Going home

Well, it's been a long trip. Hard to believe I've been gone for almost 3 weeks. I'd say that the time has gone by quickly, but it really hasn't. I'm sitting here at the Novell office waiting for the manager here to take me to dinner. It's about 9:15 pm on Wednesday night and the 9-11pm hour frame is the normal time to eat dinner here. Seems late to me. According to Delta's website, my plane is scheduled to leave at 2:30 am, which means I'll be at the airport for at least 3 1/2 hours waiting for my flight. Oh joy! Nothing like hanging out in the Mumbai airport. I arrive in Paris 9 1/2 hours later at 8:30 am. Hopefully I'll then be able to hop a train to the center of Paris (about 40 minutes away) and get a little sight seeing done. All in all I'll probably only have about 3-4 hours total in the city. Hopefully enough time to stretch my legs and take some pictures. I leave Paris at 4:00 pm and arrive in Atlanta at 7:20 pm (9 1/2 hours later) and then after an hour and a half layover, onto Utah, arriving at 11:10 pm (4 hour flight). So, if you do the math, my Thursday will be one of the longest days of my life (about 36 hours). Hopefully I can try to sleep on the plane. India has been fun. Wish me safe travels!

The Mumbai Branch

In just a few days I'll be back to normal civilization. Even though I've enjoyed this "educational" experience, I am ready to come home. I had a chance to visit the Mumbai Branch on Sunday for church. The church meets in a small apartment-like building that has a small room for the chapel and a few other rooms for other meetings.The branch has only been in existence since 1999. There are only 28 official members of the branch but average Sacrament Mtg. attendance is around 8-10 per week. I guess many of the members live a long ways away and it is difficult to travel to the church each week. The drive out there from my hotel only took about 45 minutes (about 19 miles). I arrived about 15 minutes before church and met another sister visiting on business visiting from Brea, California (Orange County). The active branch members are pretty much all one family. The President and his wife happened to be in New York and wanted to go to a church and so they found the LDS church one Sunday not knowing what it was. Needless to say they had a good experience and they came back to Bombay and were baptized along with two sons and a daughter and their families. The picture here is of the President and his wife (center) two of the daughters and a son in law and grandchild. Nice people. There is also a small baptismal font in the back.
I was asked to give the opening prayer in Sacrament meeting and I of course blessed the speakers and teachers that would be talking today. I realized 10 minutes later after Sacrament meeting was OVER that it wasn't necessary. We had the opening song (using the "Hymns on CD" as the music), prayer, sacrament song, sacrament, closing song and prayer. That was it. They cancelled Sunday School too. One of the shortest services I've been to. We hung out in the chapel and talked for awhile afterwards though where the President told us his story in broken English. All in all I was there for less than an hour, which was nice because I was able to go back to the hotel and relax for the rest of the day. With 17 million people in the city, I can only imagine what the church would be like here if there was a thriving LDS community. A lot of work left to be done. The closest temple is the Hong Kong Temple, about an 8 hour plane flight. I really can't complain that our chapel is about a block away from our home and the nearest temple is a 20 minute drive. It was a humbling experience.

Misc pictures of India

I have a collection of pictures that really don't fit into a specific story, but are nonetheless interesting. Some of the pictures speak for themselves. I know that you're supposed to experience the food of the country you're visiting, but I think India can be added to that exception list. This Pizza Hut actually served Mountain Dew! Best glass of Mountain Dew I've every drunk.I drove around the city yesterday doing some souvenier shopping and saw some of the slums of the city that really shocked me. As you can see, these shacks are all that many families have. As I drove down this corridor, it was about noon and I saw many a naked little child getting bathed in buckets just feet from rushing traffic. It's hard to see, but these people have no electricity and no running water. Many of them had 50 gallon water drums that they used.



Some classic outfits worn by women all over the place. Very colorful outfits and always with a scarf of some sort. Ocassionally you'll see the women that wear all black and cover their faces, but it's not that common.Driving still just blows me away. There are lanes on some of the highways, but why use them. Why restrict one car per lane when you can easily put two in the same lane. Fortunately all drivers wear seatbelts, but most of the cars I ride in do not have seatbelts in the back seat. Asking the Lord to help me "travel to work in safety" has taken on a whole new meaning.

Elephanta Caves

So Sunday was the first opportunity to do some sightseeing in India. I started the morning with my own little personal Sacrament Meeting held in my hotel room. (There is a branch about an hour and half away that I'm going to try to hit next Sunday). I went with another Novell employee named Nitesh and we headed down to the Gateway of India right in downtown Mumbai (a.k.a. Bombay). It was a pretty warm day, but the ocean breeze kept me from looking like I had just gotten out of the shower. Little did I know that would change later on in the day. The gateway was built in 1911. It is where we boarded the ferry that would take us to Elephanta Island where the Elephanta Caves are located. Here are a few pictures of the gateway from land as well as the ferry. Click HERE for a satellite view of the gateway and then zoom out to see where in the world I was.
The ferry ride took a lot longer than expected. About an hour. You can't expect much when you're only going 8-10 mph (I had my GPS with me. Click HERE to see the proximity of the gateway and the island. It is the largest island shown in the upper right quadrant of the screen) Upon arriving, the sea breeze once again kept me dry, but I had no idea there was a good climb up a stone corridor to get to the caves themselves. You can see that the corridor was full of little vendors trying to get you to buy little trinkets and charms just itching for me to stop and buy something. By the time I got to the entrance, I was pretty much a wet mess. Luckily I had a handkercheif I had carried with me to dry myself off. Seemed like I was using it every 30 seconds or so.

At the entrance to the caves, there as an Indian woman there that immediately ran up to me asking if I would take her picture. I though it was a cool photo opportunity. There were about 5 others that saw me taking her picture and suddenly ran over to me. I thought it was a little odd, but then it clicked when my Indian companion paid the first woman and pulled me away from the crowd. What a clever ploy. . . Get these foreigners to think they're getting a cultural photo and then take their money. I made the mistake only once but got at least an interesting photo.The caves themselves were fascinating. Carved right out of the side of the mountain. The many pillars positioned both along the outside facade and all through the interior were very interesting. A lot of work went into carving these. There were a total of 4 different caves, some interconnected but most did not. It reminded me of the cliffs at Petra in Jordan, but not nearly as ornate.

For those of you who don't know, I love geocaching and of course I looked up the Mumbai area to see if there were any around. Fortunately there is only one in the area and it happens to be on Elephanta Island. It was actually a good thing that I had planned on finding it because there was a path that I would have never seen nor taken if I didn't know there was a cache on the other end. The path took us up about a 1/4 mile to the top of the second largest hill on the island with an incredible view of the entire bay. Once at the top, it was just a short 200 foot trek through the thick of the jungle to find the 35 mm cannister hidden under a small outcropping of rocks. I was pretty stoked that I found it. This picture is the kind of folliage I was going through. Surprisingly I didn't receive a single insect bite while on the adventure.Monkeys are also considered sacred on the island so I had to catch a quick shot of one of them running around.It was time to leave the island in order to catch the last boat and seeing that I had no intentions of spending the night on the island, we hurried down the mountain and jumped back on the ferry and in about an hour we pulled back into the port by the gateway. At that point I felt so sticky and dirty that I just wanted to get home. Luckily the car waiting for us had a very nice air conditioner and I was able to somewhat dry out. However, the sun was just setting and so I was able to jump out of the car and grab this beautiful shot of the sun setting on the Arabian Sea, a view not many people have the chance to see with their own eyes. India may be a little dirty and rough around the edges, but if you look passed that it really is a beautiful part of the world.

Daily life

It's official. My body has officially thrown in the towel. It's had enough curry and spices and it's definitely letting me know that. Thank goodness for Imodium A/D. I'm doing much better now. Decided to put in some more pictures. Here's a shot of the swimming pool. I've been in it once and if it weren't for the fact the temperature feels around 80 degrees, it would feel much more refreshing. I believe I mentioned that the only thing that separates the poor from the rich is a wall. Hopefully you can see that from this next picture. This area on the other side of the hotel wall is actually one of the nicer little neighborhoods.My normal day consists of getting up and heading down to the hotel buffet, the only chance I have of eating somewhat familiar food. The driver then picks me up out front of the hotel and thank goodness the cars are air conditioned to compensate for the 95 degree/90% average humidity outside. There's a constant dust cloud that hovers over the roads due to the lack of paved roads on many of the side streets. Pedestrians, bicycles, cars, busses, and motorized rickshaws all have an equal right of way on the main roads. I'm amazed that the cars all have their side view mirrors still. I wouldn't be at all surprised if people were wearing secret body armour underneath their clothes for the occasional side swipe by vehicles. It still amazes me that I get to the office without hitting anyone. Here's some pictures of the thousands of rickshaws on the road including some other forms of transportation. Here's a shot of a typically dressed Indian woman walking down the street on the way to the office. These potholes are pretty mild compared to some of the roads I travel on. This road already has something going for it . . . it's mostly paved! The Indians at work claim that the roads are bad here because there's a lot of construction going on. Uh . . . nice excuse. Here's a typical street corner that doesn't look too bad. Coming back to the hotel is actually very refreshing. However as the car comes through the gates the security guards stop and take one of those convex mirrors at the end of a long pole and walk around the car looking for bombs. I like to think they're looking for people clutched to the underside of the car hanging on for dear life just to get into the gates of the hotel. That's one thing that everyone has around here . . . their own personal security guards. It's comforting, but sometimes I wonder how much security they really provide. Back in the hotel room I turn on the TV and am bombarded with the World Cup on almost all channels. Don't forget the Cricket 24 hour channel. Someday I may actually look up the rules and try to figure out this strange sport. I have gotten pretty good at understanding the heavily accented English that the Indians speak here. Just a final tid bit . . . thanks to Brett, my colleague at work for giving me a copy of Angels & Demons (the prequel book to the Da Vinci Code). I stayed up until 3:30 in the morning finishing it. By the way, very very good book. I just started the Da Vinci Code this afternoon. I've been ordered by Brett to read the book before seeing the movie, which is fine. I like Dan Brown's style.

Indian Theaters

I had some extra time after work today to run down to the local theater to catch a movie. They're playing Mission Impossible 3 and so I had to check it out. After about a 45 minute drive through the thick of Mumbai's traffic, I arrived at the Fame Adlabs theater. They charge different prices for seats in the theater, so I asked for their nicest seats, which cost me 180 Rupees (about $3.80). These "expensive" seats were only on the very back row of the stadium style theater and the seats were very nice and very comfortable as you can see in the picture. (There were probably about 15 of these seats on the back row) They even give you these cool satin pillows and blankets. The theater was air conditioned, but not cold enough for a blanket. The movie was in English and there were no previews at the beginning. What was strange though was that just before the movie started, everyone in the theater stood and sang the National Anthem of India. I respectfully stood until the song was over (I was the only non-Indian in the whole theater and people definitely noticed that and watched to see what I would do. Luckily I was sitting on the very back row). I was really getting into the show when suddenly after an hour, the house lights came on and the "Intermission" sign displayed on the screen. Everyone left the theater for food and the restroom, which I actually was glad for. That's when they ran all the previews. Kind of backwards from the U.S. but I guess it works. For those who haven't seen the show, it really is action packed from the very beginning. I really liked it. Highly recommended.

Greetings from India

So, sorry about no pictures this time but I haven't had a chance to take many yet. I'm here in Mumbai, India and it couldn't be more muggy. I thought Tokyo was bad. It's the monsoon season here and temps are in the upper 80s and close to 100% humidity. The 20 hours in a plane were pretty long and it's 11:50 pm and I'm not a bit tired. There is a very stark difference between the hotel grounds and what is on the opposite side of the wall. I thought I experienced "poor" in Venezuela, but I've never seen anything like this before. But the people look happy even if they are sleeping in a 3-sided shack on dirt floors. The hotel I'm staying at is 5-star and it lives up to it's rating. It's very nice. Driving down the streets is something else. Luckily I have a designated driver that drives me to and from Novell. I swear that there are sometimes only inches between the car and those on the street. I saw a motorcycle with what looked like a whole family on it. Mom, Dad, about a 4 yr old and then probably a 1 yr old sitting way up front. Pretty crazy. I'll see if I can take pictures and post them. But I am safe and sound and hope to have an enjoyable time. By the way, the house is done and we moved in about a week ago. There are a few items that need to be finished on the exterior, but other than that we love it and so do the kids. We had lots of help from the ward and from home teachers.