Oh the joys of traveling

Hello from India everyone. This week I traveled to Indore, India. For those not familiar with the country, it is pretty central, East/NE of Mumbai, South of Delhi. We have some research going on for a new product I am developing, so doing in-home visits. Traveling is always an eye-opening experience and India is definitely one of them. The country is one of polarities - very educated people, and very poor people. Beautiful new corporate parks on roads that you can't go more than 15 MPH on. Gorgeous hotels, with slums next to them. Even in the SEC A ++ (which in non-marketing research term means the wealthy) the beds are plywood with thin blankets on them. Boy do we have it good. I have taken some videos with my flip cam so hope to figure out how to upload those to share.

My trip over wasn't as smooth as I would have liked. First, I had to fly Atlanta, to Amsterdam to Mumbai. Anytime you break up a long trip it makes it tough. I didn't realize this until at the airport. So all of my mental planning went by the wayside. With the direct flight you can sleep a good 9 hours and arrive in the morning/afternoon. Going through Europe you only get to sleep a few hours on each flight and you arrive at 11pm. Well that is without monsoon season in Mumbai, which had us circling for almost an hour.

I ended up checking into my hotel at 12:30 am only to be woken up at 4:15am for a 6am flight (but of course I was nervous the alarm or wake-up call wouldn't come so I got up at 3:30 and showered). Needless to say I had a rough day, trying to stay awake. I think I made it until 8pm and then went to bed, thankfully I slept until 5am. This is not like me, I don't really get jet-lagged, but the strange flight pattern killed me. I am fine now, only took my getting sleep that night. I have two more days here. Tomorrow I fly to Mumbai at 8:45 pm, then to Paris at 2:25 am (yes all flight West out of India leave between midnight and 3am, crazy how busy the airport is at that hour, we are 9.5 hours ahead here). I arrive at Paris in the morning and then Cincy Saturday afternoon, one less flight on the way home...yippie.

I think I have my plan worked out where I shouldn't be too jet-lagged, wish my luck with that and getting these videos uploaded.