Travelling Man

I've been in India for a few days now, and given that it's my first trip overseas and that India isn't Europe, I thought I'd go over my thoughts so far.

I touched down in Bangalore Wednesday night near midnight. Most of the people on the flight were Indian, possibly returning from outside India to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Diwali is considered a holiday celebrated in the north, while Bangalore is quite far south.

Even so, this holiday is observed nationwide. Most people like to light firecrackers for the event.

When I arrived, many of us got in line, and I had no idea what for. I saw a few other Westerners, and they seemed to line up with the Indians. Apparently, they were checking passports and the like. I had to fill out a form, which was rather small for the information I needed to fill, apparently, a problem all over the world (what? a city couldn't possibly have more than the 8 character slots we provide!).

Picking up luggage was a small pain. There were many people gather with those metal trolleys (apparently, complimentary) to carry luggage. While American airports often have several belts to pick up luggage, depending on the flight, Bangalore only has one, and the space is rather tiny.

Next, I wanted to get a ride to the hotel. I was told there would be someone with a sign with my name and the Oberoi hotel, apparently, a five (I was actually told seven) star hotel. Although not the most expensive hotel in Bangalore, it's still rather ritzy.

I had one of the attendants from another hotel ask if I was planning to go to that hotel, and I said no, I wanted to go to the Oberoi. He pointed me to a man who had my name on some list. I was slightly concerned, but went along with it. A second man joined him, apparently, the driver.

We drove about a mile or so to the hotel. The hotel is on the main street of Bangalore called Mahatma Gandhi Street(?). The natives apparently call the street "M-Zero".

The hotel did look rather fancy. As I entered, I had no idea how much I should tip the driver, and decided not to tip. I was told later that tipping is not that frequent, but I still felt guilty.

To check-in, I had to talk to the hotel staff. I'm used to the American way where you go up to a counter, and talk to someone standing and check in. At the Oberoi, checking in is much like getting a loan at a large fancy bank. Women in saris sit behind an impressive desk as they get the required information.

I asked about Internet, and they said they could provide me with a user name/password to access their system.

As they lead me to my room, I was surprised that the room was outside, much like a budget motel. Most American hotels have rooms that face into a hallway, presumably to insulate against some of the traffic noise. And indeed, since the hotel is right on M0, you hear a lot of honking. I'll explain about the honking later.

The room has two twin sized beds put side by side, with four oversized pillows, two per bed. I have what would now be considered a small conventional TV. Despite being five star, wide-screen 37 inch televisions are still infrequent. Like many hotels, there's a sense the television should be encased, and possibly hidden away. Modern flat screen large TVs are of sufficient beauty that this idea no longer applies.

I have a small couch and a small table.

Several things to note. There is no digital alarm clock, nor any alarm clock at all. However, India, being noted for its service has a human dealing with this. Indeed, at all hours, you can call room service to do whatever. Wake-up calls, which are often handled by computers in the US (just program the room and the time of the wake up call), are handled by people in India.

The staff, perhaps rather typical of India, and a holdover from British rule, is exceedingly polite, with "yes sir" and "whatever you say, sir" used quite frequently. There's a high level of deference not seen among Americans whose wait staff, while friendly, do not see themselves as lower class quite the way the help service does in India.

Perhaps the most notable observation right away in India is the driving. To the initial eye, it appears to be insane. Cars travel willy nilly, the dividing lines, when they exist, seem to be a mere reminder. All manner of vehicles travel around.

However, I've been in a few days, and can begin to explain some of the craziness.

Effectively, in the US, everyone drives the same vehicle. What I mean by that is most everyone drives a car, or some similar vehicle, and there is expectation that these cars can, for instance, travel at 60 or 70 mph with relative ease.

In India, there are many classes of vehicles on the road. There are cars, mostly of the small compact variety, but certainly even vehicles like the Toyota Corolla and minivans. There are many three wheeled vehicles that are cramped and seem to travel no faster than about 25 mph. There are many motorcycles too, as most people can't afford cars, and motorcycles are gas efficient. There are also standard bicycles. When an Indian refers to a bike, they are talking about motorcycles and possibly scooters/mopeds. Finally, there are tons and tons of busses.

Each of the vehicles have a different speed, and that causes a problem. In the United States where bicycles are rare, a typical car driver is often rather paranoid about hitting a bicycle, and will give wide berth when trying to pass a bicycle, or slow down immensely when passing a bicycle.

For an Indian, each vehicle has a natural speed it travels at. A bike is much slower than the equivalent American model, which often travels faster than cars. No one zooms at 70 mph. These bikes seem only capable of maybe 30 mph tops, or less. The cars are the fastest vehicles, but due to traffic, even they, too, rarely travel faster than 40 mph. Busses are slower as are large trucks and certainly bicycles.

This means a car almost always wishes to pass. Oh, did I mention there are pedestrians that are also on the road, most crossing whereever at a slow rate.

In India, drives drive on the left, and so there's a tendency to pass on the right (opposite of the US). Typically, if you are passing a bike, you get extremely close and beep. Bikers, therefore, aren't likely to make any wild and sudden moves for fear of being flattened by a car. A typical US driver would cause an accident very soon because there appears to be all sorts of unwritten rules about how to pass.

I have a driver assigned to me for the company the entire stay. I'll talk about what I think about him later. As a driver, he's often seeking to pass, and has great sense of how close we are to other vehicles. We are often inches from hitting a biker or another car, yet, he and everyone else appears to know their distances well enough, and have certain expectations.

In particular, honking is used all the time to indicate when you are passing. As far as I can tell, the honking is rarely done in anger. Honking typically means "I'm trying to pass on your right". If you are a bike, you might shift a little to your left, but you're expected not to move to the right, because you are going to be passed.

A car, being of comparable size, may decide not to move to the left, but the driver is always trying to push that. Much like, I gather, Nascar, if you are being squeezed by someone wanting to pass on the right, and see it, you move a little to the left, or maintain position, so the car may pass.

Pedestrians, while rarely running, must also know how to cross a street. Running would, indeed, cause some issues as you may inadvertently leap in front of oncoming traffic, making yourself unpredictable.
So most walk, or back off if a car is planning to travel in front. Thus, everyone in an Indian eco-culture of driving must know how to react, and to that extent, they are more aware in this insanity how to move.

By American standards, much of the driving occurs this way because it's what's always been done. The cops do not pull people over for driving this way, otherwise it would have to arrest everyone. It's like the beltway on an empty day. Most people travel above 55. If the police arrested everyone, it would greatly affect how everyone travels.

Because of these traffic patterns, you never travel very fast in the city. While this is true of most American city traffic, there's also stoplights everywhere, so Americans stop all the time. Indian traffic keeps moving. When you do have lights, which are oddly infrequent, they stop you for over a minute. I suppose that's typical in the US, but they have a clock letting you know how many seconds are left, so it feels longer, especially when you are used to moving all the time.

Indian traffic would drive my mother crazy, which is a good reason she should never visit India. She'd want the driver to drive safely, but to the driver, this is how he always drive, and to drive as my mother would want would be to drive in a particularly odd way.

Indian traffic is basically faster vehicles trying to pass slower ones, honking frequently to jostle for space. Since there are slower vehicles everywhere, you are always attempting to pass, and at close proximity to other cars. Very close.

This traffic also means that short distances take a long time to travel. Even on the highway, where you might get up to 55 mph, you generally have other vehicles going much more slowly (like 35 mph) that you must move around, and you can often multiply the time it takes to get anywhere by 2. If A and B were 60 miles apart on the highway, you'd expect one hour travel time. In India, expect two. If a local commute would run 20 minutes, expect 40.

Despite the number of people using the roads, traffic jams are rare. You're always moving, mostly because people use bikes to travel, and they occupy little space. Again, unlike the US, bikers are often more conservative when driving, and slower too. They rarely overtake anyone, as they do in the US.

Here's a surprise. Or not. Women never ride bikes (motorcycles) or almost never. By ride, I mean navigate. Many wear saris which reach their feet. Bikes are not really meant for such dressing. Thus, if women ride, they ride side saddle behind a man. Women rarely wear pants (not that I see, anyway).

Women do one thing that would give Americans a heart attack in the US. They carry small children, even babies, while riding side saddle behind the man driving the bike. Americans are so paranoid about their kids safety that they would wonder how they could endanger their kid this way. Yet, despite these traffic patterns, most take it as the norm. And because cars and child care are uncommon, if you have to travel with your kid, you have to travel with your kid. Americans don't understand this kind of necessity.

Women do drive moped/scooters, which travel slower than bikes, but at least, you can drive them with a sari, as there is space for that. Again, doubling even tripling on a bike is exceedingly common.

Other things to note when driving. There's a lot of English. A lot. Some ads have no Hindi at all. Presumably, in the city, there's some expectation that you can read English.

I also didn't see the desperate poverty (at least, in the city). OK, things look rather down-trodden, but they remind me of scenes of, say, Mexico, I've seen in films. Indeed, the homeless of America look far more pitiful then the average Indian, who doesn't seem like they are starving or anything. Again, that may be because of where I am in India.

Let me get back to more transportation. Busses. Many Indians ride busses. They are packed to the gills, and they are everywhere. You see busses as often as you see taxicabs in New York City. Indeed, busses come in all varieties from blah busses, to so-called luxury busses. In the US, you ride the bus. You rarely think "I'll ride the luxury bus", although the idea of an express bus is becoming more popular.

There's one other thing I've noticed a lot in city traffic. Dogs. There are lots of dogs in Bangalore, most of the same species. I don't know what it is, but they have a narrow pointy snout, and appear to be walking on high heels. You see these dogs everywhere. They are cute, but they snarl when you get close.

I don't notice beggars so much around the cities, but I haven't really tried walking in the city for fear of being run over. I think while people may be poor, they can afford clothing and eat and move around, and that's enough to keep them going on. Besides, India has a class system where people seem to know their place. In the US, the poor resent being poor, and are always thinking how they might be rich, even if this is unlikely.

Back to my driver. India's wealth has a huge range. A typical software engineer is likely to make no more than maybe 4-5 times as much as the "poorest" paid person, say, a teacher or an assistant coach. I'm talking about 100,000 dollars in salary to maybe 20,000 on the low end. In India, this ratio can be much larger, say, 10 times as large or so.

I've generally attributed this to the fact that advanced goods (electronics and such) are much more expensive than food. Say, you take a typical McDonald's meal. Maybe five bucks if you're stingy. An IPod is two hundred bucks. So that's 40 times as much. You can probably get a meal in India for the equivalent of 25 cents. An IPod still costs as much, so that's now 800 times as much to afford an IPod vs. a meal.

This means, for very little money, you can eat, and if you don't mind being cramped (and most Indians don't), you can live for cheap enough. And with so many Indians, there needs to be lots of jobs. Service is therefore often quite cheap.

I have a driver assigned to me for two weeks. In principle, I can have him drive me whereever, whenever. For example, he'll pick me up in the morning. He'll (I assume) hang around where I work all day long, filling up time in one way or another, until I'm ready to go. I don't even arrange that. It's not like I say "Pick me up at 5:30" and he's there at 5:30. I mean, if I decide at 5:30, I'm not ready, then he'll wait around until 6:30. Indeed, I suspect if I call him at 1 PM and want to go to the hotel, he'd be there in five minutes.

This means the life of an average driver is sitting around all day long, waiting to drive.

A driver is also poor. Any fees that are paid have to paid by me. If there were tolls, I'd be paying it. I know that sounds obvious, but it's something you don't think about until you have a driver.

The people I work for tend to take this for granted, even as they aren't "upper class" by any means. Even so, that's just how the system works.

I'll give you an example. I needed a SIM card so I could pay smaller rates than the outrageous international roaming in India. We were going to find a shop that sold it (these tend to be hole in the wall organizations, but that describes many such organizations).

Despite poverty, the poorest (above a certain level of poverty--such as my driver) all have mobile phones. It's far more prevalent in places like India than you'd imagine. A coworker and me decided to go to a restaurant. The driver, being unable to afford the meal, and indeed, expecting to do his job, was not invited. Even were he invited (which we did), he declined. His job is to wait, while we do things, so we wait.

I have to imagine this kind of service was ingrained by the British, which also has a class structure of their own, where the lower class has to maintain some sort of odd dignity, even while being greatly inconvenienced. It is their lot in life. In the US, the lower class don't think of themselves as lower class. Sure, they don't think they're rich, but they'll yell to the rich, if they feel they are being lacked respect. And unlike India, there are many people who are normally "rich" (or middle class) that take jobs that would normally be off-limits to someone like that in India. Thus, middle class kids work at McDonald's knowing full well they will not work their the rest of their lives. I doubt middle class Indian kids do this.

Finally, let me point out service. In a hotel, service is very important, and the customer is treated rather deferentially. I have to admit it's easy to get used to. I just heard a noise upstairs of drilling. In the US, the management might apologize but say the work has to be done. In India, they would try to stop the work because I'm the guest.

I will say that there's probably something different about someone like me from the Indian perspective.

Once upon a time, the people who went to these hotels in India were rich upper class Brits and the like. They treated the poor in a certain way, being used to giving out orders.

Nowadays, businesses pay for middle class types to go to these hotels. Prices are considered outrageous by Indian natives, are only moderately expensive by American standards. I had a breakfast buffet, perhaps the best I've had, for 500 rupees, which is maybe 11 bucks. This is crazy money for an Indian, who can eat for 50 rupees or maybe 50 cents, and of good quality. I bought a shirt for under twenty US dollars, which was hand-stiched in under three hours. In the US, you can't even consider that at all, and were it to exist, it would cost you one hundred dollars easily.

These hotels are now accomodating people that are not the upper class, but middle class, who are unaccustomed to high class service. But I see, from looking at others, that many other patrons at the hotel are in the same boat as me. Sure, there may be a few people who are fabulously wealthy, but more people are businessmen.

Well, that's my summary of India so far.