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My first trip to India. A place I was pretty sure I would never visit, unless a work trip came up. And guess what...a work trip came up! 1 week in India (3 days in Bangalore and 2 in Mumbai) to visit our offshore teams. It was an extremely sheltered experience, as I had a driver from the hotel to office every day and didn't do too much in between except eat, sleep and work. Never the less - it was a great experience and even though I mostly got to see the city and locals from a car window, it was still worth those very small views into India life. Biggest regret - I didn't take a foot photo! Guess that means I'll have to go back someday to make up for it. ;)
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Trip Highlights
- I arrived in Mumbai on Sunday evening, found my awaiting driver at the airport and checked into the Renaissance Mumbai for the next 3 nights. Note - they have an awesome breakfast buffet.
- The next morning my driver picked me up to go to our office - a gigantic building complex in Airoli, where I met with coworkers in various meetings for the day. I ate Biryani in the cafeteria for lunch (that was spicy!) and then had dinner at the hotel that evening with my boss once he arrived.
- The following day was roughly the same, but we had a team buffet lunch at the office...which is the very sad photo below of rice, dal and chapati. I was told not to trust the meat - so I played it safe.
- On Wednesday we visited a different office in Vikhroli West, and for lunch we really stepped it up with Domino's pizza on the campus. That afternoon we headed off to catch our flights to Bangalore.
- Bangalore was very quick. We arrived in the evening and checked into the JW Marriott Bangalore. A very nice hotel! It was late, so we had some dinner at the hotel. I stuck to my usual "safe" dish of Dal, rice and chapati.
- Thursday was a full day at the office, but before we went in my boss and I squeezed in some shopping for an hour in the morning. It was my only taste of the "outside world" not in a car or other building. We found a small market to do some souvenir shopping and to find myself a pashmina (or 2!).
- After work we met up with a colleague and had an Indian buffet dinner at the Marriott across town in Whitefield (or at least what felt like across town given how slow the traffic goes
- After an exhausting week, it was time to head home. Our flights left Bangalore around 1am, so after a short nap at the hotel, we headed to the airport.
- I flew from Bangalore to Frankfurt on Lufthansa, and then thankfully from Frankfurt back to the US I was upgraded to the very nice United Polaris business class seat!
