Fun pet article

This month's issue of Fast Company (a business + innovation magazine that I enjoy reading every month) had a fun graphic and article on some recent pet care innovations.

Here's a link if you'd like to read it:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/140/new-tricks.html#self

Make sure to click on the Infographic link (embedded at the top of the online article), too.  It will show a bigger version of this graphic (published with the article in the November 2009 issue of Fast Company).

Of particular interest to me is Pet Airways.  An airline that only transports pets.  They've got a great website:  http://www.petairways.com/  It seems like the ideal way to ship a dog that won't fit under the seat on a normal airline (e.g.:  adult Cardigans).  And it's not that much more expensive than the freight charges I read about.  Now I wish they'd do a Chicago to Portland or Seattle leg....

I also thought the pet GPS sounds good.  Particularly when traveling with the dogs.  You just never know....

Back Home!

I'm back from India.  All my flights were on time (a small miracle), but my luggage somehow didn't make it on the last leg of the journey (typical).  I took it through customs in Chicago, but it didn't make the same flight as me.  The airline delivered it at midnight (thanks to The Husband for staying up to sign for it - I went to bed at 8pm...)

The theme of yesterday:  removing the smell of India from my clothes and luggage.  What is the smell of India, you may wonder?  I can only describe it as spicy, burning trash.  Nice.  Yesterday all my clothes went into the wash or to the dry cleaners.  My luggage got to spend the day & night outside.

One upside to all the travel...  I read 4 books!  I love to read, but rarely have time to do it.  One book I recommend that every American reads:

The Healing of America by TR Reid.  It really sheds some light onto the facts around healthcare, and disputes many of the myths that are repeated by politicians on both sides of the aisle about what healthcare is like in other countries.  It's very well written, too, which makes it a pleasure to read.

I also spent some time thinking about what's next for the Trio.  I need to put some training plans in place to get me through the next year.  But that's another post....

Coming Home! (almost)

I'm headed home tomorrow!  Yipee!!  My flight leaves India just after midnight Iowa time, and if all goes well, I arrive home at 7pm.  My layovers are shorter this time, so overall travel time is lower.

Since Monday I've been in Pune, India.  My schedule has been something like this:  Leave hotel at 7am.  Work until 6:30 or so.  Back to hotel to drop off work stuff.  Out to dinner with work colleagues.  Back to hotel at 10:30 or so.  I'm WORN OUT and ready to come home.

Another reason I want to come home -- our company's security/traveler tracking service sent this alert out yesterday:

_________________________________________________
Information about your trip which may affect your travel.

Travel Alert: India

Consular Affairs Bulletins

South / Central Asia - India

29 Oct 2009


The Department of State alerts U.S. citizens to continuing security concerns in India. The U.S. Government continues to receive information that terrorist groups may be planning attacks in India. Terrorists and their sympathizers have demonstrated their willingness and capability to attack targets where Americans or Westerners are known to congregate or visit.
_______________________________________________
 
Apparently the complex where my company's office is located is suspected to be a target (lots of western companies have large operations there).  I know the odds are low that anything would happen, but still......
 
In dog news, here's a dog that was sleeping outside our office building on Thursday.  It didn't even move when I approached, and I had to work quite hard to get it's attention.  Funny that the word "biscuit" didn't even work.  Works every time with the Trio of Trouble ;)
 

It turns out that our driver for the week is an animal lover.  I asked him some questions about the dogs that are everywhere.  Here's what I learned:

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  The dogs are stray/wild (not a surprise)
  
  
  
• 
  
  Dogs are considered a holy animal in Hinduism
  
  
  
• 
  
  Many people don't like all the dogs - they think the dogs are dangerous (and, realistically, some probably are)
  
  
  
• 
  
  The dog populations continue to increase
  
  
  
• 
  
  The government made it legal to shoot these stray/wild dogs
  
  
  
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  The majority of the population doesn't agree with this - many think sterilization is the way to go
  
  
  
• 
  
  Mostly the dogs fend for themselves and eat trash, but some people feed the dogs (see note on holy animal listed above)
  
  
  

Our driver prefers dogs to cats, and has 5 cats, and 8 kittens.  His cats don't like to go outside because of all the stray dogs, but he agrees with the sterilization point of view.

Here's another dog pic I was able to get.  The land surrounding the dog is pretty representative of the public space overall (lots of trash & debris)

 

Why I'm not training: Travel Karma

As I mentioned in my last post, occasionally my my travel plans go a bit awry.  I've been stranded on trains in London, stuck in traffic in a diesel van in Paris, been in tram accident in Germany, gotten lost and ended up in a "bad" neighborhood in Toronto, and stuck in more airports than I can count.  I still believe that it's all part of traveling around, but some of my frequent travel companions are beginning to question this, and are starting to see me as a common denominator. 

What does this have to do with India? 

Here are a couple examples from my trip to Delhi & Agra:

Story one.  "We're not going to all fit in that car"
So we land at at around 10pm at the Delhi airport.  4 of us are traveling together, and the hotel has arranged ground transportation from the airport to the hotel. 

All's well, right?  Not quite. 

There are 4 of us, and  we're all in India for nearly 2 weeks.  3 of us are women (sorry for the stereotyping) so we all have quite a lot of luggage.  The hotel shows up with only one car.  We look at the car, and don't see any way that the 4 of us plus our luggage are going to fit. 

Things aren't looking good, but the driver seems undeterred.  This is why:

Yes, this is our bags being strapped to the top of the car. 

I expressed some concerns to my travel companions, as the case containing ALL of my clothes is the middle one in the picture.  Normally, I might think losing a suitcase off the top of a car in one of the largest cities in the world is just a great excuse to buy more clothes.  Unfortunately, I'm in India.  I don't know that I could find any clothes to fit me here, much less buy more than a week's worth.  One of my travel companions commented, "well, if you're going to have your suitcases strapped to the car somewhere, they probably know how to do it right here."  Good point.  We piled in the car with the remaining cases and made it to the hotel with no luggage loss.  (I must admit that I was watching out the back window in case my suitcase fell off.  I have no idea what I would have done, but still, I was watching...)

Story 2:  "Let's change that flat tire"

My friends who grew up in India told me to take the train from Delhi to Agra.  It's quicker, apparently.  I'm on a business trip, though, and our corporate travel and security departments don't allow this.  We booked a car and driver instead.  It's 2 lanes of highway each way, and only 200km.  We were told it would take 2.5 to 3 hours each way.

I'm not sure what kind of trip planning provided those estimates.  It took us just over 4 hours to get to Agra.  I lost count of how many hours it took us to get home (5-ish, I think). 

Why the delay in getting back?

A flat tire.  Yes, a flat tire.  You may be wondering, "Is that really complaint-worthy?"  Normally, I would say no.  However, if this is the spare tire that's put on the car when the  tire blows, I think there's a case to  be made for complaint:

Yes, that's a split in the side of the spare, and some type of organic material (sticks, as close as we could tell) plugging the hole in the tire.

When the first tire blew, my colleagues and I thought it was just another fun adventure and got out to take pictures.  Oh, and one of my colleagues had to help, as the jack included with the spare didn't work properly on the car (no surprise) so my colleague had to lift - yes lift - the side of the car so the driver could get the jack in place.

When we saw the condition of tire, however, we didn't think it was such fun.  As soon as I saw the picture, I knew the probability of us getting back to Delhi on that same tire we very, very small.  The roads are not that nice, and that was an ugly patch. 

Sure enough, a couple of hours later the tire blew.  Not just gently went flat.  It blew.  We pulled off on the side of the road.  By this time it was dark.  We're parked next to a busy, should-be-four-lanes-but-is-really-used-as-eight-lanes highway.  We're outside of Delhi, but in a populated area.  The driver got out to look at the tire (with my colleague to act as a human jack again) and the driver left.  Yes left. 

The driver came back a couple of minutes later with another man.  They stared at the tire for a while.  One of my colleagues suggested that we call the car service and have them send another car.  Our driver replied, "No, it can be fixed.  Just five minutes."  And off he went, with the tire and the other man. 

Meanwhile, left alone again, our car started to attract some attention from the locals.  When stuck in car, at night, outside of Delhi, with no way to get away, attention is not what I want. 

5 minutes passed.  No driver.  10 minutes.  Still no driver.  15 minutes.  I call The Husband and tell him where we are in case we go missing.  20 minutes.  Still no driver.  30 minutes (or was it more?).  Who's that man running towards our car?  But yes, the driver!  The tire is finally fixed and we're back on the road.

Back to the hotel for a large glass of wine.

Why I'm not training: Delhi & Agra

After our work was done on Saturday, we set off on the second leg of our journey, and headed north to Delhi.  Why did we fly to Delhi for 2 short nights and one long day, you may ask? 

For the joy of domestic air travel in India?  No 
Because I enjoy checking in and out of hotels?  Nope
Because I wanted to see if the traffic in the North of India was better than in the South? Nada

THIS is why.....

Oh yes, we went to Delhi so that we could drive to Agra and see the Taj Mahal.  What an amazing building!  I can't explain it.  So much marble, such gorgeous symmetry and architecture. 

Here are a couple more pics:

And just in case you think I may have downloaded these pics off the internet, here I am, thinking that I really should have brought sunglasses and a sun hat to India....

Oh, and here's my Delhi & Agra dog picture.  In real life this dog looks a lot less like a doberman than it does it in the picture.
:

For my next post, I'll share a few "adventures in travel" moments.  Anyone who's heard my travel stories (or who's traveled with me) will realize that I don't always have the best travel Karma....

Why I'm not training: Chennai

For the first leg of my trip, I'm in Chennai.  After the afore-posted horrendously long plane trip, my colleagues and I arrived shortly after midnight on Thursday.  We then had meetings all day Thursday.  Fun, eh?  Thank goodness for caffeine.

Thankfully, our hosts understand that we don't get to India often, so they took us on a short sightseeing side trip.  The trip was to a shrine at the top of a hill, overlooking Chennai.  We had a beautiful view of the city and there was a nice breeze, which gave us some relief from the heat (the locals say it's "cool" here now well over 90 degrees plus humidity).

One of my colleagues became a local celebrity on this stop.  The girl's school was just letting out for the day, and my colleague was very popular.  The students LOVED her blonde hair, and insisted that they take pictures with her (she spent about 15 minutes posing w/ various groups of students).  My colleague says thanks to her hairdresser for the lovely blonde hightlights!

I also saw an amusing sign on one of the buildings at the top of a hill, a secluded location at night - you get the picture.  But what a polite way to ask.....

Our work included a visit with a local customer.  It was wonderful to visit the customer's home, and sit on his veranda for a chat.  He didn't speak English, and my colleagues &  I don't speak Tamil, so we were relying on our local marketing manager to do the chatting on our behalf, and to translate.  I felt like I was in a Saturday Night Live skit.  Here's a sample conversation:  Lani or colleague asks marketing manager to ask customer a question.  Marketing manager asks customer the question.  Customer spends 5 minutes replying.  Marketing manager tells us, "He thinks that's ok."  Repeat this scene over and over for about 45 minutes.  Now picture yourself trying to keep from laughing if you were in my place.

Tomorrow we work most of the day, then fly to the another city.  I'll keep you posted on how the trip is going.  Oh, and remind me to do a post about the traffic in India.  Not for the faint of heart, or the carsick.

And, since this is a dog blog, here's a picture of a local canine (a pretty good representative for the many, many, dogs I've seen wandering the streets).

Why I'm not training the dogs tomorrow

26.5  hours.  That's how long I'll be traveling tomorrow, and into the next day, and into the next day.  I'll be seeing only a few hours of Wednesday.  From the time I arrive at my local airport to check in, to the anticipated arrival time at my destination airport I'll have been traveling for 26.5 hours.  Sigh.

On the up side, I'll have a lot of time to read, and I've got 4 new books to keep me going!

Since I won't be home to train the dogs for a couple of weeks, I'll try to post some photos from my trip.  I'll make the link to dogs by theming the posts "why I'm not training today."