Welcome Nelius!
Order in the world (and in my heart) has been restored. After 2½ months I have been reunited with my beautiful wife.
I have a number of blog posts that are stuck in my head, but I simply haven’t found time to get them onto the blog. My apologies, especially after so many people nominated the blog for the SA blog awards. I will try to catch up over the next couple of weeks. (I just need to sort through a few thousand photos!).
I was very fortunate to not be completely alone in India - I had a visitor for 2 weeks. (Enter Nelius stage left …)
My colleague / friend Nelius visited India to assist us with the implementation of actuarial software and it was quite entertaining to re-experience India through someone else’s eyes. Some of the really weird and wonderful things in India have become “normal” for me and it was great to rediscover how unusual India is through the “are you serious?” expression on someone else’s face.
Arrival in Mumbai
This was Nelius’ first visit to India so I armed him with a few “travelers tips” for India. I was in Mumbai for a conference, so we decided to meet up in Mumbai and travel onwards from there.
I think he was happy to find a familiar face outside the airport in Mumbai:
I had a day to show Nelius some of the hot spots in Mumbai, and he had one day solo to explore the rest of Mumbai and the Elephanta island and caves.
One of the “traveller’s tips” that I gave to Nelius was that the concept of a queue does not really exist in India. Queuing is like driving here. Try to overtake the person in front of you at all cost! Nelius mentioned to me that he laughed when he first read this, but when he returned from Elephanta Island he said he now understood. He stood in the front of the “queue” to get onto the boat, but literally got on to the boat last.
We also did some shopping in Mumbai and I took Nelius to my “good Kashmiri friend” Sajid (not my driver) in Mumbai to look at some fine Kashmir carpets. Several carpets were rolled across the floor and serious negotiations followed. After a lot of time and a lot of fancy verbal footwork from both sides a price was agreed upon (for 2 carpets - 1 for me and 1 for Nelius). Now the carpets weren’t small and was not a miniscule amount either. The shop owner told us that because we were such good negotiators (yeah right!, but this smart sales talk makes me come back time and time again…) that we please pay for the carpets, but don’t take them with us right away. This is because the driver and spotter in front of the shop is also going to ask for a commission if we walk out with the carpet. So he offered to drop the carpets off at our hotel in the evening.
As I mentioned the 2 silk carpets (around 9 by 6 foot each) do cost a considerable amount of money (especially for India). By now Nelius had that “Are you serious?” look on his face (again), but I told him that I’d be happy to trust them and that I would pay for the carpets and that we can settle the accounts afterwards. A slightly concerned Nelius and I finished our day in Mumbai, and around dinner time that evening our carpets arrived - neatly packed for travel. (Unlike the impression that Slumdog Millionaire conveys … but I’ll cover that in another post)
Around Hyderabad
Because of a hectic work schedule I could only give Nelius the very very brief highlights package of Hyderabad.
This included Charminar, an auto ride, bargaining in a local market, Chowmahalla Palace, Mecca Masjid and some fine Indian food and the nice hotel he missed out because he was staying at my house.
We capped of Nelius’ visit by joining the expat trek to Aurangabad. But after sorting through a 1000 photos a post about Aurangabad will follow …
Pir milenge (vanuit ‘n lekker Kaap!)
Theo Scheffler
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Welkom terug in die Kaap Theo. Ek is seker kleinding het ‘n ekstra paar bokspringe gedoen oor pa wat kom kuier het. Sien daarna uit om jou by die troue te sien. Groete, Arnold
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Theo - some of us at the office here are surprised that you ‘allowed’ Nelius to buy food items from KFC & MacDonalds! Surely when in India, do as the Indians do!
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Hi Margie, Nelius proved his mettle quite early on and dove into the spicey stuff. So over the 2 weeks he earned a break every now and again to sample some KFC or Subway.
(Some of the spiciest Indian food I have ever eaten was when Nelius and I went out)
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 pm
What software did he install?
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Prophet - we were building products and a model office, rather than “installing” though …
March 24th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Hi, Theo - as a father representing Nelius’s mother we were happy to learn that you were there for Nelius when he disembarked the plane at Mumbai, India. We had access to your initial instructions for him to find his way after the arrival, which was amusing, but cause for our concern about him having to find his way in the “eastern mosaic”. Thank you for allowing him to rather miss the nice hotel and accommodate him at your house, which I believe was a great experience in itself. Regards and best wishes…
March 24th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
welkom terug in sa - en ek is bly jy is nou by marga
en wanneer kom die baba
rhoma
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:59 am
im also staying in hyderabad. tum log kon ho hyd ku kya khali photo lena kiliye aate kay baa. mera bus chele to pura oldcity ghuma-ghuma ke hgataun,,,,,,,,,,pinde-ki-meri
June 24th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Ismail-bhai - kya ye tum hai? My bahut baar Charminar me ghuma-ghuma ta. My sirf photo nahi le ta hain - bahut log mera photo le te!