Hello, few elite readers!
I wasn't expecting to report on a trip this year, primarily due to the weird state of US foreign relationships right now. I won't make this site political, but I haven't felt proud of being a US traveller in the current climate.
However, I had a surprise opportunity fall into my lap. I am a project manager for a software company, and we have a studio in Hyderabad, India, with which my team is partnering to work on our latest project. As part of the initial onboarding, I was volunteered to fly out to that studio to meet the team leaders and support their early planning efforts.
And so, as of Saturday, I've been on a business trip to India! I admit, the trip is short, considering the amount of travel one has to do to get from the west coast of the United States to the capital city of the Indian state of Telangana. I will only be here for four days before I head back. The trip from my home in California to the hotel I am staying at was 26 hours, and there is a 12.5-hour difference between the Pacific Daylight Timezone and the India Standard Timezone -- that means I left on Saturday at around 10am, and didn't get to my hotel in 3am on *Monday*.
Despite the fact that there was a big delay in Chicago O'Hare, I made both of my connections (One there in Chicago, and another in Frankfurt) despite pretty short layover times. Also, to my surprise, I didn't feel entirely annihilated when I arrived at my hotel at 3am. Unfortunately, as it was so early when I got through immigration, the view into the city from the hotel car window was predominantly empty streets and night fog.
Hyderabad is known as the "City of Pearls" due to its historically significant pearl industry. It still has lots of active old bazaars, but nowadays, Hyderabad is more significant due to its position as an industrial and technology hub. It is centrally located in the subcontinent and draws skilled technology specialists from all over the country, including folks from my own company.
I passed through customs and immigration after a longer-than-average wait for my luggage, but hey, at least it arrived, and despite the fact that I was over an hour late, the hotel car was still waiting for me outside the airport. It is very humid and quite hot in Hyderabad in May, but since it was very early in the morning, the temperature was a 'mild' 85F. Mind you, it was still sweltering due to the high moisture, but it reminded me a lot of Florida in the summer. It's also expected to rain every day that I am here (also a lot like Florida in the summer).
The roads in Hyderabad are wide and mostly laneless. It's a free-for-all, very similar to Cairo, though with nicer cars and a lot more scooters and motorcycles, often with 3+ people stacked on the back, even on the highways. There's also the oh-so-dangerous tuk-tuks here, though I didn't spot many of them in the early morning. Also like Cairo, Hyderabad is that unusual mix of old and poor juxtaposed with the sleek modernity of corporate skyscrapers and business parks. It all felt quite 'Bladerunner'.
My driver got us there after a circuitous journey through not only some very nice highways, but also some strange half-finished roads and u-turns. It was a path that, if I had to navigate on my own, would have absolutely boggled my direction-impaired brain. That brings us to another interesting part of Indian society -- street addresses. I'll give you an example. The ITC Kohenur, the hotel I am staying at throughout my visit, has the following cryptic street address: Plot No. 5, Survey No. 83/1, Hyderabad Knowledge City, Madhapur, Hyderabad, Telangana 500081, India. And honestly, that's a short one. I can't put the address of my company building, obviously, but the address is so verbose it runs up against the character limit of most address forms, even the online ones, well before halfway through the address. How anyone finds anything around here is a true mystery.
Hyderabad is a city going through rapid growth, and the evidence of that is everywhere. Massive half-built apartment complexes are all over the place, as well as the rubble and raw materials of huge construction projects -- new office buildings for big foreign corporations looking for lower-cost centers. Between these gargantuan corporate arcologies, the smaller, typically older, typically shabbier buildings housing the actual businesses, restaurants, and shops needed to support the employees of the huge monuments to late-stage capitalism.
Tomorrow (or later today), I'll get breakfast in the hotel, see the skyline of the city I couldn't see tonight, and head into the office. I am not a tourist on this trip -- this is all business. I won't get to see any of the sites or tour the area at all. But what I can get a feel for in my short visit, through my interactions at the studio, is an impression of the people that live here, and of course, the food. Stay tuned for that!
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