As some of you, dear readers of this blog, may be aware, I've changed jobs a couple of months ago. So no more business trips to Finland, Ulm, England and so forth. Instead, after a brief trip to Grenoble with the new job, my next trip was to Greater Noida, near Delhi.
I was rather looking forward to my first visit to India, especially as I had a weekend to spend for a bit of tourism. I started my trip together with my team-mate Ilario. We had quite a tough trip ahead of us, leaving in the afternoon, and arriving in Delhi in the morning , local time. Things went well, with a stop-over in Dubai, although I hardly managed to get any sleep whatsoever. So I spent most of the taxi trip to Greater Noida from the airport slumbering away, rather than observing the rather colourful traffic (this was India, after all...).
After a rather long day at the office, we made our way back to our hotel, a rather fancy Radison Blue, unfortunately located somewhat in the middle of nowhere (not that there is any town centre to speak of in Greater Noida, it's a very spread out "town", home to many high-tech companies but not much of interest to your average tourist...). Me and Ilario were quite worn out after our travel, so decided to go to sleep after a more than respectable curry at the hotel restaurant (I guess the spice dosage was for foreigners rather than locals, since I found the curry almost mild).
The next day, we decided to get a bit more ambitious in the evening and head to JayPee Green Resort. It's basically a huge resort, with a hotel, golf course, restaurants, bars a sports center and god knows what else. JayPee Green is a huge property developer based in the Noida/Greater Noida area (the name appears everywhere: they've built residential complexes, schools, the highway to Agra and the Formula 1 track, to mention just a few things). It was certainly an impressive place, even though it was nearly abandoned during our visit (perhaps because the resort is still under construction?). We did nearly manage to gate-crash a private party organized by Audi, but decided to just have dinner at a rather nice Indian restaurant instead (I had an absolutely delicious Rogan Josh - rather hot but most deliciously spicy!).
After another long day at the office on Friday, we decided to dine at the hotel again, since we both had a loong day ahead of us tomorrow (I was planning to get up at 5 in the morning to visit Agra, whereas Ilario was heading North towards the Himalayas with a colleague of ours). So my first impression of India? It was certainly interesting to work with our Indian colleagues, all of whom were extremely friendly. Interestingly, they seem to have two meals per day at the office (lunch around noon, and then a kind of snack between 5 and 6 o'clock). The food is surprisingly similar to the curries I had in the UK - I was expecting a bigger difference. I was also expecting hotter food - so far what I'd had didn' match the potency of say a Vindaloo in the UK (mind you, I didn't ask for hot stuff ;). Apart from that, I think Greater Noida isn't really representative of the rest of India, as it is an area for high-tech companies...
After a rather long day at the office, we made our way back to our hotel, a rather fancy Radison Blue, unfortunately located somewhat in the middle of nowhere (not that there is any town centre to speak of in Greater Noida, it's a very spread out "town", home to many high-tech companies but not much of interest to your average tourist...). Me and Ilario were quite worn out after our travel, so decided to go to sleep after a more than respectable curry at the hotel restaurant (I guess the spice dosage was for foreigners rather than locals, since I found the curry almost mild).
After another long day at the office on Friday, we decided to dine at the hotel again, since we both had a loong day ahead of us tomorrow (I was planning to get up at 5 in the morning to visit Agra, whereas Ilario was heading North towards the Himalayas with a colleague of ours). So my first impression of India? It was certainly interesting to work with our Indian colleagues, all of whom were extremely friendly. Interestingly, they seem to have two meals per day at the office (lunch around noon, and then a kind of snack between 5 and 6 o'clock). The food is surprisingly similar to the curries I had in the UK - I was expecting a bigger difference. I was also expecting hotter food - so far what I'd had didn' match the potency of say a Vindaloo in the UK (mind you, I didn't ask for hot stuff ;). Apart from that, I think Greater Noida isn't really representative of the rest of India, as it is an area for high-tech companies...
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