It's Mango Season!

The northern Indian tourist season runs roughly from the festivals of October through sometime in March when the heat arrives. I’d highly recommend visiting the country during that temperate part of the year. However, when traveling for work, one doesn’t necessarily get to choose the month which is how I ended up traveling in May. The forecast called for a very consistent 108 degrees through the first few days of the trip. At least it was a dry heat. Don’t laugh. That’s really a thing. I’ll take the dry extreme heat of Delhi in May over the sultry heat and humidity offered in the late summer as the monsoon hits. If you’ve experienced both, you would agree. Just promise me you’ll never laugh at someone when they say, “it was a dry heat.” It’s a thing.

So what makes India worth visiting in May? That’s an easy one: mangoes. After living through multiple mango seasons in India, I’ve learned a few things about myself. First, bless the Ecuadorian’s hearts but the crap mangoes they export for sale at Publix in Orlando are just that. Crap. I’ll never eat another mango that isn’t Indian. I’ve heard a region of Pakistan has the world’s best mangoes; in the spirit of not starting an international conflict over who has the better mangoes, let’s just say the Indian mangoes are good enough to make you never want to have a mango produced in another region. Second, there is no fruit season I look forward to more than Indian mango season. I once lived in a world where honeycrisp apple season in the US was the most anticipated of the year. That world is dead to me. Long live Indian mango season. Third, it’s a little strange that I’ve actually put this much thought into my favorite fruit seasons. For what it’s worth, Florida strawberry season comes in a distant third behind mangoes and honeycrisps.

I doubt the mangoes will be enough to entice you to visit in India in May; however, this might: once you suffer through the 108 degree heat of the middle of the day, the breezes that accompany the 95 degree nights seem downright comfortable.

Return to India

My first assignment in India ended in April 2005. I didn’t return to the country until November 2009 for a short trip to find an apartment for our two year assignment. Suffice to say, much had changed in those four-and-a-half years. Highways had been built. The Delhi Metro had opened. Gurgaon had exploded into far more than a few multi-national offices, a luxury golf course, and garish malls.

My second assignment in India ended in December 2011. I was budgeted to travel back three times in 2012 but as those budgets dried, I didn’t return. Earlier this spring, an opportunity arose to accompany business leaders I had been supporting. Needless to say, I jumped at it.

Not nearly as much had changed between visits as I experienced in 2009. My trusty driver Kailash greeted me at the airport just as he had done dozens of times during my assignment. Even though the arrival process is far less scarring at Delhi’s sparkling Terminal 3 as it was at the old airport, it’s always reassuring to see a familiar face smiling on the opposite side of the steel divider when emerging through the green customs aisle.

After passing through the toll booth on NH8 that creates the border between Delhi and Haryana, I remarked to Kailash that it didn’t appear much had changed in Gurgaon. On cue, a new public transit system, a nearly finished Rapid Metro, appeared on my left just past Ambience Mall.

The next morning on the ride to work, I experienced a strange sensation: a road free of potholes. Kailash explained that the roads had improved and quickly gave credit to these infrastructure improvements  on the fact the elections were near. However, it seemed that nearly every main artery in Gurgaon had improved so much so that the suspension on the increased number of German sedans had a chance of survival.

What else had changed in India? The exchange rate. In 2010 and 2011 the rate hovered at or around INR 45 to the American dollar. With this exchange rate, I would try and coach the wife to “pretend” the rate was 40:1 to justify a purchase. In other words, it would seem more expensive and if she still really wanted an item (usually some sort of pashmina or scarf) at the higher price, it was a good purchase. She quickly caught on to this little game and instead used an exchange rate of 50:1, making items seem cheaper than they really were. Fast forward to 2013 and the exchange rate is now nearly INR 55 to the dollar. Needless to say, I still used the 50:1 rule when purchasing but can only imagine what the number would have been in Lindsay’s head and how many additional purchases that may have lead to. The fine folks at Anokhi and her other regular haunts surely regret her missing this trip (nearly as much as I did).

Whether it be driving between familiar places or seeing people in the office and the professional and personal memories flooding back from those two years of my life, this first trip felt like I was returning home. In fact, I got more nostalgic for my former expat life than when I return to Chicago, though I’m sure this has absolutely nothing to do with the considerable time required to return to India as well as the comparative frequency of trips to those former homes.

The hardest part of leaving India, which I’m sure will come as no surprise to those that know me, was parting ways with my trusty driver Kailash. I’m sure Indian work colleagues (not to mention friends that get sick of hearing my stories) think I have an abnormally close relationship with my driver. When I found out I was returning to India, the first note I sent was to request his service. For two years, he was a trusted part of our family. He made my life immeasurably easier, was always on time, and always made me laugh. There’s not much more an expat can ask of a driver. When my bags were loaded on a cart and as I made my way toward the terminal, I looked back a couple times as he drove away. Each time, he was looking back at me, smiling and wildly waving good bye.

I’d like to think another spring dust storm kicked up as I presented my itinerary to the friendly man with a gun at the airport door, but it may have had something to do with leaving a friend. For what it’s worth, I think Kailash thinks of Lindsay and I in much the same regard. From what I could tell based on our conversations during the week, I’m pretty sure he skipped going to his home village for some weddings based on my trip. When I learned this, I asked why he would sacrifice this. His response, “Sir, they are only friends. Not best friends.”

What I Learned from Hugo Chavez

During our first six month assignment in India, we lived at the Taj Palace Hotel, which is in the heart of the Diplomat Enclave in New Delhi. When world leaders visit India's capital, they often stay either at that hotel or the nearby ITC Maurya Sheraton.

One Friday after work we made a quick stop by the hotel to drop our drycleaning so we could subsequently take a cab home from dinner (during our 2004-2005 assignment, we didn't have the luxury of our trusty drivers Kailash and Ashok). I noticed the portico of the hotel was eerily empty but that didn't stop me from calling over a bellhop to fulfill my request. Expat entitlement was in full effect. As he nervously stepped over, I noticed the few people that stood around were all equipped with machine guns. Well, except myself and the bellhop. Not thirty seconds later, a luxury vehicle stopped, the door opened, and then-Senator Hillary Clinton quickly hopped out of the car in a stylish red pantsuit (I'm not being sexist here in that I noticed what she was wearing, but when an important person wears something so distinctive, you tend to take note), and quickly ascended the steps to the hotel. The entire scene happened so quickly that Lindsay, who was still seated in the car, had no idea what had taken place.

At that time, we were living a life that made this experience somewhat notable and slightly more exciting than "just a normal Friday night." But not by a lot.

Shortly after the Clinton visit, we went to the Mauyra Sheraton for dinner. I'm guessing it was less about dinner and more about India's premiere Irish pub, Dublin's. Regardless, as we approached the front entrance to the hotel, it was obvious that there was beefed up security via both extra guards and metal detectors. I asked one of the friendly mustachioed bellhops in traditional Rajasthani garb who was visiting. He responded, "Chavez."

For some reason, and I have no idea why, I decided I'd test the security. Now please understand, and this is no excuse, but I was in my twenties and at the height of my obnoxious "I'm a westerner that does no wrong" phase where I thought I knew exactly how to navigate the Indian culture when the reality was more that I sort of knew how to navigate the Indian culture of luxury hotels. I decided it would be a good idea simply to walk around the metal detector at the front door. For all I know, I could have been shot - and probably would have deserved it. But guess what happened? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I simply walked around the metal detector and into the hotel.

Granted, in the eight years (nearly to the day, if my slight research is any indication) since this event, security at Indian hotels has increased but it's still less than meets the eye. We were told by Indian colleagues that the security checks at blockades to enter hotel grounds are far more thorough when there's a westerner in the car than when there's not. And as you might expect, when we stayed at the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, security was tight to enter the hotel (it was one of the hotels attacked in 2008) and access floors via guest elevators but there were obvious gaps to access the floors via service entrances.

So what did I learn from Hugo Chavez? I basically learned the placebo effect of Indian hotel security and that it's far more show than substance.

Special note: I'm not sure what it says about my life or priorities that 16 days after I became a father (we welcomed a healthy and beautiful daughter on February 18) it was the death of Hugo Chavez that made me come out of writing hibernation (I'm certain I will hear about this from the wife). But no worries, the labor, delivery, and early fatherhood posts are coming (including one where I try to compare labor to visiting India for the first time - which seemed easy in concept but is proving harder to actually execute).

Mr. (and Mrs.) Luth Travel in India

I've been home from India for thirteen months. It was about time to get organized and get to work on photos. Over the summer I completed a book about the three treks we had taken while on our expat assignment. For some reason chronicling those trips seemed like a more controlled experiment. The next planned volume was all of our domestic travel within India. It involved sifting through thousands of photos (which I had neglected to keep well organized) from nineteen different trips, recreating a 400 - 500 word summary of each of those trips that wasn't just a recitation of what we did, and organizing it into 332 pages.

A few things I realized while putting this book together:

• Neemrana may be one of my favorite places in the world. For anyone travelling to India that has an extra day, I'd highly recommend making the stop halfway between Delhi and Jaipur. It's a fantastic fort palace that they continue to renovate and makes a great one night getawway from Delhi. We discovered it for the first time in 2004. In total, we've returned five times since.
• Eleven of our 19 trips were to the state of Rajasthan, including multiple trips to the aforementioned Neemrana, Jodhpur, and Udaipur. While I really enjoy looking at the photographs from Jaipur, it remains one of my least favorite places in India; extremely touristy and, personally, I think it's a shame that it's the only Rajasthani city many travellers to India visit as part of the golden triangle along with Delhi and Agra.
• We stayed in some ridiculously nice hotels in India. Nicer hotels than we'll probably stay in for the rest of our lives (though having the ability to travel at the tail end of an off season, or in the case of Udaipur in late May right smack dab in the middle of off season, certainly helped make those places more affordable).
• There were a number of strangers we decided to trust along the way. I love having pictures of those (former) strangers - they bring back stronger memories than simply looking at a picture of the Taj Mahal.
• As a general statement, I have incredible family and friends. More specifically, I appreciate having had so many of them visit us (and allow me to direct their travel schedules to my own benefit) and having so many familiar faces sprinkled throughout our travels and the book.

While I'm pretty sure there's only a handful of people that will take the time to look at the book and even fewer that will read and look at the entire book (admittedly, I'm not sure how excited I'd be to look through over 300 pages of someone else's vacations), here are the links to the book in all its glory:

Blurb Bookstore - Preview

Apple Bookstore - Free