Well, after such a great day diving I was really looking forward to a great night and a final day of relaxation. The Saturday disco night also yielded meeting a very fun married couple from Germany: Philipp and Julia. A great couple with whom I had a lot of fun with both Saturday AND Sunday night. So after a great night, I settled in and got ready for a great day of relaxation on Monday, my final day. I slept in. Slowly made my way to breakfast. Then I settled in here:
And here was my view:
A great day of sun and relaxation and a perfect way to end my Maldivian adventure. What a great 4 days!
Well, all that was left of my trip was a final night in Paris. And you know me, I made the most of that final night too!
Oh yeah, and I got to have one more disco night at the Diva Monday night! ;) ~ Rich
First off, I'm home. My whirlwind adventure is complete. That's why the updates have fallen off. However, I still owe you some so here we go! So, since I'm now home and can access a few more things... here are some cool underwater photos from Day 1:
If you look closely at the next photo, you can make out the silhouette of a shark!
Your favorite blogger right after seeing the shark!
Well, my second and final day started just like the first. Although a little tougher getting up as I had a pretty fun time at the Diva "disco night" and introduced some of my new Maldivian friends to the vocal stylings of Flo Rida and Taio Cruz! Don't worry, they reciprocated with a great song too. Great time at the Musik bar at the diva!
Well, Saturday here in the Maldives I was up bright and early for my morning, 2-tank diving adventure. I decided to rent a camera in the hopes of catching a whale shark on film. As you might have guessed based upon the title of this post, day 1 the elusive buggers stayed away. The diving here however is fantastic. Unfortunately, the tsunami of 2004 that struck the Indian Ocean damaged almost 100% of the coral reefs. The amazing thing, minus the broken coral that litters the sandy bottom of the ocean, it is hard to tell! So cool to see how nature can rebuild itself after such a catastrophic event. As I stated earlier, my diving was through a company called the Euro Divers. Here is a shot of the dive center:
So, this is where I started every dive. We got our gear and hopped on the boat for our ride to the first site:
So, my first dive was at a site called Huddu Thila. We had planned to go to a different site but the current was too strong. Every dive the dive masters check the currents before we jump in. Huddu Thila was considered a medium current and was still pretty strong. We eventually aborted our planned trip around the one side of the reef and went with the current towards the back side. It was still an amazing dive. Great corals along the reef or Thila as they call it here in the Maldives. I saw white tip reef sharks, sting rays and countless fish. I have my photos from the whole day awaiting my viewing on CD. So, all in all a great first dive, but no whale sharks to be seen. Traveling to the second site, I made friends with three chaps from France. They introduced me to a Hungarian dice game that they didn't even know the name of. Basically, it is like another version of Yahtzee with very different rules. Here's a pic of me playing with Jonathan, Vivian, and Fabrice:
You can see the scoring sheet on the left. It passed the time between dives brilliantly! On our way to the second site, we caught sight of a manta ray swimming near the surface. These pics don't do it justice but it was very cool to see. Luckily it wasn't my last encounter!
CRAP!!! Diva Maldives is awesome. Almost feel it is too nice for me. ALMOST. Friday I arrived via sea plane as you now have read. I spent the rest of the day exploring the island/resort. So an atoll is essentially a group of islands. The Maldives is made up of several atolls. The Diva Maldives is located in the south Ari Atoll. I picked the Diva Maldives because of the dive shop here. Typically whenever I'm going some place to dive, I check PADI for the diving operators that are in the area. As you might expect, there are hundreds here in the Maldives. Euro Divers has several in the Maldives and is considered a 5-star dive center. When I emailed them and expressed my interest in the local whale shark population, their first answer was the Diva. More to come on my diving adventures but I can definitely say the diving in the Maldives is AWESOME!
Okay, back to my resort. When I arrived and had checked in, I was escorted to my room. Now, I just have the standard "garden villa" but it is pretty pretty cool. Check it out:
One of the coolest features is the shower. It is "outside" and in fact, the entire bathroom is basically outside. Check it out:
So you can see the walls end right above the shower. Pretty fun! The rest of Friday was exploration...
Okay, as you hopefully are now aware, I'm in the Maldives. The Maldives is a country just east and south of the southern tip of India (east of Sri Lanka). Here's another shot:
So, on Friday, I hopped on an Air India flight from Bangalore to Malé, the capital of the Maldives. Here's another shot of Malé
And the little slice of a landing strip they call Malé International Airport:
So, once I landed, I connected with the Diva Maldives contact after clearing customs. Funny little fact, the Maldives prohibits alcohol coming into the country. Now, granted, it is essentially a Muslim population, but certainly works out in favor for the resorts! I read this from a post on Trip Advisor but not like I was going to try anyway. Seriously. Okay, maybe I thought about it! ;)
So, from Malé International I'm taken to the Diva hospitality suite. Sweet.
Okay, finally time to give you my Mysore Monday post! I HAVE to post this now because I can't wait to post about where I am staying now: Diva Maldives! Okay, so Monday Drew, another coworker who had just arrived in Bangalore, joined us on our adventure. Also joining us was a member of Drew's Bangalore team, Swanu, and Swanu's family! We left our hotel and went to pick up Praveen on the way. Praveen is from Mysore so he, once again, graciously came along as our guide. Once we got on the road to Mysore, we got great views of outside of Bangalore:
We stopped for breakfast at a cool, outdoor place and tried some more fantastic Indian cuisine
Okay, so I haven't been keeping up with my facts but here's some interesting detail about the road to Mysore...
Quick note gang... Tonight is my last night in Bangalore! What a week! Heading back to the hotel as I write this. Tomorrow I fly to the Maldives! Many more updates to come as I'll be making that trip solo and will have plenty of time for some quality blogging! I'm hoping to get in some great dives on Saturday and Sunday!
Tonight we are planning on another trip to UB City. Should be a little livelier than last time so I'm looking forward to it. Most likely, Praveen and Bala will be joining us. They are also both coming to Minneapolis next week so I'll have plenty of time to make it up to them for being such great hosts!
So look for many more posts in the coming days. Until then, I leave you a picture of me in my new, traditional Indian kurta! I bought it yesterday so I could wear it for a big team lunch we had today. Most of the team were also in traditional Indian wear. I really like it!!
Okay gang, once again slacking on my updates. Obviously our work here has begun! We had a great day yesterday and had meetings almost all day to connect with team members over here. Then Pam and I met with our entire Corporate Systems Bangalore team in the afternoon for a "state of the state" presentation of Corporate Systems as a whole. We have such great team members over here. I cannot say that enough. WE HAVE SUCH... :) Seriously though, they have all been great to meet with and they have all been so hospitable with us. Truly great people here in Bangalore!
Now, even with our first full day in the office, you all know me. Work hard. Play hard. So, after work we went out with a great group. Anil, Praveen, Raji, Bala, Pam, Eric (Pam's husband) and your favorite blogger headed back towards UB City and went to a place called The Biere Club. Bangalore's first craft brewery and an excellent suggestion by Praveen (ONCE AGAIN). I have some pictures but haven't had time to upload them so you'll have to wait. Really a great time sharing stories, jokes, and overall getting to know each other even better. And you all know how easy that can be over a frosty beverage or two! Unfortunately, that's about all I can share. Sorry, Biere Club members only. :)
Now, you may be wondering why I also included fish in my title. Well, it just so happens there is an Asian spa across the street by the name of the Kenko Spa. One of the big attractions at this particular spa are the fish. They have fish pedicures available. If you are unaware, a fish pedicure... well, let me quote from the Kenko website: "Once your feet have been placed in the warm water, the Doctor fish (Garra Rufa) begin to investigate. Once you have passed the point of feeling ticklish, the fish begin to act as a stimulating, yet relaxing massage with hundreds of them running their little suction cup mouths along your feet and toes. They seek out and remove dead skin, bacteria and calluses while rejuvenating healthy skin." HA! So, at the initiation of Anil (and his desire to try this out too)... Anil, Raji and I ran across the street to the spa. Ran being an appropriate term (re: read my traffic post)! Now, don't worry... I will NOT post pictures of my feet but what an experience! It TOTALLY tickles the whole time but it is not bad. I'm not sure how well they worked but they don't let up on you until you pull your feet out of the water. Those little buggers must be really hungry! So funny... we couldn't stop laughing the entire time. I'd recommend it as it was truly a strange and hilarious experience. Well, back to work but I should have more time tonight to post more. Cheers!
~ Rich
Well gang, no updates yesterday but a big one is coming. As mentioned previously, Monday was our planned trip down to Mysore and the Mysore Palace! A full 12+ hour day of travel and sightseeing and your boy Rich, once again, hit the bed. HARD. As I type this, we are getting ready to head into the office. Many comments and yes, this is STILL a trip about work. We have a long day ahead of us (and the rest of the week) but I have plenty to catch you up on so stay tuned! Hope you all have had a pleasant Monday... My Tuesday is just beginning!! ~ Rich
Well gang, if there was ever a true Bangalore experience, it would be driving the streets of the city. Thankfully, my employer enlists the assistance of a company complete with experienced drivers to take you around the city. Never was this a better idea than in Bangalore. Don't mistake it, they have their driving down to, at it's core, a methodical and very deliberate act of "delivery." Many streets don't have controlled intersections. Blinkers are only used for substantial turns. Lane changes are at the discretion of the driver or rider (in the case of the hundreds of motorcycles and scooters used for transportation). As one coworker put it best, it is very much "organized chaos." Here, see for yourself:
This video is a decent representation of every trip we have taken. 99% of the time people are polite, yield, and generally work together to get from point A to point B. That said, this is without a doubt the largest culture shock I have experienced to-date. I was warned but nothing can really prepare you for it. And by and large you quickly become accustomed to it. Yet, there are still times where you seemingly come dangerously close to hitting another car, two-wheeler, person, stray dog, or even a cow (seriously). Finally, to be completely fair, I have yet to witness one accident. It is pretty amazing. Chaos, organized.
As for my Saturday Bangalore fact, I learned from my coworker Praveen that Bangalore has over 9 million people. Wikipedia states 8.5 in the 2011 census. Either way Minnesota, according to Wikipedia, has only 5.3 million. In the entire state! Not sure what the land mass comparison would yield but my bet is Banglaore and it's outskirts is smaller. Finally, Bangalore is only the 3rd largest city in India! Makes you understand the video above. Well, still more to come including our big trip to Mysore on Monday. Cheers! ~ Rich
Okay, not true in the least but nevertheless, I hope it got your attention for what I hope is a fun post. So, after our fun lunch at UB City, we journeyed south to Bannerghatta National Park. This park is essentially a preserve filled with animals and also contains a zoo as well. We arrived there after a crazy drive through the city. What am I talking about, EVERY drive through the city is crazy. More on that later...
So this is what it looks like at the entrance to the park:
I gotta say, I was starting to get pretty excited for this place. After waiting in the line, we boarded our bus for the travel through the park.
After boarding our bus, we proceeded to take a road that lead us into the park. The first animals we encountered were very exciting to the Indians on board. For us Minnesotans, not so much...
Yep! Good old fashioned deer here at Bannerghatta. Pretty funny to hear the excitement from the crowd. The next creatures were bears. Now, as I said, this park was pretty cool because it was more of the animals in their environment, but clearly they must feed them right off the road because every animal following the deer were right next to the bus! Made for some great shots but felt a little "manufactured." Still very cool. So, here are some close bear shots:
As I said, pretty cool being that close but this was nothing. It all felt very Jurassic Park-ish as we traveled from section to section we literally would enter gated sections where they would open one end, let us in up to the next gate, close the gate behind us, and then open the gate in front of us. VERY COOL feeling!
Next up, lions! Check out these pics:
And to give you some perspective, this is a shot of the bus ahead of us. Take a look on the right:
Next up, tigers! Here are some pictures. I cannot describe how big these suckas were.
They even had white tigers but this one was content in chillin' by the pond versus the road.
Here's another picture of the tiger. Again, these boys were big. This is literally right out the front windshield of the bus!
Finally, here is a video of the tiger. He keeps looking at something beyond the fence. We eventually saw it was another tiger beyond another gate. Scary part was, not more than 5 minutes later we were in that spot of the road and the tiger was nowhere to be seen.
Lastly, one final shot of our bus.
Pretty great experience...! Especially when you consider it only cost the four of us $14 US. TOTAL! Well, there's another post for the day. More to come for sure. I really hope you're all enjoying this as much as I'm enjoying posting! Next up, my "Driving the streets of Bangalore" post and my fact from Saturday. Plenty more to come y'all! Later,
Okay gang, between issues with my blogging app and being absolutely exhausted last night, you all didn't get any insight into my day... which was AWESOME! So, here we go with the first post of many describing our day.
One of our great team members we have over here, of which we have many, came to join us and show us around. Praveen has been to Minneapolis several times and both me and my manager know him very well. So we were very excited to have his help and company on our day's adventures!
The plan, meet Praveen and our driver (more on that in a future post), downstairs at our hotel at 10 AM. The day was wide open plan-wise. We decided upon a trip to UB City. The UB stands for United Breweries, or more accurately the UB Group. The UB group is a conglomerate of companies with the main focus being the brewery industry and Kingfisher beer. As I mentioned in a previous post, Kingfisher is THE beer in India and the UB Group is the largest producer of beer in India. I digress... ;)
So UB City is essentially a "city" within the heart of Bangalore with hotels, apartments, restaurants, and shopping. The big news is the chairman of the UB Group is building a big complex within the city where he will live as well. So here is a shot of one of the towers within this walled "city"
You enter and head up to the 4th floor where there is a long street filled with restaurants. The shot above is a shot at the end of this street. Very "western" but pretty dang impressive. Here is a shot of the "street"
At the end of the street on the other side, is a fairly large shopping area. Here's a shot of that:
Very high end shops. So all in all a pretty cool place. As you can tell, it was pretty dreary in the morning so we settled on our brunch/lunch place:
The Tasty Tangles was very good but pretty western. Not unlike a Big Bowl to a degree. Don't worry, we took care of that for our dinner choice (future post)! So, as we ate, the skies began to clear and our next choice was clear as well: as mentioned, we decided upon Bannerghatta National Park. I'll be posting those pics a little later this morning. Pretty awesome (and by awesome, I mean totally sweet) safari-like ride through a preserve with lions, bears, and tigers literally right next to the buses that take you though the park. Kind of felt more like the way it should be...we were in the cages and they were walking around! All in all, a great way to start the day and get our stomachs full for the ride and park that became our afternoon. Have a great night everyone and look for another post later... Or when you wake up on Sunday! Miss you all!
Well, we had a great night here at our hotel! Luke arrived around 7 pm and we headed down to the Liquid lounge and bar. Here are some pictures:
Sorry, not the best pics as the flash kept capturing the surrounding details. Very cool open air bar that we had a few Kingfishers at. Next up, The Pink Poppadom restaurant. The third and final restaurant at our hotel. Very cool place, sorry no pics (yet). Ate there with my manager, her husband and Luke. Very good food. Luke and I went back to the Liquid lounge for a couple more Kingfishers and called it a night. Luke had to leave by 11 to head to the airport to catch his flight. I feel like I had a pretty good day and I'm feeling pretty good about my jet lag approach. We'll see! Speaking of tomorrow, we are planning to go here: Bannerghatta National Park
Luke had gone there and gave us some good intel. Look for more tomorrow! Until then, good night!
~ Rich
Well, I'm sitting here in my room in Bangalore after a half-day of work at one of our offices here. We chose to sleep in as we arrived here in Bangalore well after midnight and didn't get to our hotel until 2:30 am. I was very much looking forward to this:
After sleeping into about 10ish, I got up and met my manager downstairs for lunch. They have three very cool, open air restaurants here at our hotel. So this was my view at lunch:
And another:
In the first pic, you should be able to make out the pool that is connected to this particular restaurant, the Lido. Pretty cool infinity pool available to us. The other two restaurants/bars are very similar and we will be going to them tonight.
Then Pam and I went to the office to get situated and do some quick meetings with some old and new faces. Good quick day at the office as Monday will be a holiday here. As mentioned previously, we have decided Monday will be our trip to the Mysore Palace.
As I write this, it is approximately 5:45 pm. Luke, a coworker buddy of mine was here and leaves "tonight" at 2 am so he is going to join us for dinner and drinks. I'll be definitely taking more pics to post, provided I don't crash too early! I'm gonna try and make it at least until Luke has to head to the airport!
Finally, I hope to post a fact I learn daily of my location. Friday's fact: Bangalore is considered the pub capital of India! Kingfisher has a very large brewery here as well. All in all, shaping up to be my kinda place wouldn't you agree? ~ Rich
Well, I'm getting ready to leave this week! So excited! I've been talking a lot about the Maldives but first I will be traveling to Bangalore. My work is bringing me to the city and fortunately I'm going to be able to have a weekend to explore before really getting down to business. I'll be definitely posting my weekend adventures! One of my coworkers leaves the night of the first day we are there so I am hoping to see him too. Then, during the weekend we most likely will be traveling to the Mysore Palace. I've heard great things about this day trip so I'm hoping that happens as well. All in all, it will be approximately 18+ hours of time in a plane to get to Bangalore. So, nothing but a quick post before my departure but expect much much more later this week and over the next two weeks. I'm prepped and ready with my iPad, camera, and can't wait to share it all with those interested. Cheers!
BTW - Here's a quick picture of the Mysore Palace... More to come!
