My trip to Verona, Italy

My recent trip to Verona, in Italy was my 11th trip in as m any years. Unfortunately, all the trips have been work related. After all these years of travel to this city also I encountered many 'firsts'. It was surely the company I was with that made me explore the beauty of the city.

They say, a pic speaks a thousand words, so here are a few thousand for u....enjoy -

The beautiful Lake Garda -



The City Centre "Arena".

Then there was also the common sight of free flow of emotions giving a damn to the "mahila mandals" of Italy. Wonder if they have these wonderful mandals in Italy ?? (without them our "sanskriti" would have become totally nasht ;) )



The last one surely spoke many a thousand words. On that cozy note, until next time....Ciao (pronounced as chaao) meaning bye !!!!

Indian vs US Air Travel

The airline industry world wide is going thru hell. Rising fuel costs, lesser number of travellers and what have you. However, what amazes me is the glaring difference between the United States' based airline companies and the ones back home.

The horror of travelling in the US begins at the check-in counter itself. The reps have some sort of an air as if they were doing us a favour checking us in. These days there are more number of auto check in kiosks than there are people checking in customers. At least the kiosks are more polite !!

Well...once your checked in you basically head into the long lines at security and are subjected to "a random search" by the airport security most of the time. I don't know how the "random" selection is done. However, I learnt, by personal experience that you basically get selected for the special treatment if you are from the sub-continent or surrounding countries. However, after years of travelling the security finally accepts that you are not a threat to the country and are not selected for a random selection any more.

You then head to the departure gate and board the plane to an artificially welcoming host / hostess who are called 'cabin crew'. Then begins the on board experience. Wow !! On flights that are even as long as 5 hours all that the airline serves are food boxes that could be bought ! They serve it with some soft drink / juice (which is thankfully free). For flights of a lesser duration forget about any food at all. They simply throw a minuscule packet of pretzel or peanut with a drink and thats it. A far away cry from the "Kingfisher Experience" !!

Cheers to the Indian Airline Industry for top notch service and providing us with a truly world class experience.

'O dear....O'Hare' !!

The monitor on Chicago's O'Hare International airport for my flight to Toronto read 'Delayed'. The time of the delay was a good 2 hours. To me this is just one of the hundreds of instances when flights into and out one of the United States' busiest airports, were delayed. I always assume that there would be a delay on my flight departing from Chicago. This assumption is based on years of flying out of this airport. I remember only ONE instance when the flight departed 'On-Time'. I'm quite sure that that was a mistake as well. Honestly !! The rest of the times flights were always delayed.

I just don't get it. How can an airport function like this? I love the city Chicago and love to come here. But I hate to transit this airport coz of these delays. I get to the final destination late, exhausted and frustrated with the experience. One more aspect of this airport is the baggage handling. You can be assured your bags would be misplaced on a connecting flight IF the connection is close (less than 45 mins apart). I have been unfortunate to have this happen to me a couple of times.

I have no complaints against the 'windy city' and actually love it. It is amongst my favourite cities in the world. Only, there must be someone who could do something about this issue at O'Hare.

The dreaded flight !

I have been fortunate to travel a bit around the world. However, as most frequent travellers, especially the coach travellers would know travelling in today's times is a punishment rather than fun.

I have been subject to the punishment over and over again in the last several years. The seats have become smaller, the leg space reduced, the meals lesser, the hostesses less friendly. I always try to get on a "Star Alliance" network airline which gives me special treatment due to the amount of business I have given them. However, on the current trip to the United States I was booked on Emirates. One of the sectors was a 16 1/2 hour flight from Dubai to Houston non-stop. This scared the heck out of me. To add to it I wasn't even assigned an isle seat (which I normally do with the travel agent to ensure some freedom in movement). At the airport check in, inspite of pleading with the check in rep I was informed that there are no isles available and that he would put in a request so the reps in Dubai would try and assign an isle when I reach Dubai.

I proceeded to the transfer desk at Dubai and came to terms with the thought of a cramped up middle seat and a screwed up flight. The agent all of a sudden took my boarding card and replaced it with a different looking new one. I thought it was another seat assignment and looked. After repeatedly looking to make sure I was ecstatic as I was assigned a Business Class seat. Yes !! A Business Class seat for a 16 freaking hour flight. All thru until the cabin doors were closed and the plane moved I was hoping that there was no mistake and no other person came up and took my seat. I was reminded of an instance of the same nature that happened a while back. However, nothing of that happened this time around and I enjoyed the flight in great comfort.

My visit to Australia and New Zealand - IV

'Good luck Maite' said the immigration officer and welcomed me to Australia. Clear blue skies, lush green landscapes, spotlessly clean and beautiful beaches, fresh breeze, surfers, filled restaurants, families in the parks and people having a great time everywhere....Australia is all this and more.

On this trip of mine I visited Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Gold Coast and Brisbane. I found each place to be beautiful but had time to spend only in Melbourne and Sydney. I might again be biased to these cities as I had time to explore only these but I must say that they were amazing. The whole atmosphere is so vibrant, so full of life. People here truly live life to the fullest. I enjoyed my walks at the harbours, the beaches and the bustling cities (the local lingo for down town) in Sydney and Melbourne. The few places that stand out were the Melbourne Docklands, Gold Coast's beach and coast line, the beaches in all the cities, the famous Harbour bridge and last but surely not the least the iconic Opera House in Sydney.



Have compiled a few pics from the above. Enjoy !

Melbourne Docklands

Fire show at Crown Plaza Hotel - Melbourne
This hotel also has a casino, multiplex, shopping complex, restaurants and a beautiful water front location. The fire show, although simple is excellent. This runs every evening on specific schedules.

......and as if that wasn't enough, I was in Melbourne a couple of days bafore the F1 race. This gave me the opportunity to see the sexiest of Ferraris just parked on the road by the line of eateries. Here's one of them -

One of Sydney's beautiful beaches -

I did some bird watching....literally !

A view of Sydney city from the Cruise -

Gold Coast's beautiful landscape and coast line -

The Iconic Harbour bridge and Opera House !

My visit to Australia and New Zealand - III

The next morning I woke up and was amazed at the beauty of this place. Auckland is a picturesque place with a lot of greenery and fresh air. What a change from the pollution in Hyderabad.

I took a small little tour in Auckland and visited the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere - Sky Tower ! That's where the Indian cricket team did the sky walk recently. Here's the pic of the structure from close and from a distance -

......and here are the pics from the top -

Auckland also has an amazing aquarium with unique variety of fish. Sample this -














These guys also replicated Antarctica and have migrated Penguins as well. Check this out for yourself -













After a long day I stopped by at 'Bolliwood' (yes, that's the way its spelt) Indian restaurant. The food was good and so was the ambiance. Besides, its named Bolliwood...what more incentive to go have a bite.








110 Ponsonby Road,
Ponsonby, Auckland
Tel - 376 6477
http://www.bolliwood.co.nz/



I built up expectations for my next stop - Christchurch. Although, it was a nice place as well but wasn't as beautiful as Auckland. I might be wrong on this one as I really didn't have any time to look around. With another day's work at Christchurch I left New Zealand with fond memories of the beauty of the land and looked forward to my next destination - Australia !

My visit to Australia and New Zealand - II

The flight from Hyderabad to Singapore took about 3-1/2 hours and thereafter I had a halt for about 2 hours in Singapore airport before taking my connecting flight to Auckland. This was a 9-1/2 hour flight. I didn't expect such a long flight. Anyways, as luck would have it the flight was quite empty. I grabbed the opportunity and moved over to get a middle row of seats which were empty.

After a little while of the flight taking off I prepared myself to stretch and have a good nap. However, my nap was interrupted very early by a flight attendant asking if I wanted my meal. My request for serving my meal after a few hours was turned down with a answer that 'we cannot reserve the meals for so long'. I said what the heck, get me my meal right now. I scrolled on the menu options on the in-flight entertainment system and was happy to see the Hindi movie options. Me being me, I couldn't resist the urge of catching a Hindi movie and so postponed the nap by a little. The movie I saw was Dasvidaniya. I am glad that I did as it was truly a very nice movie. After that and my meal I did manage to get a nap. The cramped seats, seat belts and the partition handles didn't make my nap easy but it was certainly better than keeping myself seated on my single seat.

I manager to get a couple of hours rest and got up to realise that we had another 4-5 hours left. So it was movie time yet again. I watched Quantum of solace this time after which it was the Hindi movie EMI. I almost manager to finish this movie bu the flight attendant asked for the head sets prior to our landing. They even turned off the in-flight entertainment systems about 15mins.to landing. Wonder why the have to do such things. Can't we be entertained until we reach the gate after landing. I think it is Emirates that even takes the blankets away before landing. To hell with the cold!

Anyways, we touched down New Zealand soil pretty much on time. I was expecting a very posh looking airport but was surprised that it was a very ordinary looking simple airport. Guys coming from Auckland into Hyderabad would be expecting an ordinary airport and would be taken aback at the beauty of our airport. Well....getting back to New Zealand, the immigration was quick. However, there was a little delay in the customs as they wanted to check my sample box. This damn box always gets me delayed. Unfortunately, it is a must to carry this everywhere. I exited the airport in search of the hotel shuttle but found none and therefore took a taxi (with an Indian driver) and headed for my hotel.

My visit to Australia and New Zealand

Its travel time yet again !

Travel seems very exciting to many and for quite sometime it was for me too. However, those who travel for work would know what it really is after a while. I have been travelling for over 7 years and have had the privilege of visiting the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium, UK, Greece, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia and China. However, I never got the opportunity to visit Australia and New Zealand. This trip of mine would fulfil my desire to visit these countries as well.

I am once again at the beautiful Hyderabad International Airport awaiting my departure call on Singapore Airlines (yes, once again !). I look forward to a fruitful trip work wise and also to enjoy the scenic countries. I had some difficulties with my camera and hope the same gets sorted out so I could take a lot of pictures as forever memories. I will obviously fill you in on my trip as and when I can. Until then.....CHEERS MAITE !

My visit to the United States - VI

During my visit I had the opportunity to take a few pics which I have shared with you below -

Christmas tree in Pearson airport, Toronto, Canada.

Bellevue downtown, near Seattle.

The beauty of the snow.

Christmas deco in Changi airport, Singapore !

My visit to the United States - V

Its been a while since I encountered snow. Well, this time I did and this time the snow more than made up for the separation.

The backdrop was the picturesque Seattle. It snowed for a couple of days before I arrived. After half a day's break it continued to snow overnight and then again the next evening and the next as well. I was informed that the last it snowed like this was about 10 years back. It was a punishment to go out in this weather. However, I had my flight to the windy city and had to leave. My poor brother in laws Pratik and Vikas were the guys to bear the brunt and had to drive me to the airport. The roads were filled with ice and snow. The trees had a white cover. It was as if the whole city had turned white. It was an over whelming sight. Driving on ice was a dangerous task but was handled very well by Vikas.

After an hour's drive we managed to reach the airport around 7.30 in the morning. The scene inside was something like I'd never seen before. I was scheduled to take the Alaskan airlines flight bound for Chicago via Reno departing Seattle at 8.45. There were hundreds of people queued up to check in at Alaskan. The que went on for what seemed like miles. People were in the que since as early as 4 ! Most of them had already missed their flights and were in the que to get re-booked. I realised that there was no way that I would make it in time and so went from one airline to another seeking seats for any possible connection to Chicago. "No seats until the 24th" said one rep. A few airlines had cancelled all their flights out of Seattle that day. The snow took its toll on everyone. As for me, I had no other option but to cancel my trip to Chicago and take the hour long drive back home with Pratik and Vikas.

My visit to the United States - IV

I realised today that this series from my blog is running into several parts. Now that's not the problem. The problem is that I started using the Roman numerals which are now becoming problematic. Until 3 it was a cake walk but thereafter ?

While I keep mentioning visit to the United States I must also add that I did also visit Toronto for a day. So, technically it is my visit to North America. Anyways, this particular trip is my shortest US trip till date. In almost all my trips there is a day when my checked baggage does not arrive with me. Wonder why this NEVER happens in India. With all the sophisticated technology and all you'd wonder how come such things happen and that to so frequently.

Well, on this instance the scene of crime was Seattle Tacoma airport. Due to my frequent travel on the Star Alliance network of airlines my bag was tagged as a priority. I was always under the impression that "priority" meant that the bags would be taken care of and would arrive before everyone else's on the carousal. However, Air Canada and United Airlines have sworn to crush my beliefs. They keep trying and trying until one day I stop expecting the bag to come at all. This way when the odd day the bag does turn up I feel highly about them !

Getting back to the carousal waiting for my bag to come. I waited and waited and finally the bags from our flight were being sent on the carousal. The rounds went on for about half hour before a group of us accepted the fact that today was our turn to face the music. It turned out that the entire "priority" group's bags didn't arrive. We all stood in line to file the claim. After another 10 or 15 mins.the rep at the counter asked the baggage handlers to re-check if there were any bags left and sure enough the guy replied (after the re-check) that there was indeed a trolley full of bags that were missed out. Finally, after the two hour trauma I got my bag.

The worst part of all this is you can't even take out your anger on the reps in the United States. You can't shout at the people and lighten up from within. At least in India you shout a few abuses at the person at fault and feel light from within !

My visit to the United States - Part III

Most times on arrival into the States I keep awake for a few hours and then go to bed around 7 or 8. This way I have no jet lag etc.and get back on track immediately.

However, this time I was very sleepy and took a nap in the evening. It was dark at 5 in the evening ! This little nap messed up the start of my trip and I felt sleepy the next day as well. From then on things were fine though. There was a lot of gloom all over which was aggravated by the dull weather. I expected to see a very vibrant US around this time of the year, being Christmas but it was not to be.

I wonder what is it with the sun and how one feels from within. I feel very energetic and active when the sun is around during the day. The day the sun isn't there is an instant dullness. I pity the places where the sun doesn't shine for 6 months. What the heck would I do were I to go there !

My visit to the United States - Part II

Hey there !

On this trip I took Singapore Airlines, which according to me is the finest. I always try to get to fly on this rather than the rest. There are a number of reasons to do so. I think the service all through, be it on the ground and in air is absolutely fantastic. The food is good and the in flight entertainment is very good. The seats also seem to be a bit more spacious vs the other airlines. Of course, the icing on the cake are the air hostesses. There is just no match in this category !

How much ever I try to convince my wife otherwise, she firmly believes that I opt for Singapore Airlines because of the air hostesses ;)

I've had the opportunity to travel in several airlines and truly believe that Singapore airlines is a class apart.

My visit to the United States

Off I am to yet another trip to the United States.

As I await my boarding announcement I got a few moments to post this blog from the wonderful lounge at the majestic Hyderabad International Airport. It is truly a fascinating airport at par with the best in the world with regard to style and amenities. It is a totally different world in comparison to the old airport. Although the journey to the new one is significantly longer than to the old one, which was basically in the heart of the city.

However, once at the airport, at every point there is a marked difference to the old one. To start with, there are a large number of brand new trolleys waiting by the 'drop off' zone. Once in the terminal, there are several counters for every airline with the most courteous staff guiding anyone needing assistance. After checking in the immigration is also a pleasant surprise as the 10 odd counters (against 3-4 of the old airport) make people breeze by in no time. The well stocked duty free welcomes every passenger after which there is a long isle with eateries and shops on one side and a seating area on the other. The lounge is very well done and has a good selection of food and drinks; a few lap tops for those wishing to browse the net (from where I type presently) and also a shower area.

Well.......that was just my boarding call. So got to go. Will keep you on track with the rest along my journey.

My visit to Dubai - Part II

I take off from where I left in my last posting.

To start with the airport has more than doubled in size with the added new terminal. Its quite different in architecture in comparison with the older one. The modern elements are made visible with the designing and colors. The security remain the same though :)

There are no more free rooms. In fact, one needs to be in the category of "who's who" or at least be sent by one to afford a good hotel room in today's Dubai. There are no more close hotels. Everything seems far thanks to the tremendous surge in traffic. I could hardly see the open sky anymore. All I saw were towering sky scrappers of the finest and most unusual architecture. It was quite a sight. During my stay I did have the opportunity to visit the same mall I had visited years back and although the layout remained the same the brands have changed. In smaller local brand has made room for a larger international brand. Global brands embrace each and every inch of shopping space in the mall and on the large hoardings outside and on the roads as well.

Every street has some on-going construction. The roads are packed with the best of vehicles. I can't think of any other city with a Lexus taxi ! The city buzzes with activity. People value time and are on the move always.

The city has created one icon after the other and continues to do so. The most famous of them the Burj Al Arab which stands majestically in the Arabian Sea just off the coast. The more recent

landmarks are the palms and the world which are man made islands which have literally made impossible, possible. Then there is the world's largest tower - the Burj Dubai, the world's largest shopping mall (supposedly) - the Dubai Mall, the list goes on.

My visit to Dubai

It was my first international trip in the year 2001. I was extremely excited to step on-board the Emirates flight out of Hyderabad headed for Dubai and thereafter a connecting flight to Milan. Travel was not so common those days and hardly any international flights out of Hyderabad. Emirates had some great offers which attracted people like me. Of-course, the most attractive was the price. However apart from that they also offered a night's stay free of cost at a four star hotel for transit passengers.

As this particular blog is about Dubai I am skipping the European leg of my journey, which I can come back to on another day. I took my transit stay offer on the way back from Europe to Hyderabad. After the little more than 5 hour flight I reached Dubai and was scared at the sight of the Arab security guards. They do look menacing. Well after all the formalities at the airport I was escorted in a chauffeur driven car to the 4 star 'Airport Hotel' which was a wonderful hotel near the airport. It was luxurious from within and for a first timer, I felt like royalty. The next day I headed to a mall nearby called the City Center, Deira. I was amazed at the sheer size of the mall and needless to say ended up buying some necessary and a lot of unnecessary things. I didn't have much time and therefore couldn't see much of the city.

I would do injustice to Dubai had I not mentioned the airport. They literally had several palm trees all through the terminal with an array of glittering shops on either sides. It was a spectacular sight to see them make a shopping mall right inside the airport. This "mall" too was packed with visitors buying any and everything to take back to their homeland.

I came back with fond memories and thought how developed they were until I returned back to Dubai for my longest stay (over a week) in the city in November, 2008. I could never have imagined the kind of transformation that this city has gone through in the last 7 years. If I thought they were very developed in the year 2001, then words cannot describe what they are today.....................
(to be continued)

US Visa

Waiting in line outside the US consulate for my turn to get in, I smiled to myself and wondered how things were the last time I was here.........waiting patiently for my turn to come with a bated breath when the visa officer signalled me to approach the window, I had cold yet sweating palms and at the end of the 30 second interview when I was informed about being granted my visa, I felt as if I had won a gold in the olympics (not that I really know how that felt but I'm sure it would be a similar feeling).

Anyways...here I was again at the consulate. I was fortunate enough to have received the US visa on a few occasions which enabled my several trips to the United States over the last 7 years. This time round I was much more confident and had absolutely no doubt in my mind of being granted the visa and so I was.

During my 'visits' to the consulate in Chennai, one frequently asked question always gets answered - is it luck ? Although I would like to believe that sure, luck might be an added element, merit is the underlining factor. However I am proved wrong time and again. It might be just my perception and there would be well documented guidelines with the officers, but I can say without doubt that the mood of the officer and one's luck play a major role. Those 20 or 30 seconds can make a huge difference to one's life.

I must end this on a lighter note. A guy recently was talking to another and was asked about whether he went to America. "I went to America day before last year !" shot back the reply.