India / China in 2011

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July 12th I had a Lufthansa morning flight to Chennai, India. Arrival time was on July 13th, some 30 minutes after midnight. Pickup service went well, brought me to the hotel (Green Park) within some 20 minutes.
The other day we had the subsidiary business meeting, everything went fine. In the evening dinner with the whole team. Location was a pretty nice hotel with paintings on the walls of the hotel lobby, showing highlights of mankind from different continents.
On Thursday after hotel check-out - credit card charge in INR and EUR, crossed out EUR and highlighted INR, otherwise you get charged in EUR at pretty bad currency rate - pickup by my colleague, then visiting a customer. Infrastructure of India still to be improved - have been there th efirst time end of 2004 - , although getting better it takes to much time.
The sub of the (American) customer (All.) proved to be a quite impressive setup. Although they should not have saved money for the air conditioning in the lab, resulting in non-optimal conditions. Main reason selecting India for the setup instead of going to China were patent issues and better copyright regulations in India.
In the afternoon flight with Kingfisher airline to Pune. Kingfisher now a no-frills carrier, even a cup of tea charged at 50 INR (approx. 1 EUR), not a big deal but somehow irritating. Temperatures in Pune at very convenient 25 deg C, due to the Monsun season, compared to the 32 plus C at Chennai and high humidity. Brought to the hotel (Royal Orchid) around 4 pm, nice and clean, good service. Pickup later at 6.30 pm, meeting the Pune gang, introduced to each other and then proceeding for dinner. Next day (Friday) visiting customer (Fi.) with a lot of our equipment, demanding but professional.
Flight back to Chennai with Kingfisher again at 6 pm and then waiting together with Jayak. - nice guy, excellent support - for my flight to Shanghai at midnight.

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