Round Two Begins...

Wow, it looked like this day might never come but I made it back to Patna, Bihar today! Now for round two of Indian escapades including more exciting blog entries... :) And a promise to be more consistent about my updates!

I flew into India last night, actually. This was different from my last arrival, when I flew straight into Delhi from Chicago and on to Patna in the same day. This was because when I bought the tickets, there was a large strike pending from Air India (more about this here) and the odds of being stuck indefinitely in Chicago were actually pretty high.

But, all worked out and in the meantime, I got to have a 12 hour New Delhi adventure at the Jaypee Vasant Continental! (website here) This was kind of a crazy fancy place with telephones in the bathrooms and hard wood floors (two hallmarks of nice hotels...) :)

Fancy pictures of the fancy digs at the VPC...

Fancy pic #2. Shower looks into bedroom (?) but no worries, there's a remote control blind that comes down to separate block visibility... :)

Besides Delhi being over 7 times bigger than Patna, another way you can tell this was taken in Delhi is the Mickey D's. None of those in Bihar! Guess I'll have to wait a little longer to try the Majaraja Mac (article about this here).

While the service was pretty darn awesome, I was reminded about a trait I've found in India among those in the customer service industry. They will almost always accommodate your requests... But no one tells me what they actually do...

I'll explain...

Maybe this is only in the US but I feel like when you check in to a hotel, they tell you what amenities there are. Talking to an airport attendant, they might volunteer instructions on how to pay your fees (walk over five kiosks to line "G", stand in line, pay, take receipt back to same attendant -- simple enough to explain, but something your average foreigner strolling through India would probably not know).

I know that one could say, "They probably assume you know that." But really?? I am clearly not from here and look confused most of the time. You might say, "They don't know English that well." Which is probably true in Patna... But fancy 5 star Delhi hotel? Nope. I'm thinking this is an India (or rest of the world except the USA) thing.

But, this time, I picked up on that nuance right away and didn't worry about making 2 phone calls and a trip down to the concierge (after they hung up on me) to figure out why internet was not working. Or asking, then dropping by, then looking up hotel literature (where I discovered I should say "health club" and not "gym,") then a phone call to find if the hotel gym a. existed and b. was complimentary.

Today I was handsomely rewarded twice!

1) I went to the hotel gym! There IS one. AND it was free. :) AND it was awesome. The added endorphins have been serving me well all day!

2) I had to stop and ask four different people where the vodaphone store was but I found it and got a SIM card even though I am not an Indian national. How did that work? I did not want to ask that question. And therefore, as per the rule of no extra information, do not know the answer... :)

By 3:30pm I had made it safely to Patna to hang with my bad self at the guesthouse. Tomorrow is busy meeting day and hopefully awesome meeting up with other Emory folk day as the CARE stakeholder meeting is going on and I will get to attend. WOOHOO! Bonus meeting! :)