bengston

The last day...

Tonight I'm flying back home and I'm glad! It's been very good but I longe for a few days at home.. Yesterday we were taken out for dinner and yet again.. in a luxury hotel! The day before yesterday we attended a function in another luxury hotel. So what we've seen besides meeting rooms are 5star hotels and the streets on the taxi rides between them! We plan to go for a walk this evening to get at least once the real feeling of Mumbai.

Mumbai

We're back in Mumbai for a few days of work. The city is hard to imagine. It's so big you don't know where it begins and where it ends. The smog lies over it and it stretches over 400sq km... I stay again at an insanely luxurious hotel which makes it hard not to feel guilty. Outside it's between 32 and 36 degrees hot but somehow my room servant has cooled down to 15degrees which is why I'm freezing at the moment. After quite a few adventourous taxi rides in Goa and in Mumbai we are now driven around in more up to date company cars (every manager has a private driver here) and it gives a little confidence to be able to buckle up. The colours and impressions of the city are amazing. It's buzzing, full of live and contrast. I really look forward to get out a bit tomorrow and over the next few days to check the city if time allows to do so.

At the beach

Today we spent a good part of our time at the Beach here in Goa. It was allright. We got some sunbeds and settled down for a few hours under the umbrellas. The weather was sunny at around 32 degrees so no complaints here. However it was a bit of a challenge to fight off the people trying to sell something or to get rid of beggers. For every tourist here you'll get one or two Indians trying to sell a massage, handycraft or even people with small children or people with lepra begging for a few rupies. That experience is certainly strange: At first you feel very uncomfortable. Then you try to ignore but at the same time it crossed my mind that it's actually not a bad thing: In most tourist resorts poor people are put elswhere. They are "removed" to make sure tourists have a nice and proper image. Here it's different: Expect to go through some dirty back alleys. Expect power dropouts and expect the disturbing. On the other hand people are very friendly. In fact I have so many friends here I stopped counting: Everyone says "Hello my friend.. taxi?" or "Hello my friend... you want a sunbed?". Today we went to the town and ate at a place that was clearly not meant to be a tourist hangout. Hidden on a first floor we had excellent food and followed a bit more of the ICC (the cricket world championship). Speaking of Cricket: India lost against Sri Lanka on Friday which means they are out of the worldcup... a major issue here as you can imagine! I bought a cricket ball today as a little souvenir :)

First Impressions

Yesterday night we arrived in India, Mumbai to be precise. The flight was long but ok. I flew Business for the first time in my life which is nice but somewhat over the top. To put all the impressions here in India into a few sentences would be impossible. It's insane: The poverty on one side and the most luxurious hotel I've ever been to on the other. The notorious traffic chaos and the sheer amount of people is unbelievable. Colours, smell, everything is different.

Today we flew to Goa for a few days of rest before the actual business part begins (back in Mumbai). Goa is very touristic and not all that nice as I would've expected. The beach is somewhat dirty with some oil stains and although in a friendly way a bit run down (the sunbeds etc.). However we enjoy the days here and I'll do nothing at all tomorrow as I'm very tired of all the travelling.

Look busy

Above anything it's important to look busy. Busyness is what makes one important. People who are hard to reach are supposed to be busy and one tends to be reluctant calling busy people with not so important topics. If you're not that busy it's best to look at least like you were. In a typical office you'll easily find someone who is trying to look busy but who isn't. Busy Lookers are shifting around papers. They are most likely longer in the office than anyone else. And they clearly are trying to be a bottleneck when fixing meetings etc.

When googling "look busy" you'll find this excellent page giving advise to people who want to look busy without really working.

I'll certainly follow some of that should I be less busy sometime soon ;)

My new single "Mango" is out now...

Digital only release on Ritmic of my track "Mango" backed with Crash House Brother's winning remix of the competition held in autumn 06. Check it, buy it, love it!

WAYN

Maybe old news to many but yesterday I attended a speech by the two founders of WAYN, a social network site targeted to travellers. An interesting concept and a quite useful thing too: When you travel to someplace, you log that and you will be able to hook up with locals and people travelling there in the same timeframe or people who've already been there! I'll sure give it a try.

Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verückten Flugzeug

Ich muss in zwei Wochen nach Indien. Zum Glück nicht mit Air India. Warum nicht Air India kann man hier nachlesen!

Grossraumbüro

Ich find ja die Grossraumbüros nicht schlecht. Gut für die Kommunikation und so. Aber manchmal gehts einfach nicht mehr. Gestern hat jemand vis-à-vis den ganzen Morgen gemampft. Echt: Angefangen bei zwei Joghurts, Gipfeli, dann einen Apfel und zwischendurch Chips oder sowas ähnlliches. Heute hab ich extra einen anderen Platz weit weg vom Mampfer gesucht. Mein Gegenüber heute hat dafür lautstark Kaugummi gekaut was eigentlich fast noch schlimmer ist als Dauer-Fresser. Am schlimmsten sind jedoch die ganzen Laut-telefonierer, welche dabei noch quer durch die Bürolandschaft tigern. Werde ich alt oder einfach reif für's Einzelbüro?

Duzis per Combox

Heute hat jemand per Combox duzis mit mir gemacht.