Chris Saul's Blog

We spent a while looking at them while they enjoyed their bath. There were no males in the group, as males get kicked out and have to roam around on their own, unless it's mating time. Quite right too.

Two of the adults were pregnant.

After a while they began slowly crossing the road, right in front of the Land Rover. I began to think to myself that we were really a bit too close and seemed to resent our presence.

We watched them cross over for a minute or two as they headed away from us.

Mrs Saul was clearly thinking along the same lines as me and asked if they could be more dangerous when pregnant. Just as our guide told us that was the case, the driver switched on the engine, which turned over for about 20 seconds before growling into life.

This clearly spooked the herd. The senior lady in charge turned around and started trumpeting, causing the others to turn and follow her lead as they began to walk towards us.

They then lined up very close to the car and started behaving more and more aggressively, trumpeting loudly. I began to get a bit worried at this point. Our guide did too, it seemed. He held out his hand towards them - I couldn't help thinking that doing so was unlikely to do much good if things turned uglier. The outstretched hand certainly didn't seem to calm things down at all.

The trumpeting got louder and they moved closer towards the Land Rover. Mrs Saul ducked down closer to the cab and I did the same, shouting at the driver to drive off. The guide was saying the same thing to him in Sinhala. He duly drove off, but promtly stopped again after only a few metres, grinning back at me from the front cab.

At this point the herd was starting to march up to us in a line, trumpeting loudly and generally making it clear we were not welcome.

I screamed at the driver to go and so did the guide. We moved off slowly, with me wishing the 35 year old Defender had been designed to go a little bit quicker.

I have to admit that I was pretty scared. For obvious reasons I don't have much experience with elephants, but had expected the guide to know what was what. The guide seemed pretty scared as well, which suggested that the whole experience had been a bit unnerving for him as well.

Were we in any danger? I've really no idea, but having several elephants walking quickly towards you, trumpeting and stamping their feet was quite an experience. I wish I'd been able to video it all - the trumpeting is loud!

The rest of the trip was uneventful, though we did pass the same herd on the way back, at a much safe distance this time.

You can see some more pics from our tip, all courtesy of Mrs Saul, here.

Why not serve it in a thimble?

I can imagine how the conversation went in the boardroom at the French Bottled Water Company...

CEO - Zut alors, we need to find a way to make more money!

Enterprising Marketing Man - Bof! Why not simply sell smaller bottles for the same price?

CEO - Sacre Bleu! Noone will accept that! Why would anyone keep buying our water if we got rid of the 330ml bottle and replaced it with something smaller and charge the same outraaaageous price?

EMM - Why not give it a go, mon brave?

And, behold, it works - everyone trapped in a hotel room who wants something fizzy and watery that isn't beer, buys the teeny weeny bottles.

Why not take it one stage further and sell it in thimbles, for twice the price?

Another great business - the teeny weeny bottles of ketchup and mayonnaise that appear with room service these days. Gone are the little pots, filled with a reasonable portion from one big bottle, in are the 'use once' pepper pot sized containers. Average utilisation of contents of said teeny weeny bottles must be about 10%. An entire ketchup making industry based on the fact that the majority of your product simply get thrown away.

Istanbul again

After a couple of short trips and a nice few days off in Sri Lanka, work travel is starting up again.

Istanbul today, Ankara day trip tomorrow, then back home to Dubai on Weds. Off to Cairo next week, Oman the week after and a possible Croatia visit at the beginning of May.

Istanbul seemed incredibly exotic the first time I came - this is my fifth or sixth visit at least, so it's starting to be part of the normal quarterly trek. I always enjoy it though and get kept busy by the local team. It looks like we're near to closing a couple of good deals that will give us some good local references, rewarding the legwork done so far.

This time I'm in the Hyatt Regency, courtesy of Sun's excellent corporate rate. An early arrival meant my room wasn't ready, so I was upgraded to a bigger room overlooking the Bosphorous. The desk is positioned such that my back is facing this wonderful view, so Sun shareholders don't need to worry - I have been adding value moving forward all afternoon, with no distractions distracting from my value add moving forward.

I'm going to force myself to use the hotel gym. After making efforts to keep the old suit trousers fitting nicely I've become a bit lazy again recently, with the proximity of freshly baked cookies right next to the checkout at my local Spinneys not helping the situation... Time to get back into (reasonably) good habits.

The Economist on where I live

This week's copy of the Economist has a nice cover photo featuring some of the skyscrapers that can be seen in the region.

I'm a bit disappointed - although you can see the Emirates Towers, you can't see the UP Tower, where we used to live. The UP's right next to Emirates Towers and is a nicer looking building than some of the others that are featured.

Still, having your former next door neighbours' building on the cover of the Economist is still pretty cool.

Photo courtesy of The Economist.

Pop over here to see the view from the top of our new neighbouring mega tower.