I have not been able to travel anywhere near as much as I would like. However I was sent to India for 2 weeks by my employer which was a fantastic opportunity. I ended up going back in 2009 and took my beautiful wife with me. We also visited Macau, Hong Kong, Beijing, Hanoi, KL and Singapore along the way.
So I am in India for work for just 2 weeks. This includes 2 weekends which I have to myself while the rest of the time (Monday-Friday) I am in the office between 3.30am - 12.00pm (which sounds early but really I am just working my usual local Australian timezone hours, so no body-clock adjustment required). Fortunately they gave me an extra day this weekend (today, Monday) in order to settle in. I had settled in enough yesterday and I wasn't going to miss an opportunity to see as much as I can, I decided that today I will visit Mysore which was recommended to me by a colleague who grew up there. It's proximity was reasonably close to Bangalore so I figured would make the perfect day trip. I asked the hotel how much it ... read more
In my early 20's I was rather ignorant and didn't know a thing about India apart from the Taj Mahal, spicy food, saris and that they loved cricket. Infact, it wasn't until around 2004/2005 that I first tried an Indian curry! Now a few years later, in 2007, I am 25 and have not only had I discovered/fell in love with Indian food, I was totally fascinated by the country. Since being invited to India for work I spent many months researching everything India. I woke up at 6am as fresh as a daisy after a few hours sleep. I was pretty excited to finally see India during daylight with my own eyes and not through someone elses blog or video. I opened my bedroom door to the communal lounge and the kind hotel bellboy was ... read more
It was mid-2007 when my boss at the time called me into the meeting room for a chat. He asked me if I'd like to spend 6 weeks training 3 Indian colleagues who would be flying over from the Bangalore office to our Brisbane office in September. I agreed, jokingly adding that they should have just sent me to Bangalore instead. His response was.... "Well, actually I have another question..." So in October 2007 and I was on my way to Bangalore for a 2 week stint. After a teary farewell to my beautiful fiancée, I hopped in the taxi en-route to Brisbane Domestic with a mix of sadness (due to not being able to take my fiancee with me), excitement (as this was my first time overseas) and nervousness (I was paranoid about Airport customs). ... read more
