Arun Gupta, Miles to go ...

Bangalore Traffic

Enjoy a glimpse of Bangalore traffic during peak time!


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Dilli Haat - An Exotic Arts & Craft Bazaar

"Haat" is a Hindi word that means a weekly marketplace where the producer sells the product themselves. As a result, the buyer can find out interesting details about the product which are typically not available when sold through retailer. This is equivalent to Farmers Market where the Farmers are replaced by local artisans.

Dilli Haat is one such place set up by Government of India in New Delhi. It has traditional clothes and jewelry, handicrafts, music performances, paintings, foods from different Indian states, and a lot more. It's a great way to spend a weekend!

Explore the location by clicking on the map below:



Here are some pictures:

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Little India, Singapore in Pictures

Little India in Singapore is a great glimpse of Indian culture in Singapore. It has access to everything Indian in a matter of few streets: grocery, clothes, restaurants, music collections, temple, jewelry, and anything else you can think.

Click on the map below to explore the exact location:



I spent my yesterday evening strolling through the streets of Little India and took some pictures:

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Embu das Artes - Sao Paulo spectacle

Embu das Artes is a small and spectacular village in Sao Paulo Metropolitan area. If you want to experience Brazil, this is the place! A perfect blend of arts, crafts, food, clothes, furniture, festivities and lot of fun. Check out some pictures:

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Travel tips for Brazil

1. Brazilians are very warm people. Men will typically shake hands and pat on your shoulder. Women may kiss one (or both) cheeks upon meeting/departing so be ready to reciprocate.
2. Brazil is a paradise for meat lovers. Most restaurants do not offer much (sometimes none) vegetarian choices. But they do offer some exotic fruits and vegetables, so you can certainly stay healthy!
3. Some handy Portugese phrase
   
   

   Hello	Alo / Oi
   Good morning	Bom dia
   Good afternoon	Boa tarde
   Good night	Boa noite
   Thanks	Obrigado for men, Obrigada for women
   No Thanks	Nao Obrigado
   Excuse me	Com licenca
   Please to meet you	prazer
   Goodbye	tchau (pronounced as ciao)
   Please	por favor

   
   Check out English-Portugese phrases or a searchable dictionary.
   
4. For Brazilians who claim to know some English, speak slowly and clearly with simple words.
5. People are very friendly and very much willing to help but language may be a barrier.  Carry your hotel address on a paper as local public mostly speak Portugese. And smile is of course the universal human language.
6. Withdraw money from the bank at airport. The ATM machines in the city are sparse and sometimes may not accept your ATM card.
7. Don't miss 4 things: eating @ Churrascaria, drinking coffee, Caipirinha and Guarana.
8. Hotels have free Internet and breakfast, really cool!
9. If you are visiting a JUG event, make sure to carry freebies.
10. Restaurants are open late (read very late or early morning) nights, even on weekdays. For example, we walked into a restaurant at 11:30pm for dinner on a Tuesday night and were not rushed.
11. Most restaurants in food court offer food by weight.
12. Offices have a 2 hour lunch time (typically 12-2), wow!
13. TAM (local airlines) is Star Alliance member, so don't forget to get credits for United Miles and use benefits accordingly.
14. The seasons in Brazil are completely opposite of those in Northern Hemisphere (which consists of 90% human population).
    
    

    Norther Hemisphere	Brazil
    Summer	Winter
    Fall	Spring
    Winter	Summer
    Spring	Fall

15. VISA is much more popular in Brazil than American Express. And cash works everywhere!
16. Football (futebol) is not only a national sport, it's a complete passion here. Brazilians have won the FIFA world cup 5 times and very proud of it. So be aware of some of the popular players: Rivaldo, Roberto, Ronaldo, Rinaldinho, Kaka, Cafu.

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4 things not to miss in Brazil

# 1: Churrascaria (yeah, they serve more than Steak). Had dinner at Porcao and it was fantastico! Check out how steak churrascaria is prepared @ Porcao:


And you can visit kitchen in any Brazilian restuarant, check me and Simon inside Porcao's kitchen:



Wonderful food, great hospitality, a great choice not to be missed during your stay in Brasilia! More pictures here.

# 2: Guarana: a local Soda (kinda like Root Beer)


# 3: Brazilian coffee, Brazilian style


# 4: Brazil's national drink Caipirinha. Learn a crash course (recorded at Porcao):


The list might evolve over next few days :)

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Blogging from San Jose Airport - Free Wi-Fi

San Jose Airport now has free Wi-Fi. The service has been available since May 30 but this is the first time I'm traveling since then. It is so cool and pretty fast too. "sjcfreewifi" is the network name and sits along with commercial offerings from T-Mobile and Wayport. I wonder what are the additional benefits ;)

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Hyderabad in Pictures and Traffic

Shahi Qutbi Tomb, Golconda Fort and Charminar. Ate biryani @ Cafe Bahar in Basheer Bagh. This place served real good biryani with a good variety. I went there with a friend who ate at Paradise Biryani earlier in the week and he liked it much better at Cafe Bahar.

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Arrived in Orlando for acts_as_conference

As mentioned earlier, I arrived in Orlando, Florida earlier today for attending acts_as_conference. Here are some pictures I took on the way:

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Frankfurt to San Jose - $54.54 for one minute call

I used my credit card to call home (San Jose, CA) from Frankfurt Airport during a trip last year. And the calling company charged $54.54 for an approximately one minute call. Here is what I see in my credit card statement detail:

• This call is placed through satellite and that's why they charged this rate. He could not explain why satellite is used when credit card is used to call.
• The pulse rate is 5 minutes. So the telephone company always charge in multiple of 5 minutes.
• Talk to a live operator, inquire about the rates and then place the call. In the United States, making an operator-assisted call charges you more money. So this was completely non-intuitive to me.
• Because of some stated law, the international calling rate, pulse rate and similar information cannot be placed on the phone equipment. Again, no reference to what/where the law is.
• Use a pre-paid card to make the international call. This is a lesson learned for me, hard way!

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Little Rock National Airport Rocks - Free WiFi

Little Rock National Airport literally rocks - Free WiFi all through out the terminal :)

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Domestic Air Travel in India

I traveled to multiple cities (Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi) in the span of last 4 days. The air travel has significantly improved but there are some rough edges as well. Overall I enjoyed the pampering by the booming airline industry. Below are some specific observations:

1. When I left India (many years ago) then there used to be only two major airlines for domestic travel - Indian Airlines and Jet Airways. This time around, I saw so many - IndiGo, SpiceJet, JetLite (nee Air Sahara), KingFisher, Indian (fka Indian Airlines) and many others. And the frequency between any two destinations is much higher with lower fares.
2. I traveled only on Jet Airways and Kingfisher and I must say I was very impressed by the courtesy and an always smiling face of the flight assistants. This was quite a contrast with an Indian Airlines flight I took many years ago.
3. The impressive part was that complementary meals/snacks were served even for a short flight of 30 minutes. And a typical snack will consist of sandwich, cereal bar, guava juice, brownie and some sort of munchies. And if you are taking a slightly longer flight, then of course you are treated with a full meal. In contrast, even a coast-to-coast flight in the US serve only complementary drinks ;)
   
   Here is a typical snacks served for 30 minutes flight in Kingfisher:

   And here is a typical meal served for 2 hour flight in Jet Airways:

4. Most of the planes of Kingfisher are new and really trendy. Comfortable seats, good leg space, leather headrest, personal TV screens for each passenger with fancy remote controls and really nice headsets. Each passenger was also given a pen. Little goodies, but over all makes you feel treated well. No wonder they incurred a loss of Rs 577 crores for FY 07 ;-) I would definitely recommend Kingfisher till they are here.
5. Make sure to get the baggage tag of the airline for all hand-carry luggage. This is checked at the boarding gate otherwise your bag is scrutinized heavily. Generally airline officials do a good job (they missed one one of mine) about ensuring this but it's good to make sure yourself to avoid any inconvenience later.
6. Very few (read rarely) planes have tube access connecting directly into the airport. In my case, all the airlines stopped on a designated area in the airport and buses were used to transfer passengers from or to the airport. These are conducted very professionally but just a different way of doing things than the US where planes are mostly connected directly to the airport. I feel this is airports' way to keep up with the burgeoning airline industry.

Now some rough edges ... I don't think much can be done to change any of this but this is just to prepare you better.

1. The flights typically are delayed, at least the domestic ones! At least all my flights were delayed. And the fun part is it that it's very reliable. Some passengers plan their arrival at the airport accordingly.
2. At the reservation desk, passengers tend to clutter around the counter. In most cases, standing right behind you and literally peeping into your paperwork. At Mumbai airport (impressive facility), a fellow passenger conveniently jumped ahead of me and cursing me for being slow. I guess this is one way people express their frustration when they get stuck in traffic and delayed for their flights.
3. At the boarding gate, everybody tend to clutter around the counter (yeah, once again). Nobody seems to care about this "clutter", certainly not the people who are cluttering. The surprising part was that even the airline officials also did not do anything to fix that (even after being reminded by other folks). And these people seem to get into the plane before everybody in the queue.
4. Now the scary one - Once the plane taxis, all the passengers seem to be in a super hurry to get out of the plane. And it could be violent sometimes. For example, after the plain taxied at the Pune airport, I waited for the aisle to clear up, stood up and then tried to put my laptop in the bag. It took me probably 3-5 seconds to pull the bag from the overhead cabin, open the zipper and place the laptop in there. But that got some passengers behind me completely impatient. One of the passengers pushed me aside to the extent where I was about to fall on the floor, and he just moved ahead. And interestingly the passengers behind him just followed.

Enjoy the complete album so far:

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A Trip to Vaishno Devi

During my vacation last week, I made a trip to Vaishno Devi Mandir - one of the biggest and the heavily visited shrine of the Hindus. This shrine is located in the Udhampur District in the Northern most state of India, Jammu and Kashmir, and is dedicated to the Mother Goddess.

The shrine is managed by Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board (SMVDSB) who are doing a stupendous effort. I was particularly very impressed with the communication, facilities and cleanliness through out.

The shrine is at an altitude of 5200 feet and visited by millions (almost 7 million in 2006) of devotees every year. Read the Hindu legend behind this holy place.

How to get there ?

After taking an overnight train journey from Delhi to Jammu, there is a 3 hour bus journey to The Katra. This is the base camp where all the pilgrims assemble to start the 12 km (7.5 miles) hike up the hill to The Bhavan. This is the main place of worship and has the holy cave which has the manifestation of Mother Goddess - Mata Maha Kali, Mata Maha Lakshmi and Mata Maha Saraswati.

More details are available here.

In Katra

There are numerous hotels in Katra that can be rented overnight and provide facilities ranging from full room service to cloak rooms. And the rates are pretty reasonable too.

The Shrine Board issue receipts (one per group/family) at the Katra in order to control the number of pilgrims in the Bhavan. It is of utmost importance to collect this receipt because this is your ticket to entry to the Bhavan later.

If you are not interested in hiking from Katra to Bhavan, then alternatively you can ride a pony, palki (palanquin) or even a helicopter ride. A mix-and-match where you ride the pony oneway and walk the other way is also available. Or you can also hire a pithoo (porters) who will carry your luggage from Katra to Bhavan and vice versa. The biggest majority of devotees walk all the way up & down and backpack their change of clothes or goodies (that may include prasad - offering to the Godess) to be offered at the Bhavan.

The hike can be done on the paved path (very well maintained) or up the stairs (shorter distance but steep and tiring). The paved path and stairs meet at certain points. However one particular stairs have 529 steps, before an exit, so make sure to watch out for that (marked before the stairs) before you venture. There are numerous food and utility shops through out the hike. And then of course there are Dhabas (street-side restaurants) which serve complete meal.

Mid Way Stop - AdhKawari

After approx 7 km of hike you'll reach AdhKawari. This is where Mother Goddess meditated for 9 months in a cave attaining spiritual wisdom and powers. The pilgrims wait in queue to enter the holy cave.

A token is issued (one per family/group) to control the flow of pilgrims. The typical wait time after the token number is current is 3 hours. In order to save time, some of the devotees skip this optional stop over.

At the Bhavan

The visit at the Bhavan typically start with a freezing cold water shower and a change of clothes. Even though both are optional, but highly recommended after a steep hike. The ticket issued at the Katra is exchanged for a batch number at a counter in the Bhavan. The running batch number is clearly displayed at several places. The devotees which carry the current batch number, or lesser, can enter the queue.

After entering the queue, you pass through a maze (which is useful to handle the crowd during rush time) and finally find yourself in front of a marble stone cave. The actual manifestation of Shri Vaishno Devi resides at one end of this cave. After worshipping the Deity (typically for 2-5 seconds because of a continuous churn of devotees) and making your wish, you head over to the exit at other end of the tunnel.

The pilgrims keep reciting "Jai Mata Di" (Hail Mother Goddess) all through out the journey from Katra to Bhavan and back.

Bhairon Mandir

After worshipping at the Bhavan, you head over to Bhairon Mandir (Bhairon Temple). A visit to this temple is skipped by a few devotees because of a further higher altitude and steepness of the hike. This is the highest elevation (approx 6600 feet) in the entire trip. Make sure to carry your camera to capture some picturesque view of the Himalayas, especially in the winter season.

After worshipping at this temple, the downhill hike starts. However be cautious of the monkeys on the way coming back. Specifically if are using one of the commonly used bags (bought at the prasad shop) then they might pounce upon you ;-)

Back Home

At the end, we took a bus from Katra to Jammu and then finally a train ride back to Delhi.

This was my third trip and I must say I'm really thankful for Mata's Call.

The complete album is here:

The complete detailed planning can be done after reading the tips here.

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Wangfujing Street - Authentic China in Beijing

If you want to see authentic China in Beijing without going to country side or hotungs, Wangfujing Street has it. This street is located at Wangfujing station using Line 1 of Subway.

This street has big name stores (with big bill boards), shopping malls and lots of people. Especially the side streets which sell street food are just amazing. Scorpion and Sea Horse are some of the common dishes but I just could not muster the courage to try them.

The Beijing 2008 Olympics store was crowded and had some nice goodies. No bargaining there though ;)

You can also buy all sort of mementoes like magnet, playing cards, decoration pieces etc from in the side streets. And here you DO need to exercise your bargaining skills.

A complete album is available here:

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Beijing Silk Market - Shopping & Bargain Paradise

Beijing Silk Market (a.k.a. Xiushui Silk Market) is a multi-floor shopping complex in the Beijing Downtown. It is famous for fake branded goods such as Coach and Prada purse, RayBan glasses, iPod, Silk scarves, Jeans and you name it. It's also famous for extreme bargaining. And you may be surprised how extreme is extreme by reading the tips below along with a table of comparative prices paid.

It is directly connected from the Yong'anli Subway station on Line of Subway.

Here are the basic shopping tips that I learned by talking to others and practiced during my shopping stint:

1. Each item has three prices - Printed, American and Chinese. Typically Printed and American price are the same, may be American price slightly lower. The Chinese price is typically 50-70% of the American price. The first quote from the shopkeeper will be based upon your skin color. However the most important rule is to NEVER buy at any of the first quote price. Always quote a price that is 10% of the Chinese price and then haggle your way up. Going up is only an additional buffer and is not a necessary step. In any case, don't pay more than 15-20% of the Chinese price. You may find it ridiculous but it worked in most of the cases as you can see from the table of comparative prices below.
2. Some of the commonly used phrases to indicate the stage of bargain are - Joking price (when the shopkeeper find the price is ridiculous), Final price (quoted multiple times from the shopkeeper, sometimes final final price) and Yes or No price (mostly used to quote the final price from the shopkeeper). You can pretty much ignore the first two prices and consider third one slightly seriously (see next point) if you are interested in the item.
3. Be ready to NOT to buy irrespective of the item and you might end up buying it for a ridiculously low price.
4. This is an important one. If the price is not meeting your expectation, WALK away from the shop. It may be hard to do it sometimes because you may like the item very much but force yourself out of the shop. There is a high likelihood that you'll be physically pulled in the shop so don't feel offended but stick to your price. If need be, pretend walking out of the shop and you'll see the shopkeeper shouting from the behind with your price. It's important to confirm and double confirm the price and especially the currency ;-)
5. The magic word is "moment". If you hear this word from the shopkeeper, which most likely will be the case, that means you are likely in a position to strike a deal at your price.
6. Some of the shopkeepers get really angry and start throwing items (mostly with clothes) around. Don't budge, this is just a tactic to show they are upset and instead keep smiling and stick to your price.
7. Buying more than one item will get you a better price. As the prices are ridiculously cheap, it's worth buying more than one and gift it back home.
8. A key rule is to bargain with smile and that will improve your chances of meeting your price :)

Here is a comparative table of quoted and paid prices for some of the items:

Happy shopping & bargaining!

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