-di-tion, “ said Sergei, who speaks slight English and is carrying a Russian-English booklet today in order to bid us goodbye properly!......

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Our customer Maxim had taken us to his shop today, which is located in a used-car sale yard. Don’t even think of an equivalent of the Wadi Kabir Friday car souq – 6000 cars standing here, at a pinch! The used cars that have arrived from Japan (the major source) are 3-5 years old and look brand new, carefully kept free of snow and ice by a battalion of brush-brandishing boys.
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We checked out at 6.30 pm, after watching the end of Terminator-2 on TV, very dully dubbed in Russian. The room TV had all Russian channels, else dubbed like this. Watched a bit of ‘Namak Halal’ , Russian-dubbed, till it became a strain hearing Amitabh speaking Rusiian in a querelous high-pitched voice!
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Airport security precedes check-in in Russia and I have to take off my boots every time. The security guards are mostly ladies, but their body-search is quite thorough!
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I was the only traveller in Business Class, which was not a surprise, being a weekend. They served a cold supper – shrimp, crab, salmon fillet, salami, bacon – all slow-cooked and with practically no oil.
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Irkutsk was minus 5 degC, but the bus ride was really really cold. We checked into the ‘Baikal Business Centre’, a hotel just 15 mins from the airport, thank God!

LINK TO ALBUM - NOVOSIBIRSK

Irkutsk: 23.03.2008

This is a Sunday and our morning program is visiting Lake Baikal.

.The lake is around one hour from Irkutsk and a favourite weekend spot for Irkutsians. Two of our customers, Pasha and Oleg, who themselves were close friends, came to the hotel to take us in Oleg’s Land Cruiser. Temperature was close to zero, with a slight wind, so packed a miniature of vodka, just in case......

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Baikal is as such a beautiful lake with greenery all around. In summer, there is boating and fishing. Travelling around its perimeter takes two days! Although end-March is supposed to be spring (we disagreed till we were told that winter temperatures here are around minus 40 degC!), Lake Baikal is still frozen right across! We could see people walking on it and a couple of cars were enjoying skidding around.
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We also walked down to and on top of the iced lake. At the shallow part of 3 metre depth, we could see right down to the lake bed through the solid ice that was green in colour and had crack patterns running down to the depths. It was really beautiful, like standing on green jelly. But the cold was harsh with us. All that ice was also psychologically benumbing, I’m sure! We had to take pics with our gloves on. As per Oleg, in another two weeks, we could not have gone on to the ice any more; it would have been dangerous. As it is, he refused to take the car onto it. The centre of the lake is 800 m deep.......

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We visited a set of stalls near the lake that sell fish, Baikal fish, cleaned and mounted on ‘seekhs’ (ie skewers) already, ready to be grilled. There were vendors grilling fish as well as meat and serving it with pulao out of a huge vessel. Looked very tempting.
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The river Angara flows out of Lake Baikal. We stood near the river and saw how the ice from the edge of the frozen lake was breaking away and flowing down the river. Unusual sights.....

Back in Irkutsk, we went for lunch at a typical Russian restaurant, ‘Bier Haus’ (meaning Beer House in German), pretty upmarket, with waitresses dressed in traditional costumes. Pasha ordered a ‘pitcher’ of vodka. I discovered that tradition demands that the host should keep topping up the glass as soon as it empties a little, so the trick is to drink very slowly. It’s neat vodka, mind you. I guess, in spite of the defensive measures, I must have drunk three large pegs..

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.Food was lavish. We had a seafood appetizer dish and a bacon appetizer dish. Ramesh, being veg, ordered garlic bread with cheese. Arun ordered his favourite Beef Stroganoff with rice, while I had veal with spinach and cranberry sauce (it was a solid but tasty piece of meat). Our Russian friends had a round of Russian salad (cabbage with meat) followed by mussels, mushrooms etc. Quite solid eaters. A dish of Russian mushrooms (big green pieces with cream) appeared as a vodka accompaniment, but the pungent taste was not to my liking.
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When we were dropped back at the hotel, we could only think of sleep. A three-hour shut-eye followed by kriya revived my energies and at 9.00 pm we went down for a “spot of dinner since we were not hungry”. I had a Ukrainian Borsch soup, full of healthy vegetables, the predominant one being beet, that I dutifully consumed, as well as chunks of meat that I dutifully ignored. An after-dinner walk in sub-zero, discussing many things like history and mythology, wound up the day.

Irkutsk: 24.03.2008

Spring IS here, since it has stopped snowing for the last 4-5 days and the snow on the ground is visibly reducing. At Irkutsk, the wind adds to the chill factor; otherwise the temperature is pleasant zero degC!
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Irkutsk has a population of around 700,000. Together with the twin city Angarsk (which is financed by a petroleum refinery and an aluminium mine) and one other city, this small region just about crosses 1 million. But Irkutsk is a very old city. In the early 19th century, many Russian artists, officers, and nobles were sent into exile to Siberia for their part in the Decembrist revolt against Tsar Nicholas I. Irkutsk became the major center of intellectual and social life for these exiles, and much of the city’s cultural heritage comes from them; many of their wooden houses, adorned with ornate, hand-carved decorations, survive today in stark contrast with the standard Soviet apartment blocks that surround them.

.[For more details, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irkutsk ]
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Being around 600 km from Ulan Bator (Mongolia), we see a number of Oriental faces. As per Oleg, our jovial customer, people in the north (former Tartar belt) are tall and strong and drink vodka while people from southern part of Russia are short and weak and drink beer!
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As in Novosibirsk, the people here seem quite clean-living. There may be a few night clubs and strip joints in Novo, but I could not see any signs here. Skin quality is very good and the people very handsome. And they love Irkutsk.
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Every time I have visited Russia or Ukraine, I have been amused by their total avoidance of colours in male attire. Black, black or brown is the theme. My maroon scarf, mostly half-hidden, used to stand out like a bunch of sunflowers at a funeral. Even ladies, as soon as they cross middle-age, seem to change gears to the more sombre shades. Style not dowdy at all, but colours are subdued.
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Our customer Pasha, a fairly big shot employing some 80 people, took us around his place and then treated us to lunch from his warehouse lunch-room. It was by far the best food I had had till now in Irkutsk. Salad, borsch soup, spaghetti with meatballs – very tasty and very soothing.
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I had visited Irkutsk earlier in 2003, but it had been just for a day and a hurricane visit. This time it was quite enjoyable and a totally new place for all intents and purposes.
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Russians are quite jolly and friendly and love to talk about families and babies. At the same time, they have a no-nonsense approach to business and in meetings they would get down to the point right away.

.Around 4.00 pm, when the day’s work was over, we trundled down to Karl Marx Street, which is the town centre (I believe Karl Marx street or Lenin Street is always the town centre at this part of the world!). After walking around a bit in the unrelenting sub-zero, we popped into ‘Bier Haus’ again for some warmth. This was the same restaurant where Pasha and Oleg had treated us to lunch on Sunday. Finding that a Screwdriver was cheaper than a coffee, we indulged in the national drink, together with cheese on garlic bread.......

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Our Russian friends told us that there were no Indians living in Irkutsk (nor in Novosibirsk). There are no Indian restaurants. We notice people on the street do a double-take when they see us, in spite of the fact that we are ensconced from head to foot in warm clothing. Something must not be looking right. In spite of that, more people than we expected speak some degree of English – it is an optional language in school.

.We had dinner at the hotel. While Arun struggled with a steak that was half-a-cow, I ordered a potato dish that was ‘alu-peyajer-tarkari', a la home, though difficult to have just like that without accompaniments.

Irkutsk: 25.03.2008

Our last working day at Irkutsk.
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The weather has improved and is in the range of Indian winters. The snow has practically melted away, the roads are dry and children are having ice-cream!

.We spent time today at the auto market that is full of auto retail shops. There is no point trying to compare these with auto retail shops in India. This market is set up like a trade fair complex, with shops instead of stalls, with uniform frontages and display panes, numbered in order. Everything labelled, arranged and displayed, the aisles spic-and-span, refreshments available in one stand, restaurants outside the complex. It is targetted at car owners, not so much the garage-mechanics, so the ambience is quite upmarket.

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The city is situated beside the Irkutsk river, which joins the Angara river right there. After lunch, we visited the city Angarsk, situated on the other side of river Angara, around 45 km from Irkutsk. It turned out to be a poor step-brother, with wide roads, prolific trams, and large colonies of LIG and MIG flat-blocks. The road to the city was nice, lined by bare cedar and green pine trees.
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Our flight to Krasnoyarsk is at an unearthly 2.30 am, so we will lose sleep quite heavily. Like seasoned travellers, we lay down for a 1.5 hour nap, but as expected, could not sleep a wink. The TV channels in Russian did not help pass the time.

LINK TO ALBUM - IRKUTSK

Krasnoyarsk: 26.03.2008

Our flight was tracing a path back from Irkutsk to Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk being 2/3rd along the way. Since this was a much smaller plane (belonging to Utair, a local airline), it still took 2 hours.
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After a long time I was boarding a small propeller-driven plane, and after a long time I suffered from claustrophobia again. I felt hot, suffocated, itching at unreachable places through layers of clothing – even my feet were complaining at being ensconced in thick boots. So I took off my jacket, my sweater and scarf and packed them, solved a Russian crossword, walked up and down disturbing the air-hostess trying to serve food, finally went right to the back where there were a few empty seats and I psychologically felt less hemmed in. Finally borrowed a blanket and fell asleep.
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The disembarkation was very primitive and conducted at minus 8 degC at 4.40 am. The luggage was identified and unloaded right on the tarmac, which we lugged onto the bus. The bus promptly dropped us 50 metres from a taxi-stand and drove off! We dragged the luggage crunching over ice and shivering away to glory, not in a mood to negotiate much even when the taxi-driver asked for 1200 roubles ($50) for a drop to Hotel Yahont.
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We reached the hotel at 5.00 am and were told that our rooms would be ready at 6.00 am only! Till then, why didn’t we relax at the bar? Somehow, she then gave us one room and we snoozed on the sofas for one hour. This hotel is quite old and the rooms are actually suites, with a separate room housing sofas, writing table, TV and fridge. The panellings are old-fashioned, but the room-radiators are very effective.
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.Kransoyarsk is the largest city in the Siberian area. The Krasnoyarsk region with 3-4 towns is also quite old and the inhabitants quite middle-class and humble. These places are not tourist-friendly and there are no leaflets lying around detailing “10 things to know about Krasnoyarsk”, or a route map with old buildings marked. We passed an old bridge over Yenesei river that flows through the city and our taxi-driver pulled out a 10-rouble note to show it depicted there. When we passed an old church at the top of a hill, he pulled out the same note again and showed us the church also picturised. Krasnoyarsk region seems to have monopolised the 10-rouble note!
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.Daytime was not too cold at 8 degC. Our customer meetings went as planned and we had a roadside lunch of ‘shwarma’, made Russian style, that was quite good.

.After a full working day, we did not feel like going out for dinner, but had a quiet meal at our in-house restaurant, consisting of soup and some chicken.

.The rooms here are quite funny, with a lot of interference among the doors to the bedroom, sitting room and bathroom. Not a good set up really but then very few ‘international’ tourists like us land up at Krasnoyarsk!

LINK TO ALBUM - KRASNOYARSK

Kemerovo: 27.03.2008

We had half-a-day’s work at Kras, after which we had planned to leave for Kemerovo by car around 12.00 noon.
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The first realisation which struck us on waking up was that spring had definitely not arrived at Kras – because it was snowing! Not great fluffy balls but more like white powder blowing about in the air. The ground was white already though the roads had been kept clean. Temperature was around minus 2 degC, but we were more worried about whether this would hamper our road travel plans. Fortunately, the snowing remained mild and our Camry driver Valada did not seem much perturbed by the weather.

.We had ordered packed lunch from the hotel and left at 12.30 pm, expecting to cover the 650 km distance in around 7 hours. There was snowfall for the first 150 km or so, after which it cleared up, though the landscape remained blissfully white. It was quite thrilling to see trees covered in snow and the rolling plains stretching away so smoothly, broken by lines of bare patchwork cedar trees and the occasional shrubs. One almost expected to see a troop of wolves run out of the trees and go plodding through the snow. We stopped at intervals to take pictures but always ended up dissatisfied with the limitations of photographs.

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.During a coffee break, we stopped at a village and hunted out a café. The villages are very quaint. All are old with very peculiar colour schemes in the houses, with window-frames bright blue or bright yellow while the walls remained a dingy brown wood finish. Even the café-cum-bar was inside a huge enclosed building with a massive iron door and you had to climb up some musty flights of stairs to reach a big hall set up with a bar at one end and the tables arranged against a wall. Our request for only ‘chai’ was received with some suspicion by a massive matron and with amusement by the two young girls looking after the bar. When I came back from a visit to the toilet, I found that ‘chai’ had been served at break-neck speed and the two girls were now standing in the middle of the hall, holding bits of paper and reciting dialogues with expression and flourish. Apparently our patronage had disturbed the rehearsal process of an amateur play!..

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The sun set majestically while we were driving westward from Kras to Kemerovo, giving us a few nice sequences of sunlight shuttering through the forests of dry trees as they marched past us at 100 kmph. We finally entered Kemerovo at 8.00 pm and it took us another hour or so to find the hotel, which was sort of ‘beside the river, beneath the trees’, an out-of-town picturesque hotel in a pine forest situated beside the river. It should be a nice sight in the morning, but for tonight we satisfied ourselves with a very good dinner at the in-house restaurant.

Kemerovo: 28.03.2008

Morning was clear and not so cold, probably 5 degC. The snow still lay thick by the roadsides near the hotel, the snow-clearing machines having just shoved them to the side of the road, at some places leaving a six-foot high bank. There is a river that passes nearby, named Tom (so obviously there is a small town named Tomsk just beside it), but it is not visible from the hotel. We did cross it a couple of times later. Still iced over.......

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Kemerovo is a small town, with a population of 550,000. It is a popular winter resort for Russians, with miles of heavy forests and well-maintained ski-slopes. A couple of our customers bemoaned the fact that we were leaving tomorrow, else a skiing trip was in the offing! We promised to stay longer next time.
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Like all Russian cities, Kemerovo also has wide roads and chunky buildings, although signs of modern architecture are more evident here than in bigger cities like Novosibirsk. It has perhaps the best educational atmosphere in the Sibir region, housing three Universities. We spent some time at the feet of Pushkin’s statue standing in a square near one of the Universities. Electric trams and buses are abundant and the supermarkets, although very non-descript façade-wise, are really huge inside, well-stocked and full of both Russian and foreign products..

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.Although the people here do complain of high prices, the prices are comparable to India. Petrol costs 22 roubles per litre (around $1/-) – about the same as India. However, the standards of dress, whether driven by weather or by style, surely eat into their pockets. The average Russian is quite a friendly person and they are always thrilled when we utter some words in Russian, pronunciation no bar. Some charges seem slightly on the higher side though. Our hotel, 10 km away from the city, apparently a getaway place, costs 4800 roubles ($220/-) per night and an all-day taxi charges $20 per hour.

.We had lunch at an Italian restaurant ‘The Sacramento’. Thanks to Ramesh, who is veg and finds Italian menu a better fit, we have used up our quota of Italian food for the next year or so!

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.We came back to the hotel at 6.00 pm, took a walk photographing pine trees and begged off from a customer who was determined to take us out to dinner and ply us with vodka.
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Incidentally, I had bought a bottle of Smirnoff Black Label vodka at Dubai duty-free when starting the tour and even as I am writing this line, I am drinking the last sip of the last peg. What fantastic planning!

.Dinner at the restaurant in the hotel was a boisterous scene. Today being Friday, it was the beginning of the weekend. Apart from couples, there were two big families gathered for dinner. With a guy and a gal belting out popular Russian numbers, the diners practically trooped out for every song and back to their table again at the end of it! There was no dance floor to speak of but that did not deter the young blimps and old couples. It was nice watching them have fun – there was a fierce determination to it. To the old, this freedom has perhaps come quite late in their lives and the young of Kemerovo perhaps have very few joints where they can go by themselves and enjoy. Anyway, the revelry was quite energising and a fitting finale to our trip.

.We leave tomorrow morning for a flight to Moscow at 9.00 am and will reach Muscat via Doha at midnight. This was a good trip overall, having had a brief glimpse of snowbound Siberia without having gone through the rigours of minus 40 degC, which is what this region goes through in the depths of winter.

LINK TO ALBUM - KEMEROVO

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