Back to Work

Yesterday was the official launch of the #ibmcsc india 22 program with all of our clients present. The event took place in one of the hotel's ballrooms, we all introduced ourselves and our clients presented their project, this was followed by a very nice lunch during which we discovered a delicious carrot based Punjabi desert called Gajar Ka Halwa. The afternoon we had small breakout sessions to start working on our assignments.

In the afternoon we had dinner at The Yellow Chili, a franchise restaurant associated with TV celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor, the food was succulent. I could easily imagine a few good wines that would be marvelous with the food, but so far I haven't seen any restaurants offering this possibility.

Today was our first day on the PAU campus. After a short ride in the auto rickshaw we arrived on location, finding the Agricultural Engineering College was a little challenging due to the shear size of the campus. Upon arrival, the first thing we noticed is this billboard :

We had a first meeting with the senior professors and were able to start finalizing our scope of work.

Later in the day we went out for some tea, and ended up eating some very nice fried vegetables.

Tea Time !

One of the many food stands available

Cannonball Run to Chandigarh

On Sunday we rented a mini-bus with a driver in order to go to Chandigarh, the capital city of the state of Punjab. As our local consultant Jaspreet explained, unlike other Indian cities which were build and then planned, this one was actually planned by le Corbusier before being constructed !

Initial Sketches of Chandigarh

The result is something very different from all other cities in India, large avenues laid out according to a grid, many trees everywhere, large parks and many roundabouts. The roundabouts give it away as a European designed city, only something that came out of a European mind can contain so many roundabouts !

A good piece of Indian wisdom : you don't need a GPS in India because there are so many people along the roads that you will always find someone who knows the way to where you want to go.

Sur place nous avons visité The Rock Garden, une version indienne du Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval en beaucoup plus grand. Un endroit très prisé par les familles et les promeneurs le dimanche. Ici encore les gens sont très sympathiques, ils nous abordent pour nous demander d'où nous venons et si nous apprécions notre séjour en Inde, il nous demandent s'ils peuvent poser avec nous pour une photo.

Peter, le géant hongrois, posant avec des jeunes filles

La vache qui rit

Tigre du bengale

The drive to and back to Chandigarh, roughly 200 km in total, was a complete nightmare. The road only has one lane in both directions most of the time, but they fit four cars side by side along with motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians, there were some very delicate situations and we avoided many collisions, and all the while the driver is honking like crazy... after four hours of this ordeal most of us just went up to our rooms and fell asleep.

Final Destination

Le voyage en train fut relativement long mais fort agréable, sièges larges et confortables, avec un service impeccable. 

A l'arrivée à l'hotel les employées nous avaient préparé une cérémonie d'accueil bien sympathique.

Namaste

A midi, repas punjabi traditionnel chez Baba's : excellent !

Puis découverte d'une friandise locale présentée dans un emballage quelque peu suspect ;o)

Impossible de me souvenir du nom, mais c'est vachement bon.
Un petit goût de réglisse, il y aussi de la noix de bétel. 

Humayun's Tomb

A very beautiful and peaceful place where we spent part of the afternoon, recovering from street crossing in Delhi !

Humayun's Tomb

Organized Chaos

There seems to be absolutely no rules on the roads here in New Delhi, with the exception that you must honk your horn every 10 seconds.

Surprisingly, no one seems to get angry behind the wheel, and the traffic actually looks more fluid than in our western capitals... the only expression that comes to mind is organized chaos.

Here is a 30 second sample taken in front of our hotel :

With the corresponding picture...

Arakashan Road

ça c'est du bouchon !

340 g of pleasure

340 g de bonheur !

Wanted to have something I might not find easily in India for my last lunch here before leaving later today ! 

tartelette aux framboises

Hell is packing !

After several days of struggle I finally finished packing my luggage, and then I decided to check if it was within the company's free baggage allowance... and that's when I almost had a stroke !  I was 9 kg above the free allowance, dangerously close to the maximum of 32 kg per bag.

Considering I would rather pay the 100€ extra charge on the way back, with a bag full of souvenirs, I had to do it all over again this morning, even switched to another lighter bag but the effort was worth it, I'm now down to 23,5 kg... just 0.5 kg above the limit. 

If they make a fuss at the registration desk, I guess I'll have to eat the 500 g of chocolate I packed !