Dinner, a movie & reflections on India

March 31 – John had another interesting trip to India. The company is trying to be more cost conscious, so he was booked in a less expensive hotel. In Delhi he has learned that you either pay well over $200/night to be in a decent hotel or you pay less and get, well, here is a sample. I wish John would contribute to this because to hear him tell it, is so funny. I have to say the guy has a great attitude. Nobody else from the company will set foot in India, but John goes about every 6 weeks to support his people there. They obviously adore him for this, as they know nobody else will come. The head of the India office, Alok, looks at John as a father figure. When the head salesman met Alok a few weeks ago (they had Alok meet them in Thailand as they would not go to India), he later told John that he must be brainwashing the guy. All Alok could talk about was how wonderful Meester John was. And it was Meester John this & Meester John that.

I transgressed there, sorry. So John called me after his first night in Delhi to say the air conditioning in the first room did not work. That is not good in Delhi as the humidity is very high. So they moved him. In the second room the front door to the room would not close all the way. That might be OK in Hong Kong, but not in Delhi. So they moved him again. The 3rd room seemed fine, until he went into the bathroom. He said he guessed they didn’t advertise that rooms came with their own pets. There was a 12inch lizard crawling in the bathtub area. Not wanting to take any more chances, he kept the bathroom door closed & put a towel at the bottom. INCREDIBLE INDIA!! A country of extremes with very little in the middle.

The next day he moved to a better hotel. I told him if the company complained about having to spend more money on the better hotel, he should send them a lizard head in the mail. He said nobody complained.

He did get to take a trip about 3 hours north of Delhi to see a printer. He said the area was near the mountains and very pleasant. They had lunch at a huge hotel that used to be the residence of the local governor, but now owned by a private family. He said the meal was great, but they were the only ones in the restaurant. Again he commented on the extremes in India. They rode in the fist class train car which was very plush. The only other choice was the regular class, which was just like you see in the movies. People hanging out the windows, hard wooden benches, no glass on the windows. It is a country of the haves & have nots and it doesn’t seem to really bother anyone, that is how it is supposed to be.

Indian food is not John’s favorite so he was craving a good steak. We had dinner at Dan Ryan’s Chicago Grill. They have good salads & steaks. John was very happy. We followed with a movie. This is a new theater and is it fancy. I felt like I was in a huge house of mirrors. All the walls were mirrored & the halls curved and wound around so that you felt lost & confused. I’m glad we were not in a hurry. We saw the movie “300”. Good big screen movie, but tons of blood, tons. BUT the nearly naked, well sculpted men throughout the movie, made the blood more than tolerable, for me anyway. It was a good story about ancient Greece’s fight for freedom from Persia. Lots of action as you can well imagine.