Today I traveled into Hyderabad to research what’s known as Serviced Housing. This is either an apartment or bungalow with security & servants. We're staying at "The Novatel” now which is a 5 star hotel but it lacks a few significant details like; There is no dedicated driver, they offer extremely expensive laundry “5 dollars US for 1 shirt” and they have poor internet.
So Gulshan and I left the BACS-IT offices at 1:30 PM. Our offices are in what’s called Hi-Tec City.
I should pause here and explain what Hi-Tec City is.. Hi-Tec City is an amazing architectural area. This relatively small area of real estate is home to most every new corporate building in Hyderabad like Dell, Bank of America, TATA (The G.E. of India), Oracle, Monster and many more. These buildings are all architecturally unique and very beautiful. It’s an amazing site to see in the mornings and evenings as thousands of India natives scramble in and out of these offices. The women mostly wear traditional bright colored Sari and the men look as if they work in America.
Here is an example of what the Sari look like.
Hi-Tec City is lavish and as the name tells, very Hi-Tech. Since camera’s aren’t allowed on premises, I will try to get some pictures this weekend from outside. Just a stones throw outside the Hi-Tec area is where the poverty and craziness begins. If there isn’t a new construction site in process, then someone has thrown up a shanty and is squatting on the land. It’s truly an interesting situation the country is faced with. America and a few other countries are rapidly turning India around with their investments however and the way Hi-Tec City looks, it will be another LA knock off in about 10 years! Each bungelow is selling for $800,000 to $1.2MM US.. Yes, US!
Back to my daily diary :). So we left to find a Serviced Bungalow and after about 2 hours of driving around town and seeing places that don’t meet the lowest standards for your average American middle class home, we finally decided we should either stay in our hotel and figure out what to do about transportation or find a way to move into the nice Bank of America Bungalow’s. The problem with these however, is that they meet 99% of our requirements and the 1 thing they don’t offer at this time is broadband. The development is so new the government hasn’t approved their plans for it.
We decided we would try to find Wireless Internet cards and test them out to resolve this issue. So by 4:30 we made our way through the craziness of Hyderabad where people honk every time they pass, every time they turn and every time they want you to move for them. We finally ended up at AirTel, one of the leading mobile phone providers in India. They are supposed to have a 256 KB card which is far more bandwidth that I am getting at the Novatel. We finally found the hole in the wall serving as an Airtel (there are hardly any significant retail outlets for any reseller) and found out that they don’t sell them in Hyderabad. Only Mumbai (Bombay) and New Delhi sell them. What luck we have. So then we decided to try their competitor Reliance mobile. Another hour across busy Hyderabad and we found it. Again a hole in the wall. They sold the cards but had none open. After 15 minutes we convinced the salesman to open one for testing. About 35 minutes later, the card was installed and the salesman tells us that we need a local address to setup the connection. We’ll, we obviously don’t have one yet “Ahh!”. Sometimes this city drives me crazy. The laws here are very foreigner unfriendly in many cases. Most of this this time I'm taking conference calls on my blackberry and trying to work while dealing with the sales people and Hyderabad.
Gulshan and I were both beat by this time and decided to eat and head home. We passed a Pizza Hut and asked the driver to turn around. It was rush hour traffic “as if Hyderabad ever breaks from that” so by 7:00 PM we reached Pizza Hut and ordered. The menu was fascinating, It looked like Pizza hut, it sounded like Pizza hut but it didn’t’ smell like it and the menu... Wow! Every dish was labeled with a country of origin and there were drinks like Masala Lemonade “selzer water with Indian oils and spices” and very unique pizza combinations. I took a chance and tried the Masala Lemonade. I couldn’t get passed the 2nd sip :).
Apparently Pizza Hut is famous in India and remains very popular. As patrons leave, there is a large cow bell hanging by the door over the hostess area. An engraving reads “Ring the Bell if you Had a Good Time.”. People would loudly ring the bell as they left and the whole place would burst out in English “Thank You!”. I know it's horrible but I had to laugh. What a neat place but I did wonder if they thought this is also an America tradition.
Well, that’s it for me tonight. Tomorrow is Friday and I plan to have a very productive day at work and prepare to see the City on foot for the first time.
Until Next time!
[ add comment ] | permalink |
( 2.8 / 67 )Back Next
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
Calendar
