Bright eyed and bushey tailed Mrs Fogg emerged from the airport and hasn’t stopped talking my ear off in the car for the last 2 hours, oh well bang goes the peace and quiet.
So the planes is already delayed by 15 mins and no doubt the boss will be zonked after travelling from 2.30 this morning.
A short trip home (well about 2 hours, a little scran and then bed methinks.
No doubt Mrs Fogg will do an update when she is fit and rested.
I have just arrived in Dubai after an uneventful departure from Kolkata. I remembered all the rules at the airport, presented my boarding pass, passes effortlessly through the grubby curtain and I have now emerged into a clean and sparkly Dubai airport. Clean toilets yippee!!
So, now sat here in the departure gate for the final leg of my journey.
Have I enjoyed India? Most certainly yes. It has been very different, at times odd but overall quite a vibrant place.
Next stop Manchester
[Posted from Mrs Foggs super cool iphone]
Needing to fly from Kolkata down to Bhubaneswar means braving the domestic air terminal in Kolkata. It’s certainly an experience.
Only slightly more substantial than a cattle shed the processes you have to go through are chaotic and confusing to say the least.
First challenge is to actually get into the airport departure terminal. All cars, taxis and any other transport jostle for access to four parking lanes in front of the terminal. Then it is down to the individual to navigate with luggage through taxis and horns blaring. Once at the doors (which when I arrived were broken – electric doors were tight shut and not budging until a little man prised them apart and crawled through) you have to show your flight details and have your bags prodded.
Stage two once in the hall is to then figure out where the hell the actual check in desks are. Of course you are also supposed to know that all bags to be checked in need to be x rayed before going to the check in desk.
Stage three is to realise that as a woman, all the men check in first by pushing in.
By this stage I’m doing well, checked in, bags deposited and time to go through to the departure gate. The picture is just one of the long winding queues to get through security. It turns out that once near the front you are separated. Women to the middle scanners, men to either side.
As women we have to place all bags onto the usual conveyor belt then queue to wait to be called behind a very grubby curtain. Equally here it seems that western women are low on the pecking order as at least 10 women pushed me out of the way to queue.
So, standing in a long closely packed (no personal space issues here) queue for the curtain I watches my luggage get scanned and passed to the other side and could do nothing about it.
Finally I reached the curtain to meet Mrs Happy. Oh my. Apparently you are supposed to hold your boarding pass so she can frisk you and stamp it. Of course no signs tell you this nugget of info. So instead, mrs happy here shouts at me, points back to the queue and makes me leave the curtain.
Great. Bags are the other side as is boarding pass and I’m back to the start. So an argument ensues between the male scanner supervisor and mrs happy. She clearly has one job to do and will do it to the letter. After being barked at by her boss she begrudgingly let me into the curtain and performed the scan with military precision and the odd annoyed whack with the electronic paddle for good measure. What an experience, but hey I thought it’s done now, collected my bag and wandered off to find the gate.
10 minutes later her boss comes to find me and did a very formal “Come with me”. You guessed it, back to Mrs Happy and the curtain. I still needed to have the boarding pass stamped. And boy did she moan- of course, I couldn’t understand a word of it so instead I did an awfully British thank you instead for good measure, which certainly seemed to annoy her further.
So at least I now know what to do on the return journey!
[Posted from Mrs Foggs super cool iphone]
Mr Spike
So Mrs Fogg is now in Bhubaneswar and we have had one text from her since there is no free WiFi access.
Tomorrow sees her setting off at 6am to a plate mill which is 3 to 4 hours away in a truck for a 4 hour meeting before starting the monumental journey back by truck, then plane to Kolkata, then flight to Dubai and Manchester.
Don’t worry Mr Spike, by midnight Mrs Fogg will be home. Fingers Crossed.
This was your host at 4am (which was actually only 3am) this morning as Spike decided it was time to wake up for food since it was daylight. The little bugga decided the best way to wake you up if you ain’t stirring, is to dig his claws into soft parts of your anatomy.
Needless to say the odd rude word was muttered and one cat achieved momentary flight.
Oh thank goodness for early summer mornings!
So Mrs Fogg bought me a guitar, amp and lessons for Christmas (goodness knows why cos I is tone deaf). But here we are in March and I’m still trying to learn. I can just about do the smoke on the water riff (if you listen carefully), but it is difficult playing when you have crab claws where fingers are needed to get the right notes.
Still in a few more years I may actually be able to play something resembling a tune.
Mrs Fogg you have a while to wait before you can put my pretty guitar on the wall to gather dust.
I meant to post this yesterday. The company office in Kolkata has a number of helpful signs posted for guests.
The best one is to be found in the ladies toilet which requires visitors to flash after use. A most bizarre concept. Does one just lift your top or just pull trousers down when flashing?? And who is it appropriate to flash to?
I decided not to follow the instructions on this occasion.
I am currently sat by the pool at the hotel and it looks like there is a private pool party about to happen. There is lots of frantic activity setting White table cloths out and about 30 staff dashing about to make sure all is clean and tidy.
It is nearly 5pm here and the sun us setting on another day in India. The temperature is very pleasant being at maybe 31 but not overly humid which is good.
Tomorrow might just have to be a dip in the pool. I’ve done the toe test, the water is bath temperature so it’s looking good.
[Posted from Mrs Foggs super cool iphone]
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…….
[Posted from Mrs Foggs super cool iphone]
Yes Wonder Woman.
So at present Mrs Fogg is working in Calcutta, ah sorry get it right, that’s the colonial British name, Its now called Kolkata by it’s Indian name (if your gonna change your name why not make it so totally different, eh). She is over at a quarterly IT conference enjoying all the spices and aromas that the place has to offer.
So Saturday night sees Mrs Fogg land back home, or does it. She has been asked to extend her stay to assist with technical and training issues onsite, because obviously India has a shortage of Techie bods!
So who knows when the Mrs will be returning, but afterall she is WonderWoman in every sense of the word, capable of resolving other people’s IT issues.
Now if only I can get her into the costume and also get her to put the lasso to good use, sorry lost deep in thought there for a second, ah …….
