Wow, that was a rough day. And I'm still not done. The good news is that I started the day off with fried eggs and I was able to keep them inside me. So things are looking up on the health front. So far, I've spent the entire day on shipping. India is an extremely disfunctional country and such tasks are not easily accomplished. Given the problems I'm having with the first two packages I sent, I'm trying to do things in a way that will be more reliable and attract less attention from customs officials. So I opted for FedEx, which has their own professional looking boxes that meet all international, Indian, and US shipping standards.
But in Delhi, a metropolitan area of 22 million, there is only one FedEx office that has these boxes. And they only had three of each size. I'm not joking. Fortunately, it was only an hour drive each way and I only had to agrue with them for 30 minutes before they allowed me to take two boxes home. But we had to promise to come back tomorrow and ship the packages through their office. I also persuaded them to give me some cardboard that I can use to construct two small boxes. Essentially, if you want to ship a package in India, plan on wasting a full day. There's no way around it.
I'm not really sure how any business gets done in India, but people claim that it does. From what I have seen, if India thinks it has any hope of catching up to Thailand on the development scale, they are dreaming. It will never happen. They need to settle for the more realistic goal of not being surpassed by Cambodia. And they need to pick up their game just to do that. Camobodia has oil now, so they will grow very fast. India is growing too, but most of their growth is a result of their exploding population, not an improvement in people's lives. So they aren't moving in the right direction.
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5 comments:
What's the weather like, Tom?
--Pete
Sounds as tho you are feeling a bit better - that's a positive!
BillR
Just thought I'd post a wonderful quote attributed to Mark Twain regarding Travel to India: The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of tigers and elephants, the country of hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of traditions, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the world combined.
-Mark Twain
I wasn't aware Mark twain had been to India. But his quote sure makes it sound like he has.
Oh, the weather's pretty good here. Partly cloudy, about 60 degrees. Delhi is nice this time of the year. And they only let the cows into the slummy parts. And they clean up the garbage (and take it to the slummy parts, I guess). So the air is fresh and clean. Just kidding. It still smells like exhaust fumes. But there's less garbage, urine and cow dung in the mix. Delhi is quite the improvement over the rest of India.
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