New Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad
In early January 2012, Larry Rexford, Paul Lefebvre and I flew from DFW to Chicago and then to New Delhi, India for a 1-week visit. The travel there and back was very long, about 16 hours total each way, but we had a very successful trip.
We worked with Ajay Sharma from RC New Delhi office to visit 10 different groups in the 5 days that we were there. On our trip we were in New Delhi, Mumbai (old Bombay) and Hyderabad. I kept a blog of the trip, using my iPhone, that is full of typos from typing on tiny screen in bouncy cars. Link to blog is below.
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We flew very far north and went past Jyvaskyla, Finland and over St. Petersburg & Moscow. I have been to Jyvaskyla 5 or 6 times to work with the Finnish Air Force.
As expected, the traffic in New Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad was pretty bad. Aside from cars, there are 3 wheeled tuk-tuks, motorcycles, bicycles, three wheeled carts, push carts, donkey carts, pedestrians and just broken-down vehicles to slow down the traffic.
While we were in La Fortuna, we stayed at the Volcano Lodge and Springs, which had a good view of the volcano – if the rain clouds ever moved over. The Volcano Lodge was filled with beautiful green plants and had a wonderful set of hot springs that fed into several hot pools. They also had several cold-water swimming pools, all near bars and food. We ate breakfast by the hot spring pools and spent our evenings there having some beer, wine and soft drinks. Staying there, we saw plants, birds and heard noises from the jungle that we had never seen or heard before.
Larry and Ajay Sharma, our very helpful co-worker and tour guide. Ajay kept us very busy all week. We had 10 meetings in 5 days in 3 different cities, each with very slow traffic.
We had lunch at the Italian Embassy for some reason? Even in a nice restaurant like in the Italian Embassy, this is where your water comes from – these gross looking water bottles.
Best bet for a good trip to India – Drink only bottled water, wine, beer, do not use the ice. Even Ajay would not drink the water served in restaurants.