Winging my way towards Frankfurt, there to transfer to a plane for Boston. It’s been a long day already. In fact, I think it’s going to be about 36 hours in total. Though the trip has been fun, and a mighty adventure indeed…I’m glad that there are several consecutive days which do not involve six hour plane rides in my near future.

Concluding this from Frankfurt airport. I take it as a sign of my profound road-warrior status that the people here are addressing me in German. I must really look like hell, man. Kidding, kidding, sheesh.

Friday, we concluded the “work” part of the trip. This involved more training, this time for customers instead of partners, followed by a semi-technical seminar on why they should hire me for all their bioinformatics needs. A quick customer meeting at 4pm, and I had earned my fee.

In between seminars and meetings, I hit the gym and tried my usual free-weights workout. Failed miserably. Couldn’t do *any* of the exercises. Wondered if I was sick or dying, or if the muscles really atrophy that fast. Then I realized that the weights were in kilos, not pounds. Dumb American.

Delhi

Friday evening we took cabs around to see some of the sights of Delhi. The Delhi gate (same concept and scale as the Arc De Triomphe in Paris), the government buildings, and an old fort. The fort was very cool. We had to haggle with the tour guides and guards to get in, but we wound up taking a fascinating tour. The guide claimed that Delhi is the 8th city built on the site, and that the fort walls dated from the 1st city. Sort of a “civilization began here” line.

While we were out, a kid with two monkeys approached us and asked “Want to see a monkey dance?” I didn’t, really, and we moved on. However, I believe that this would be a great lead in to a very funny joke. “Want to see a monkey dance?” pause “Then this funny thing” and everybody laughs. The thing is, despite the inherent funniness of both monkeys and dancing, I’m at a loss for the punch line. Help would be appreciated.

The Apple, India guys were kind enough to drive me and the Apple guy from Singapore to the Taj Mahal today. In order to avoid being cooked by the heat (it topped out around 35 – 40 degrees C), we set out around 5:15 in the morning. The ride from Delhi to Agra took about 3 hours (one way). We stopped for food in each direction, so it actually took longer than that.

Ate at McDonalds (first time in several years that I’ve given money to the Evil Empire. I wasn’t going to get anything, but then I saw that fully half of their menu was vegetarian. Imagine that. A fast food place with a menu that’s half meat-free. I had the breakfast burrito (paneer wrap with salsa). It was actually pretty good.

I will never, ever, drive in India. Ever. No kidding. Travel proceeds on the left, unless it doesn’t. More than a few times, we were met by oncoming vehicles on the highway. More than a few times, small herds of cows, buffalo, or even a pair of camels would meander their slow way across the road. That was on the divided highway, mind you. The city streets were where the hardcore craziness began.

Lane markers are a formality that are generally ignored. Vehicles simply fight their way through. Bicycles, three-wheelers (for short trips) cars, trucks, pedestrians, cow hauled carts, and everything else imaginable streams down the road. Intersections are governed by willpower and pressure. Direction of traffic changes when the “stopped” side gets frustrated enough to push out into oncoming traffic. Generally the oncoming traffic resists this as long as possible. I was absolutely stunned that we only suffered one minor vehicle-vehicle contact all day. The guy driving our car honked his horn and adjusted his side mirror, which had been pushed up against the car by an oncoming truck.

The Taj

The Taj was incredible. The monument itself was mind blowing. Pictures don’t do justice to how *big* this thing is. I think that the guide said that it’s 300 feet tall, as well as being 300 feet on a side. It’s made entirely of white marble, with mosaic decorations of semi-precious stones. Writings from the Koran adorn the outside, which are cut from onyx. Each letter is a single piece of stone, with no seams. The craftsmanship is mind blowing.

Naturally, they included all those little features that Jefferson would have loved. The minarets lean outwards at 3 degrees, so that if they were to collapse, the central structure wouldn’t be damaged. The supposedly parallel lines actually grow further apart near the top, so that a viewer looking up has the perspective corrected, and they *appear* perfectly parallel.

The real story though is how and why it was built. One of the mogul emporers (second? The guide we hired spoke fast) lost his wife when she was quite young, and basically dedicated his life to mourning. The Taj Mahall is her tomb. He was also laid to rest there. Construction of the Taj went on for 22 years, occupying 22,000 workers day and night throughout that time. When it was finished, he began planning and construction of a matching Taj across the river. This one was to be identical in every detail, except that it would have been made of black marble instead of white, showing his grief at being separated from his wife.

At that point, the king’s son had dad arrested and moved on with the more important state business of conducting wars and expanding the empire. The son was the guy who unified the empire, back in the day.

Some of the families of the original craftsmen still live on the grounds. Approximately 16 generations have passed. They maintain the monument. When a stone cracks, or a carving gets ruined by age and wind, they use the original techniques to repair it. That too is pretty damn cool.

Shoes are not allowed on the white marble. We had the option of going barefoot or wearing little booties over our shoes. I went for the booties, since I could see the heat streaming off the marble.

All in all, it was pretty incredible. The only place I’ve seen that gave me a similar feeling was Maccu Piccu in Peru. Someone pointed out that putting the Taj and the Eiffel tower in the same category is sort of dumb. For me, the Apollo flights to the moon are a better comparison for the sheer effort and amazing craftsmanship that went into this thing.

Haggling

At the site, there were lots and lots of people trying to sell me crap. The local boys would come up with postcard books and try to sell them. The Apple sales guy (ASG) from Bangalore who was with me decided to have some fun haggling with them.

Boy: “400 sir, 400 for you my friend”
Me: “Really? They look nice.” — reaches for wallet —
ASG: “Chris, what are you doing?” — looks at postcard books and snorts — “Maybe he takes them for free. Free, you understand?”
Boy: Sir, please. Two books, 300. 300 sir, for my family.
ASG: — snorts, lights cigarette. — “We get for 25 at the hotel, and that’s too much. 10.”

I got four books for 100. This is why I’m not in sales.

The funny part was that as we were walking away from the kid (no sale at that time, bought in the afternoon when we came back) he said “come back later sir, you remember my name: Johnny sir, johnny my name. You remember!”

As we came out of the Taj grounds, a totally different kid comes running up with the identical merchandise and says “sir, sir, you remember me? You remember Johnny? You said later sir, you remember me?”

We met three separate “Johnny”s on the way back to the car.

The Airport

Delhi International Airport can bite me.

You’re not allowed into the terminal area until three hours prior to your flight. There’s a “visitor lounge” nearby for early arrivals. The visitor lounge is free for the five hours prior to your flight, and it costs 30 rupees ($0.75) to get in before that. I was there five and a half hours early, and the guy gave me a hard time about it. Sad that I let myself get aggravated over less than a dollar.

Then the wireless crapped out on me after a brief period of working (paid my access fee, planning to camp and catch up on mail…then their router died). Again, it was like $3, not even worth pursuing. It just kept going. I liked India a lot, but I didn’t like the Delhi airport.

One last note

All hail Cippro, drug of the gods.