Back to Delhi
Trip Start
Dec 27, 2005
1
16
20
Trip End
Jan 15, 2006
Delhi,
India
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
In Jodhpur, we stopped by the tapestry shop again so that Gita could pick up her modified tapestry. However in India and especially on this trip there is no such thing as an "in-and-out". A 10 minute shop stretched into a 1:15 ordeal. I'm just glad that after today there will be no more tapestry shopping!
Jet Airways
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The airport in Jodhpur is hardly what you would call an airport. Probably a more descriptive classification would be "that building next to the strip of pavement w/out any roaming livestock or potholes." Security is a complete joke. There are lots of procedural hoops to jump through but nobody really pays attention to any details. More interesting is the purchasing of tickets. For a line of 2 people, it took at least 1/2 hour to buy a ticket. The reason? Tickets were done by hand!!
After all the formalities we all parted ways. Samir and I headed to Delhi and Gita to Mumbai. Jet Airways was a nice airline. Efficient and more importantly on time. Obviously it was a private carrier and not a state-owned piece of junk.
Ananya Tours Revisited
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Upon arrival in Delhi we were once again picked up by the travel agency. Anand came by and at the hotel we sorted out the misunderstanding with the car, Gita and payment. In explaining his position, Anand made a very valid argument. He brought e-mail correspondence between Gita and his office as proof of his point. Essentially his argument was that Gita had gone through the agency and tailored a few variations of our tour only to disappear later on. Moreover she unexpectedly shows up in Jaipur and proceeds to accompany us throughout the tour. Because of the liabilities (I highly doubt this was a real issue especially in India), logistics (each place called the office about the new travel) and the conservativeness of the region (single girl traveling with 2 guys is frowned upon); it was difficult for his office to settle the accommodations and inform the local guides, hotels, etc. I guess this is where India is different from the states. In India the people talk and judge the travelers whereas in the states all the details are kept private.
Fundamentally Anand's argument was the principle of the matter. An extra $100 makes no difference to the company (nor to us either). However the way the whole thing played out and the way Anand felt cheated by Gita resulted in anger. Samir agreed that the way it was between Gita and Anand was wrong and essentially sided with Anand but he did not want to get between his friend and his agent.
Regardless the net result was that he would not charge us extra for Gita and simply will write it off as a "loss". What a mess. Thank goodness I stayed blissfully ignorant through the whole ordeal.
Delhi
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As with all things, everything is relative and depends on what you compare. From Shanghai to Delhi, my first impression was that Delhi was a ghetto. However from Rajasthan back to Delhi, Delhi seemed VERY modern! It was nice to not have cows and cow shit everywhere. The 2nd time through made it clear. Delhi is modern compared to the rest of India but not as much so when compared to other 1st world cities. I think in time it may reach that point but at this point it is clearly not.
Indo-Japanese Food
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We once again met up with Vineeta for dinner. She took us to a nice Japanese Teppanyaki place in the Hyatt, Delhi. Great good and it was nice to eat a bit of Japanese food after a week of Indian buffets. Whereas Japanese food in most places is light and delicate, it is not the case in India. Japanese food in India is adjusted to local tastes and consequently is much spicier. This is not to say that the food is bad, rather that it is simply different from what you would expect. The material and food types are the same the spices are much more flavorful. Nevertheless the food was great. I have to say, it's great to be back in civilization!
Side Note: India's obession with China
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Another interesting side note is India's obsession in China. Most American born Indians we talked to said that there was a "friendly" rivalry between India in China (funny, the Chinese people in China never talked about India). The local papers reflect this attitude with many stories about India's standing in Asia (which was the 2nd fasted growing economy to China). I wonder if being second bothered the Indians because every day, newspapers would highlight trivial metrics where India leads China (i.e. like average person's enthusiasm for the economy and other obscure "data"). Effectively you can tell that India wants to be "the next China" but the Chinese sure as hell don't care about the India. India is never mentioned in the papers nor do they ever come up in any conversations. Therefore it seems that the "rivalry" is more of an obsession on the part of India.
China's real target is the U.S. As Mao once said first Britain, then America. From the economic data in 2004 and 2005, it seems that China is now 4th in terms of economic size, passing Britain. Only the U.S., Japan, and Germany is are larger.
(Case-in-point: This Indian guy just sat down next to this Chinese woman in the airport to talk about India/china)
My opinion on the whole matter is it depends on the strength of the central government. India is a slow moving democracy with a huge poor population and many different opinions. The Chinese government is a central authoritarian government. Whereas India needs to build consensus, the Chinese CCP can force change.
The problem with democracy is that it is not terribly effective if the voter base is fractured. My impression is that India's system has a lot of different constituencies and politicians with different agendas. Something as simple as getting rid of slums polluting the Delhi water (I read this in the papers there) or privatizing the Delhi airport (another article) takes tons of wrangling and years of negotiation. While my impression may not be 100% accurate it is universally understood that Indian government is too bureaucratic and not efficient. When a country is emerging and modernizing, I believe that the most effective government is a strong central government that drives change. Short term pain, long term gain as they say it. The recent economic rise of Asian countries reflects this. Taiwan, Singapore, S. Korea, and now China all have strong central government planning in infrastructure, growth. I think in the long run, India will be fine. However economists and analyst projections must take into account the government and infrastructure and not just look at data. India's growth will be limited by infrastructure and the speed of infrastructure development. If it takes 2 hours to drive 7km to work in Bangalore, if there are cows running around blocking traffic and causing diseases, if nobody follows any traffic rules, if religious processions can choke Delhi's streets to a 3 hour gridlock then it results in a major spike in the cost of doing business in India.
Today India's advantage is its well educated, cheap, English speaking workforce. If it does not improve on its lead or is limited by poor infrastructure who's to say that it's competitive advantage will be sustained in 15-20 years? Business will always look to reduce cost or to increase market shares. Competitiveness will be in measured in the accomplishment of one or both of these goals. Therefore India must solve their problems with utmost urgency lest some other country displaces it.
(Dude the Indian guy is still trying to talk to the Chinese woman about India vs. China. He's been trying to do so for the past 2 hours and stubbornly refuses to drop the subject even when the woman is ignoring him. See this is what I mean by obsession...)
