Curry, garlic naan, chicken tikka masala. My exposure to all things India has unfortunately been limited to mediocre-at-best Indian take-out in the U.S., a too infrequent number of visits to fancy delicious Indian food at Rasika in D.C, the beautiful wedding of my friends Aziza and Jason, and a missed opportunity. As a young girl in elementary school, one of my best friends, was Indian, and when we would visit his house, we would remark on the different (and in our minds' funny) smells from his mom's cooking. How unfortunate - what a missed opportunity!- that we didn't appreciate that we had delicious homemade Indian food just two blocks away!
Now 30 years or so later, I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to go to India for work and see all the sights, hear all the sounds, eat all the delicious food, and smell all the exotic smells! I was fortunate to snatch up a three week assignment for our supply chain project here.
Let's start with a picture of the amazing food:
Now you know why I will be going to the gym every single day when I get home. Lentils (dal), curries, biryani, tikka everything!, palak (spincach), gobi (cauliflower) and all the Indian breads (naan, roti, chapati) that you can imagine. More pics of this to come.
Lucky for me, this trip spans three different geographic locations in this amazing country (Delhi, Goa, and Jharkhand). First, let's start with just a bit of history/factoids on India that are pretty mind-boggling.
India has the second-largest population in the world at 1.2 billion and is the 7th largest geographically. Depending on what website you check, the New Delhi metro area has 25 million people and is the around the fourth largest city in the world and a population density of nearly 30,000 people/sq. mile. For reference Boston has 13,000 people/sq mile and Boston's pretty thickly settled! Here's some perspective:
Ok so enough of geography and stats. I arrived in Delhi at 10:00 p.m. on a Tuesday evening, and it was still 89 degrees. I was thoroughly expecting oppressive heat and humidity. Now it IS hot but it's more that it's humid. I feel like Tanzania in February was hotter and more humid than what I've experienced here...but 89 degrees at 10 p.m. is still pretty dang warm.
My Zimbabwean colleague from our DC office, Iggy Chiyaka, and I hit the ground running on Wednesday combating jet lag with an endless supply of tea and coffee. Got picked up from the Hilton at 8:30 a.m. and ran into this:
I should dedicate an entire post and photos to traffic in Delhi. Tuktuks, bicycles, motorcycles, buses, taxis, and cars jam every possible space of road (and sidewalk and bus lane) barely missing crashing into each other and pedestrians. I think I spent most of our first 30 minute car ride to the office from the hotel with my hand white-knuckle gripping the door handle and averting my eyes. And our office- here it is John Snow India Private Limited!
Our project office is just getting started up here, and Iggy and I came to lead a staff workplanning and teambuilding retreat for them. The staff elected to get out of town for the retreat to really get away and focus. What better place than Goa! Goa is known for its amazing beaches and tourism. It's India's smallest state and located in the southwestern part of the country on the coast of the Arabian sea. We got a good deal at the LaLit Golf Spa and Resort for our four-day retreat as it is monsoon season! Not exactly the best time to go but hey! We spent most of the time indoors in the retreat anyway so it was fine. A few pics:
And here is our amazing group:
We did a little bit of sight-seeing but the rains impeded some of enjoyment. We took a trip to Palolem Beach in the next little village over from our resort after the end of our third day.
And on our last day we visited Old Goa and the Basilica de Bom Jesus. The Portuguese landed in Goa in the early 16th century and claimed it as a territory soon thereafter (until India claimed it back in 1961!) so there are many a Portuguese influence- especially on food and religion. On our last rainy day out of town, we hit up Old Goa, the Basilica and the requisite street food of corn and coconuts.
They call it "American" corn! :)
We returned back to Delhi to prep for our next week of work relishing our memories of Goa. You can find more pics of my trip thus far here. Come back next week for a new post on Delhi shopping, a week in Jharkhand and the much-anticipated trip to the Taj Mahal!
Ok so enough of geography and stats. I arrived in Delhi at 10:00 p.m. on a Tuesday evening, and it was still 89 degrees. I was thoroughly expecting oppressive heat and humidity. Now it IS hot but it's more that it's humid. I feel like Tanzania in February was hotter and more humid than what I've experienced here...but 89 degrees at 10 p.m. is still pretty dang warm.
My Zimbabwean colleague from our DC office, Iggy Chiyaka, and I hit the ground running on Wednesday combating jet lag with an endless supply of tea and coffee. Got picked up from the Hilton at 8:30 a.m. and ran into this:
Photo credit: http://www.dawn.com/news/665677/delhis-traffic-has-a-character-of-its-own
I should dedicate an entire post and photos to traffic in Delhi. Tuktuks, bicycles, motorcycles, buses, taxis, and cars jam every possible space of road (and sidewalk and bus lane) barely missing crashing into each other and pedestrians. I think I spent most of our first 30 minute car ride to the office from the hotel with my hand white-knuckle gripping the door handle and averting my eyes. And our office- here it is John Snow India Private Limited!
Our project office is just getting started up here, and Iggy and I came to lead a staff workplanning and teambuilding retreat for them. The staff elected to get out of town for the retreat to really get away and focus. What better place than Goa! Goa is known for its amazing beaches and tourism. It's India's smallest state and located in the southwestern part of the country on the coast of the Arabian sea. We got a good deal at the LaLit Golf Spa and Resort for our four-day retreat as it is monsoon season! Not exactly the best time to go but hey! We spent most of the time indoors in the retreat anyway so it was fine. A few pics:
Can you see the water buffalo at the back of the rice paddy?
And here is our amazing group:
We did a little bit of sight-seeing but the rains impeded some of enjoyment. We took a trip to Palolem Beach in the next little village over from our resort after the end of our third day.
And on our last day we visited Old Goa and the Basilica de Bom Jesus. The Portuguese landed in Goa in the early 16th century and claimed it as a territory soon thereafter (until India claimed it back in 1961!) so there are many a Portuguese influence- especially on food and religion. On our last rainy day out of town, we hit up Old Goa, the Basilica and the requisite street food of corn and coconuts.
Fresh coconut anyone?
Handkerchiefs really didn't do that great a job of keeping Rama, Nitin, and Geetika dry!
We returned back to Delhi to prep for our next week of work relishing our memories of Goa. You can find more pics of my trip thus far here. Come back next week for a new post on Delhi shopping, a week in Jharkhand and the much-anticipated trip to the Taj Mahal!
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