This morning I should have been in a plane home. Should…However, conveniently for my company, we have a site (a steel mill) not far away that is having computer problems with staff from the UK working there. So muggins here gets to go do a PR visit.

Cue a short flight to a temple city in the jungle, an overnight stay there and then a 3 hour drive through the jungle to some remote place where we have stuck a mine and steel mill.

I am told that compared to Kolkata THIS will be a culture shock. I may see elephants, snakes and all sorts of critters. What fun…

Luckily I have my own personal guide in the form of a young man from our Kolkata office who will be my escort for the trip. This certainly was unexpected so I should make the most of seeing this country – ESP since I do not plan to come back anytime soon!

So this means I have Sat and most of Sunday to chill out in my 5 star luxury hotel – and of course to make the most of it since the 5 star stops on Sunday and I venture into the unknown.

I asked at the hotel today who advise me that the town i am going to is very famous for tourism. It is called Bhubaneswar and has some very revered temples that people travel far and wide to. To my mind this means hippy backpackers, so I’m intrigued what the hotels will be like.

One of my friends from the office last night kindly emailed me some helpful guidelines for travelling beyond the 5 star hotels. I thought I would share this:

Never eat salad or anything that has to be washed with water.
Try to stick to curry- cooking it tends to kill the germs
Avoid rice if it is sat out to cool- it could have been there for hours if not days
Buy and use sterile hand wipes- use after touching taxi door handles and any other surface
Eating with the right hand is normal practice- mash the vegetables and sauce into the rice with your hand and shovel into mouth- remember to sterile wipe hands before and after.
Every question and request will be met with a Yes- Indians do not have the concept of no (seen as rude)- even if they cannot do something they will say yes then just fail to do anything about it.

So that sums up the helpful advice. Enlightened yet? Me too.

I’ll be sure to take lots and lots of pictures to share with you all. Got to go, need to sterilise my hands for the fifteenth time…….