A New Expereince in China

Over the last 16 years, I have been to China many, many times.  I have seen China before highways and western hotels and when the only English tourist-vendors knew was a high, screeching "Cheaper, Cheaper."  China is now a modern, dynamic country now that has no resemblance to the old days of of closed boarders and intrusive police, so when I have a new experience in China, it tends to be a little jolting.

For the last week I have been shuttling between Hong Kong and Shenzhen China.  I spent 3 nights in Hong Kong, 1 night in China and then returned yesterday to Hong Kong for the final day of work.  It is not as cool as it sounds as I spend most of my time facilitating meetings around riveting subjects such as Vendor Accountability and Goals & Objectives. 

Typically, when we are transferring from Hong Kong to Shenzhen or back again, we hire a car service to ferry us the distance.  It is not far, about an hour, but you need two licence plates to do it legally - one for Hong Kong and one for China.  These plates are expensive and hard to get, so car services that have them are in demand. 

On this particular trip, we were en route back to Hong Kong when our vehicle, which consisted of the driver, a Indian living in Hong Kong and an Indonesian, were stopped in the middle of the road by the police. In a split second, the driver we pulled out of the car and a plain-clothes policeman jumped in the driver's seat and roared off with us sitting shocked in the back.  About 100 yards down the road, we pulled off the road and the policeman began to interrogate us ... in Mandarin Chinese.  This was a problem due to the aforementioned make up of the group - none of us were Chinese! 

Between all our broken and spotty knowledge of Chinese, we were able to piece together that the line of questioning was about the payment for the vehicle.  The policeman was very interested to know if we were paying for the car ourselves.   Since it was a hired vehicle through the company, we were, in fact, not paying directly for it and answered accordingly.  There were some follow up questions that exceeded our language ability and so, after 30 minutes, he either got what he needed or realized he was never going to get it and returned our driver.

What had actually happened, as we pieced together later, was that the Chinese Government was cracking down on privately registered Hong Kong cars being used as commercial vehicles.  Our answer of "no we are not paying, the company pays," must have been interpreted as "no, this was a company owned car" and therefore met the requirement.  In fact, as we found out later, it was in clear violation of Chinese law and if we had fully answered the question, the results may have been different. 

The life lesson I draw from this is that apparently clear and concise communication is not always the recipe for success.  Sometimes leaving a bit of ambiguity is the difference between a night in the Peninsula Hotel and a Chinese prison. 

Making Change

One of the unique aspects of living in a cash based society like India is the value that is placed on change. Not change in "let's make society better," but change in "do you have change for a dollar." There is a strange attachment to smaller denomination bills, like a 10 Rupee note (roughly $0.20) and getting a storekeeper to part with one is sometimes more complicated than the US tax code.

In the United States, if you go into a store and buy something for $2.75 and hand the cashier a ten dollar bill, the cashier, without hesitation, reaches in, counts the change and off you go. In Delhi, if you had the same purchase, the processes takes on a very different tone.  Firs, the cashier will slowly look at the bill and then, as if you have somehow annoyed them by making the purchase, ask if you have change. When you respond "no," the cashier will then stare down at the register for about 30 seconds as if waiting for Lakhshimi herself to make the change for him. When the God of Prosperity does not appear, he will let out of series of sighing breaths culminated with finally reaching into the register and pulling out your change.  Painfully, as if giving over his own flesh, he will hand the change to you.  This all take approximately 3-5 minutes. 

Even Indians find this "dance" to be a little absurd and when Indians finding something absurd, you know you are in a hole different league of strange. 

Thanksgiving with the Wrong Indians

It is Thanksgiving again and like the Pilgrims, we, too got to share our Thanksgiving dinner with Indians.  Dining with Indians always brings its unique challenges, but in a buffet situation during an American holiday, in an American setting, things are downright bizarre.

The American Club tried to host events to celebrate the major American holidays.  It is, after all, the American Citizens Support Association.  The 4th of July is a huge outdoor BBQ, while Easter and Thanksgiving tend to be buffets.  In theory, this should be good as the main foods for these celebrations, hamburgers, ham and Turkey respectively, are not readily available in Delhi and is suppose to serve as a slice of home.  In reality, since the Club is managed and staffed by Indians (with loose Embassy oversight), it usually digresses into weird interpretation of what Indians think the holiday should be.  Feature in the Easter brunch, for example was a large plate of, not ham, but ham fat.  Who eats ham fat and what book explained this as an American Easter delicacy?  Anyway, you get the picture - not always executed well. 

This Thanksgiving, the team down at the club actually got the food correct.  The Turkey meat was good, the stuffing, albeit bland and institutional, was passable and they actually had cranberry jelly - you know the kind that comes out of a can with the ridges.  Having spent half my life eating institutional food (let me clarify - boarding school, college, Navy), this type of grub is a walk down memory lane. I had no complaints and woofed down two plate-loads in the tradition of Thanksgiving! 

There were issues though.  The first is the ubiquitous presents of the American passport-holding Indian.  Regardless of the event, these Indians, usually extremely wealthy and with a sense of entitlement that would shame a middle-east dictator, show up in force.  They bring their non-American passport holding Indian friends to show them how American they are.   This means that when they show up there are usually about 20 of them.  The burst through the door and expect the entire restaurant staff to drop what they are doing and accommodate them.  As well, they treat any buffet like a black Friday 70% off event at Wal-mart and jump the buffet like with the alacrity of a pack of pumas.  They are rude, ill mannered and generally disruptive and I am thinking about getting some pepper-spray to keep my place in the next line.  

To give some perspective, I saw an article in the Indian newspaper explaining Thanksgiving.  I am paraphrasing, but it basically said that this the day that we, Americans, give thanks for all our material wealth - nothing about family, health, or friends, just the money.  This is how Indians understand all things and it is why simply working 10 years in the United States and returning to India does not make you an American. It makes you an American passport holder - nothing more.

The second issue with the event was that through the entire meal, we were loudly serenaded by a live Indian band whose lack of talent was only eclipsed by the lack of taste in music.  For hours, we were tortured by the Indian scalping (excuse the pun) of hits from ABBA and Crystal Gayle, to name a few, in harsh Indian accents.  The real musical equivalent of water-boarding, though, came when the duo broke out into their rendition of the Grammy Award-winning Roberta Flack's "Killing me Softly with His Song."  Yep, everything you need to drive your average American ex-pat to the brink of insanity on this day of Thanks.

So, as I write this, four days later, the memory of turkey and stuffing has faded from my mind, the sweet taste of cranberry jelly has faded from my lips, but the haunting sound of Indians singing  "Killing Me Softly" continues to ring in my head!

Happy Thanksgiving!

New York in November

As I said in the last blog, one of the upsides to the new gig is that I will be visiting the US more often.  A couple weeks ago, I had the chance to go the New York for a week of strategy meetings.  A very long week of very intense strategy meetings!

Meetings aside, it was great to be back in the Big Apple.  The last time I was back in NYC was about 10 years ago when Olga and I decided to visit over Easter weekend.  Before that, the last time I was in the city was roughly 1984 during parents weekend at Avon Old Farms School. 

I took my usual flight from Delhi to Newark which arrives at 4:00am.  Usually, I have to sit in the Newark airport for a few hours, but this time, I was whisked away to the city in a comfortable black Lincoln to start my day off adventure.  We arrived at the hotel, a trendy little boutique hotel called the Eventi, around 5:30am and since I slept a good 5 hours on the flight (thanks to seats that completely lay flat and are actually comfortable), I was ready to see the sights.  I unpacked and headed out to a dinner around the corner for a wickedly greasy diner breakfast – it was awesome!

A very good friend of mine from Chautauqua, Roland, who I had not seen in 20+ years, was coming into the city to meet me for lunch, so I had to combine our reunion with some important shopping tasks.  About 10:30am, I headed uptown to Columbus Circle to meeting Roland. 

I jumped into a taxi outside the hotel and was quickly acquainted with a talkative Bangladeshi.  For the 15 minute taxi ride, we covered all the usual sub continent topics including corruption, politicians and the future of Bangladesh.   I paid the driver, jumped out, walked across the street and realized my phone had fallen out of my pocket in the taxi.  Shit!  I scanned the landscape for the yellow, non-descript car I had just exited and, if it were still on the circle, it blended pretty well with the 500 other yellow, non-descript cabs driven by Bangladeshis. Double Shit! Maybe I was too tired or just simply realized it was completely out of my hands, but I actually did not really care and wondered over to the statue by which I was meeting Roland.

I often joke that no matter where I am or what language is spoken there, strangers always approach me when they need something. From Moscow to Krakow to Delhi, people are always asking me for directions.  Olga tells me it is because I have a kind face, but I think it is the same laws of metaphysics that drive cats to people who do not like cats.  Anyway, there I was minding my own business, when an elderly man approached me and asked me in Russian if I would take a photo.  Now, this guy spoke no English, so the fact that he picked me out of a crowd of 1000 people on a Monday morning in the middle of New York was, well, astonishing.  I had some time, so he and I conducted our own little photo shoot.  When Roland arrived, he was mystified.

He was mystified for two reasons.  Not only had I managed to become a photographer for an old Russian, but a few minutes earlier he had called to say he was almost there and a Bangladeshi answered my phone.  The cab driver was on his way back to Columbus Circle to return the phone.  No shit!  This is New York, for Christ sake.  I guess there is something to Karma.  The elderly Russian man got a few great pictures of himself in Columbus Circle and I got my phone back.  Well, there you have it!

Roland and I had a great time.  He helped me shop for the critical items and then we went to lunch where I gorged on a huge hamburger.  We then walked over to Central Park where Roland once worked as educator and I got the insiders tour.  It was 70 degrees, sunny and I had a great time.  Thank you, Roland. 

The week, after that, went by in a flash - meetings from the early morning that ran into long dinners.  One dinner that was memorable, though, was Thursday night when we dined at the Four Seasons Pool Room (which is not actually in the Four Seasons Hotel). This is New York dinning at its finest and really captures the quintessential New York restaurant experience - not a place for the 99%, if you will.   The dinner culminated with a huge pile of cotton candy placed in the middle of the table.  You can't beat a large, pink pile of sugar for impact!

Saturday arrived and it was time to go.  My flight did not leave until 8:00pm, so at 7:30am, I hailed a cab to take me to the Manhattan Target to finish my shopping.  The Target is located in Harlem, so I had to be strategic on when I wanted to go.  Calculating for traffic, I figured, I wanted to be there and back as early as possible. At 8:00am on a Saturday, New Yorkers are not really up and about, so the cab ride was short and cheap.  The opposite side of that is that since no one is up, there are very few taxis roaming about that far up town.  This looked like it was going to be a problem.   After my shopping, I meandered about moving towards the more active streets until finally an off-duty limo stopped.  For a few bucks more than the cab, he was willing to take me back to the hotel.  It was a great find.  I ended my New York experience cruising back downtown in the back of a limo enjoying the sunny autumn morning.   

With all my shopping done, I packed up the huge suitcase … barely…, had lunch and troddled off to the Newark Airport for my flight back to India.  I look forward to next year!

Promotion – Congratulations or Condolences?

There is a story about a bird that got a late start flying south for the winter.  Along the way, it got so cold, that it could not longer fly.  Cold and exhausted, it landed in a farmer’s field where he was unable to go any further.  As the cold began to drain the life from the little bird, a cow walked by and, seeing the cold bird, pooped on the bird.

The warm, fresh pooped began to heat the bird and after a few hours the bird had enough strength to fly again.  The problem was that the bird was stuck in the huge pile of cow dung and was unable to free himself.

The bird began to sing hoping that someone, anyone, would come to his aid and pull him out of the cow patty.  Just as his hope was waning, a cat came along.  Seeing the helpless bird, the cat gently reached into the pile of dung and pulled the bird to freedom.  The cat attentively cleaned the shit off the bird. The bird was so grateful that he would finally be able to finish his journey south, that he belted out a jubilant thank-you song for the cat … and then the cat ate the bird!

The moral of the story is that not everyone that shits on you is doing you harm and not everyone who pulls you out of the shit has your best interest!

This promotion for me is a bit like the bird story.  At the beginning of the month, my company asked me to take on the role of Regional for the Middle East and Indian Sub-Continent.  It is a huge promotion in both position and responsibility, but as they were enthusiastically giving it to me, they slipped in that this would mean staying in India a bit longer and, oh, much more travel.  Ah, the cat had arrived. 

The scope of the job is large and a little intimidating.  I will be responsible for all operations and teams in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey.  My country list reads like an itinerary for a Jihad recruiting trip.  As of now, I cannot travel to Pakistan and, depending on the elections in Egypt, I may never see my team in Cairo which although reduces the travel, makes remote managing even more difficult – again with the cat!

The one bright spot is that Turkey is now within my responsibilities and Olga and I love to go to Turkey.  I see many extended holidays on my quarterly trips to Istanbul and eating great Turkish food.  To this, I have no complaints, but I am not sure it offsets such garden spots as Bangladesh and Egypt. 

The other upside is that I will travel back to the US more often.  At my level now, I am included in organizations strategy meetings, as well as many of the corporate leadership meetings.  This is good, as the more time I get in the US, the more goodies I get to bring back for my patient and understanding wife, as she continues to weather through life in Delhi. 

The other upside is that for those of you that are tired of hearing about life in Delhi, the blog is bound to get more interesting.  I mean, seriously, do you have any idea what Dhaka, Bangladesh is like? So, like all good stories, my pain is your entertainment.  

Congratulations or condolences?  Time will tell.

Luck

Luck is an interesting thing. Some people are simply born with good luck, while others are destined to live out their lives watching others win. Me, I have tons of luck … it just happens to be all bad. My wife, on the other hand, is the queen of luck.

Over the years, she has had great streaks – Once in Vegas, after I had blown almost all our designated money on the craps table, she stepped up and won it all back and then some. At one point I refused to even touch the table for fear of my bad luck offsetting her good. When we moved to Oregon, my wife returned from the grocery store one day with a DVD player given to her for, well, being there. Finally, and most poignantly, she got me which make her the luckiest woman in the world … or not. Perspective may be more important than luck on that last one.

Anyway, the other day, my wife attended a charity event held at the Australian Embassy around the Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne cup, for the uninitiated, is a massive horse race in Australia on the magnitude of the Kentucky Derby, but with a much larger following and much larger hats. One of the benefits of being an expat is you get to experience a lot of different cultures. One of the downsides is that you usually experience them at strange hours. This being an Australian event, the party started at 8:30am.

Olga arrived in style and immediately upon stepping into the party, her entrance ticket won her an iPod. This was awesome, since I had just left mine in the Maldives and I am sure by now, Muhammad the security guy had converted my collection of Earth, Wind and Fire to the “Greatest Hits of Ramadan.”

Next there was a raffle drawing in which my lovely wife purchased two tickets. Half way through the drawing, one of her numbers hit and she was the proud new owner of a beautiful necklace. Her whole table was jealous… but they had yet to experience the full power of Olga’s luckiness.

A short time later, the big prizes came up. There were trips to Bali and weekends in Dubai, along with a few excursions around India. A few days prior, Olga and I had discussed a trip to Singapore as neither of us had been there and, yep, you guessed it, she won several nights at the Singapore Intercontinental in one of their luxury suites. I believe at this point, the rest of her table simply got up and walked away.

She called me on the way home and the both of us basked in the warmth of good luck that comes her way every now and again. If only they would raffle off new places to live, life would be perfect!

Running With Scissors

Last week was Diwali.  As you may remember from last year’s explanation, Diwali is the ultimate holiday in India along the lines of Christmas and New Years combined into one night of celebration.  It is quite the spectacle.  You may also remember from last year’s blog entry, I was awash with newness and naiveté when it came to India, so in my description of the holiday, I may have missed out on a couple points that I now find salient.

Diwali is the quintessential Indian Holiday.  Being an absolutely materialist driven society, Diwali fits perfectly as it is entirely geared for gaining prosperity for the individuals and families of India.  Unlike Christmas, which has roots in charity and giving, Diwali makes no pretense about this.  In true Indian fashion, it is simply about greed!

The idea behind the holiday is that the god of wealth, Lakshami, visits your house on the night of Diwali and bestows upon you prosperity for the upcoming year.  Not peace for all mankind; not food for the poor; not even prosperity for the general population - she grants it to you and you alone.  Now obviously, she cannot give everyone this gift, so you spend the few days leading up to Diwali doing things that will gain you favor with this god.

Firstly, you must buy gold and silver.  Luckily, to facilitate this, there is a day designated as auspicious to buy these metals.  During this selected day, the population floods the jewelers like sailors to free booze spending a large percentage of their savings on gaudy gold bangles, necklaces and other assorted pieces of jewelry.  The markets are clogged with consumers and traffic around the most popular shopping areas is completely gridlocked.  I actually believe that, for Jewelers, this day is their actual Diwali, because they are able to make on one day what they make the rest of the year.  Now that is prosperity delivered with a bow!

Secondly, you must decorate your house.  This consists of stringing huge quantities of lights up and down the façade of your home, apartment building, etc, again not unlike Christmas.  They must be bright and bold, but unlike Christmas, there is no color coordination, so the overall effect feels less like a festival and more like someone recreated your neighborhood on a light-bright!  Just to add to the confusion, the need for Indians to display their wealth causes them to over-decorate their homes to show their neighbors how important they are.  This turns the more affluent neighborhoods from quiet, conservative places into looking like a huge, outdoor Philippino strip bar.  What could be more festive than that!

Lastly, and most importantly, you must light off fireworks.  This, apparently, is essential to attracting the favor of the gods.  The rockets take to the air with screams, bangs and booms even before it gets darks sending loud burst into the sky.  But this is not like New Years or the 4^th of July in which coordinated firework shows are punctuated with a few homegrown launches. This is 1.5 billion people armed to the teeth with every type of firework made in Asia randomly setting them off throughout the entire night.  These are people who walk out into a highway never acknowledging the danger of being hit by a 2–ton truck lighting off explosives and, worst yet, encouraging their small children to do the same. It is truly like running with scissors – eventually someone will get hurt … and they do.

As with any Chinese-made, $1.00 item, there are bound to be some misfires and, in this case, these misfires take off people’s hands and blind them, but what the heck, it is a holiday!  As well, with fireworks streaking up, down and sideways, the person launching is not the only potential victim.  You are regaled the next day with stories of starbursts being shot into washing machines (many people have their appliance on their back porch) and exploding, garbage surrounding homes being set ablaze and people getting shot with roman candles and other high-velocity fireworks.  In a country in which personal accountability is low and strategic thinking is virtually non-existent, it is truly remarkable that entire cities are not wiped out on this night. 

In the end, my wife and I barricaded ourselves in our apartment and listened to the booms and screeches until finally drifting off into a shallow sleep – always keeping one ear open for the fire alarm.  

The End of Vacation

So the days rolled by pretty much as described in the last blog. … Lazy and relaxing.  We began to spend more time in the villa as we had our own pool, our own ocean and we discovered that there was no charge for food delivery!  It was paradise.

Full Moon over the Maldives

Olga relaxing at the villa

Olga preparing for snorkeling off the villa

Trip preparing for snorkeling off the villa
Despite Doctors orders to stay out of the water 

Olga on one of the many jungle paths 

Trip on the way to Breakfast

Once we learned there was no additional charge for villa delivery,
this was pretty much the lunch scene every afternoon!

A friendly visit to the villa from a Manta Ray  

Mom and Dad squid

The whole squid family
I walked down the latter of the villa and was standing next to them
They did not seem to mind

Sunset from the Villa
It is low tide, so you can see the reef poking through
the surface of the sea in the distance

I can tell you that in my adult memory, I cannot remember any time when I simply did nothing, but recharge.  Every now and again there was a bit of excitement as a Manta Ray swam past the villa or a family of squid came by to say hello, but overall it was naps, punctuated by brief meals and long swims.  Other than the gash in my finger and the absence of hearing in my right ear, I felt great. But like all good things, this too had an expiration date and on Saturday, we were marshaled across the island for the boat that would begin our journey home.   

Olga on the boat with the villas in the background 

Our plane awaits

Pulling up to the floating platform

Last look at the Island

The villas from the air
If you count 7 from the left, that was ours

Our trip out of the Maldives was less of a magical journey than our trip in.  The seaplane arrived in Male without incident, but unlike our arrival, we were not chauffeured in a private car between the seaplane and main terminal, but placed on a bus with the rest of the island vacationers and driven back to the main terminal.  Our bags were placed in a different van and driven in the same manner.  When you arrive at the main terminal, it reminds you more of an open market, than an international airport.  There is a huge expanse of concrete with a tin roof above under which vans of people and bags spill out randomly.  This time, we spilled out, but our bags seem not to have made the same, simply straightforward trip. Our bags had been mislabeled at the resort as Mr. Lu’s bags and were being stacked for the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong.   Realizing that our bags were not in the right place, Olga set about inspecting other piles until she found ours while I “motivated” our man from the hotel to do the same.  The bags were located and we were handed over to the men from our Male hotel.

We were loaded on to the Traders Hotel’s boat, just like when we arrived, and taken to Male where we would spend the next two nights.  Here is a traveler’s tip, if at all possible, do not spend any more time than necessary in Male.  Imagine the South Indian Ocean equivalent of Long Beach, CA. The whole purpose of the island is to move incoming supplies from freighters to smaller local vessels for the resorts with a secondary mission of fishing.  Cargo and fish do not make for a tropical paradise!

The Male Fish Market 

The Male Harbor

The Male Sea Front

As I said, we spent two nights in Male and by the time the stay was over we were ready to get on a plane and head home.  Isn’t funny how life tends to balance out the good and the bad?  After an excellent vacation during which I felt like a new person, the flight home turned into the flight from hell.

After arriving at the airport, checking in and passing through passport control, I discovered that I had left my faithful iPod companion of 5 years at the back of the safe in the hotel room.  This was disconcerting for several reasons.  First, I loved that iPod.  It was an older model and was the perfect combination of size and functionality.  Secondly, I had a very cool iPod cover for it.  Lastly, and most importantly, iPods are extremely expense in India, so I would not be replacing it until my next trip to the US and I have no earthly idea when that is going to be.  I use that iPod all the time – for music in the car, music in my office and especially to drowned out loud, obnoxious Indians on planes.  This was a critical loss for me. 

We boarded the plane, which left slightly early again (kudos to Sri Lankan Airways) and set about on our hour flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka.  The flight was relatively peaceful, but every now and again, I would hear commotion from the seats behind me.  As we were deplaning, the cause of the commotion pushed itself forward and made themselves know to all of us.  An Indian family of roughly 12, including what seemed to be the grandparents, their children and their childrens’ children were all traveling back to India.  They were loud, pushy and, well, a little smelly, but the flight was over and they were not my problem.  Or were they?

As we boarded our flight to Delhi, sure as shit, the aforementioned family crammed aboard.  My first encounter with them was in the jetway when apparently they felt that the queue did not apply to them.  In my authoritarian voice, I stepped out, stopped them and sent them back to their position at the end.  We boarded, got settled and the family once again appeared in the aisle.  This time, though, we had the misfortune of being seating with a third in front of us, a third behind us and a third across from us.  We were surrounded. 

The first thing that became apparent was that this was one of the first times this family had ever been on a plane. I would venture to say by their lack of hygiene and ignorant behavior, it might have been the first time they have been outside their village.  Boarded was an absolute melee.  They would not sit where they were assigned and when the stewardess (we still have stewardesses in the part of the world) finally got them in the right rows, they refused to sit and buckle in.  Even as we pushed back from the gate, these freak’n nutjobs were running to talk to each other 3 rows back. 

As soon as the wheels left the ground, they were all up again.  The stewardesses tried in vain to get them reseated, but they rushed out of their rows in twos and threes and overwhelmed even the staunchest resistance.  For the next three hours they screamed at each other across rows of passengers, ran up and down the aisle and generally caused mayhem the likes of which I have never seen on an airplane.  The flight crew was helpless. 

About 2 hours into the flight, the crew made a disastrous decision to sell duty free.  As the cart emerged, it was besieged by the family.  They thrusted the duty-free catalogues in the steward’s face and screamed and yelled for more stuff.  When they realized that not everything in the catalogue was available, they bought more of the stuff that was. The cart never got past the family the entire flight as they bought everything that was stocked.  Everything!

This group of animals left no air-travel faux-pas untouched:  they yanked themselves to their feet by pulling on the back of your seat; they ensured they bumped into you when they passed, which was roughly every 3 minutes; they yelled across several rows; and, of course, they had babies – screaming, crying babies.  In addition, because they could not sit for more than a few minutes, they dumped their food trays in the aisle so everyone could walk through the mess and treated the bathrooms on the planes like they were their personal outhouses.  They were, by all definition, the worst airline passengers ever! 

As we approached Delhi, the announcement came on to return to your seats and fasten your seatbelt.  This had no impact.  As the wheels touched down, there was one member of said family standing up in his seat.  Before the engines were out of reverse, the entire family was up in the aisles getting their bags and stood there until we pulled into the gate.  It was unbelievable. As we deplaned, the beleaguered crew bid us a defeated “good-bye.” I have never seen anyone so happy to have landed.

I could surmise that grandpa received a pretty large cash settlement for his farmland as developers continue to expand the greater Delhi area.  He had treated his once farm restricted family to a luxury vacation in the Maldives.  This is India’s new money! I wish I could say that this family and their outrageous behavior is the exception, but they are not. This is simply how they behave – this time, we had the misfortune to experience it on steroids. 

I am, though, truly thankful that we did not have this group of miscreants on the island with us, as I am pretty sure many of them would not have made it off alive.

The Chinese

One of the interesting things about this resort, and apparently a large portion of the resorts here in the Maldives, is that they have been overrun by the Chinese.  It appears that the Maldives in general and Anantara Kihivah specifically is a huge honeymoon destination for young Chinese couples who use all their wedding money to come here, stay for a short period of time, 2-3 days, and return home. 

For the few non-Asians, we are here to relax.  We lounge beside the pool, on the beach, snorkel, dive and generally enjoy all the island has to offer fully exposed in the sun.  The Chinese, though, have an entirely different agenda during their stay in this tropical paradise.

For many Chinese families, the Maldives are a bit of a stretch, so when the young honeymooners are sent to a place like this, they feel an obligation to document the experience through photography and video for their families and friend back home.   This manifests itself with the newlyweds using every available moment to take pictures of virtually everything.  They pose with their cereal at breakfast; they videotape the entire buffet at lunch and dinner simply turns into a photographic bonanza with photos of everything including the silverware and furniture.  We have actually witnessed a couple taking a photo of an empty plate – just the white plate.  Yep!  I’ll bet that slide show will be riveting!  It borders on the absurd, but it is harmless enough and provides a certain level of entertainment to the non-Asian guests.

During the day, it is very common to come across a young Chinese bride in complete wedding get-up standing in the middle of the jungle while her new husband, dressed in shorts and a “Life is Good” T-shirt snaps shots of her in 93-degree heat next to a standard banyan tree.  She poses and does her best to look beautiful all the while trying to keep her overly applied makeup from turning her wedding face into a clown face.  The other day, we came across one such photo shoot where the young bride was posing simply with a run-of-the-mill sign that outlined which villas were ahead. Another slide show through which I am glad I am not obligated to sit. 

The other aspect of all this which is amazing to watch is that these Chinese couples have no desire to actually participate in the many activities that are afforded the guest here.  There are two reasons for this: the first, and most obvious, being that they are too damn busy taking photos of sticks and rocks to show their soon-to-be bored family back in China and the second is that they are really, really adverse to the sun.   The second reason is a distinctly Asian characteristic.  Asians associate beauty with lightness of skin, so while we, Westerners, are splayed out on a chaise lounge soaking up the sun to cancerous levels, the Asians are hiding under umbrellas avoiding even the slightest touch of Earth’s largest star.  Medically, this is a very prudent approach, but if I were so hell-bent on staying out of the sun, I sure as hell would not drop the kind of cabbage it takes to be in the Maldives.  I am thinking Seattle or Finland in December would be a better spot.  I’m just saying.

The combination of the sun-avoidance and obsession with photography makes watching the Chinese an interesting experience.  In order to get the picture they need, they have to put themselves in situations like swimming or snorkeling, but their abhorrence to the sun makes this a serious dilemma.  The compromise is to pretend to do all the fun things the rest of us are actually doing by doing them briefly enough only to capture it on film (or disc).  I watched this afternoon as a young Chinese husband donned a wetsuit, gloves, fins, a mask and a snorkel and ventured to the water’s edge for just long enough for his wife to get the requisite 30 pictures.  After she snapped enough to satisfy the quota, he quickly peeled off the entire ensemble - never actually touching the water.  This is a pretty extreme example, but not unusual.  Usually, they will actually swim around for about a minute or two before climbing out of the water and darting inside to take refuge.   At the pool, young couples arrive, quickly close their umbrellas, take the shot and shuttle back to the shade of their villa in record time.  It is truly aberrant behavior.   

Such is the pace of life here.  Between naps, we watch the Chinese taking photos, avoiding the sun and dressing up in wedding dresses in 95-degree heat.  It is a little funny, a little strange and now, very predictable.  

Day ... Whatever, I've lost track

The past several days have been more of the same.  Breakfast, morning diving, early afternoon at the main pool sleeping, lunch, back to the villa for more sleep, dinner and bed.  Yep, that about sums it up.  If I wrote a book about this vacation it would be entitled “Eat, Sleep, Poop!”

Afternoon ritual of sleeping at the Main Pool on the swing

Later in the afternoon - the standard after lunch nap in the villa hammock

It can get hot, so in the late afternoon, the napping moves to the villa pool

The diving has been great, though.  On diving day 2 (day 3 here), we did more drills and exercises to hone my diving skills and dove the reef wall again.  This time we went down to 15 meters (50 feet) and drove the length of the wall.   This was a pretty productive dive with the spotting of a few huge sea turtles. 45 minutes later, we surfaced in the middle of the ocean with a small dive boat ready to retrieve us.  I took one look at the small speedboat and thought, you must be joking.  On a good day with no equipment, those little retractable ladders are a pain in the ass, but in the middle of the ocean with 60lbs on my back?  Ugh!  I poked my knee between the last two rungs and heaved with all my strength – apparently swimming must be great for upper body strength, because I shot up the ladder and into the boat landing elegantly on the back seat.  No one was more surprised than I was!

The last diving day was a bit of a change.  We left around 8:30am and were ferried in a proper and fairly luxurious dive boat about 45 minutes to a deserted atoll where we would perform our last two dives.  We stopped about ½ mile off shore and jumped into the deep blue water.  It was spectacular.  We dropped to about 25 meters (82 feet) and poked around a very lively reef.  We saw more Morey eels and thousands of fish the names of which I have no clue.  The highlights of this trip were seeing a field full of hundreds of garden eels, which look like twigs swaying in the current – that is until they detect you and disappear - and seeing a leaf fish.  This is a rare sighting, even here, as they blend perfectly with the coral and are almost impossible to see.  The literally look like a leaf.  Very cool!

We surfaced in what seemed like the middle of the ocean and awaited pickup by the dive boat.  Once on board, we removed our gear and relaxed with cool scented face towels and assorted fruits on a stick for an hour as we transited to another awesome location.  Once we arrived, we changed our tanks and set out for the last dive which once completed, would grant me certification.  This dive ended up being the best of the four.  Again, it was a reef wall, but this one was full of caves into which we poked for the good part of an hour.  We saw all sorts of unusual creatures and even saw a giant shrimp called a Mantis Shrimp which I am told is quite rare to see.  We also saw clams as big as your head.  For a beginner diver, the caves were a bit intimidating as you had to control yourself both up and down which is much easier said than done.  After the requisite time, we surfaced, boarded the boat and sat back and ate fruit on a stick for the ride home. 

When we got back to the dive center, we completed the paperwork, filled out my dive logbook and received my temporary PADI Open Water Diving Card!  I was thrilled, but the thrill was short lived as, with my 4 dives, I also got a slight ear issue that would prevent me from diving for the rest of the vacation.  Seriously, it is not my week.  In the end, though, I achieved what I set out to achieve and that was all that counts!

As my sister so aptly commented on the previous blog, the injuries “must be hard to take with all the scenery.”  She is right - it’s all good!

Maldives - Day 2

(Note to reader, these are a bit late as my motivation for typing is about zero)

Olga and I woke up around 7:00am and trundled across the Island to grab some breakfast.  Breakfast is served near the main pool in an open restaurant directly along the shoreline.  We grabbed a table next to the sea and attacked the buffet like we had a tip on a famine.  

Breakfast

After breakfast, we went back to the villa where I gathered my diving gear, bid the wife good-bye and set out for the dive center.  My appointment was not until 9:00am, but I thought I would get there a few minutes early to make sure I had everything I needed. I was a little anxious, a little excited, but mostly curious on what the morning would produce.  

My instructor is Lilli.  Originally from China, she has been at the resort since January.  Pleasant enough, she set about to teach me the finer points of diving.  We learned the equipment, what it does and how to put it on.  With that short briefing, we were suited up and off to the water.  

Lilli helping me with my equipment

Let me just insert here that although divers look graceful in the water, the equipment actually weighs quite a lot on land and the walk to the water across the sand was looked easier from the comfort of the dive center.  Also, a wet suit is great for keeping the chill away in the water, but, again, on land and in 90-degree heat, it makes for a very hot walk.  I have never been so happy to be submerged in a body of water.  

Drinking my last water before the plunge

Instructor and student ready for the water

The long walk to the sea!

Thanks to having completed all the theoretical work beforehand and having a private instructor, we blew through the exercises in record time.  The only evolution about which I was nervous was the removal of my mask and opening my eyes underwater. I have never actually done this in a pool, let alone the ocean, so I was bit nervous.  When the time came, I cowboy'd up and completed the task.  Interestingly, opening your eyes in salt water is not too bad … that is until you put your mask on again and reopen your eyes. Apparently it is not the salt water which burns your eyes, but air mixed with saltwater that really stings.  Anyway, with enough exercises passed, we set out on our first dive on the local reef.

The islands in the Maldives are all basically the same.   A clump of sand surrounded by a reef which then drops off to create a huge wall under the surface.  Up to this point, we had been in roughly 5 meters (16 feet) of water, but as we swam over the end of the wall, the ocean floor dropped straight down to about 40 meters (130 feet).  This was a bit daunting, but Lilli had already begun descending, so what choice did I have.  Descending, mind you, is easier written than done.  Every meter you go down, the pressure increases and your ears begin to block – like at high altitudes.  You must go down slowly and remember to clear your ears frequently or it can cause serious ear issues.  Not hard to do when you are standing still at the top of a mountain, but the exercise of clearing your ears gets a tad trickier when you are floating by a large drop-off in the middle of the ocean.  I eventually got the hang of it, descending to about 10 meters (32 feet) and began my first real dive.

We swam the wall of the reef for about 30 minutes and it was awesome.  First of all, you are completely surrounded by hundreds of fish.  Big fish, small fish – all types colors and variants.  We saw huge Groupers that were around 4 feet long and small Indian Ocean Lobsters hiding in their hideouts.  There were little blue fish that swam like tiny manta rays and large dark fish that were none to happy to see us.  The highlight of the dive was seeing a Morey Eel, although he made it clear we were not the highlight of his day.  It was all over too soon, but rules are rules and soon we were back on the beach.

The triumphant return!

I dismantled all my equipment (part of the certification), dried off and trundled over to meet Olga at the main pool.  She had been there for a few hours and had secured a one of the bed-swings that hung over the pool water under a Maldivian hut.  It was comfortable, cool and out of the relentless sun.  We ordered some lunch and within about 6 minutes of the last bite, I was out cold! 

Does it get any better than that?
Seriously?

I spent the remainder of the first day floating in and out of one long nap on my swinging bed enjoying the sounds of the ocean rolling up on the beach just feet from me. Every now and again, I would get warm, roll off the bed, splash around and climb back in for another 40-minute nap.  Now that’s living!

That evening, we walked across the island, a 20-minute walk, and had dinner in their overwater restaurant "complex".  The have 3 restaurants, Sea, an underwater restaurant, Salt, an Asian restaurant and Fire, a Japanese restaurant, as well as a bar with rocking chairs outside in which to relax and have your evening cocktails and snacks.   Sea and Fire, we were told, require reservations well in advance, so we had a nice meal next to the ocean at Salt.

The spa is the left and the restaurant complex is on the right
The thatched roof on the left of the complex is Salt and Fire is the tall structure on the right
The bar is the two tiered structure in the forefront of the complex

The restaurant is spread out both under a huge wall-less grass hut with a 40-foot ceiling and on the open-air deck over the ocean.  We choose the outside seating over the ocean. The restaurant is called Salt as they have many different types of salt that they recommend to bring out the flavor in the food. The catch is that since you have been in the salt air and salt water all day, you are already bloated like a beached whale, so added anymore salt into your system seems a bit redundant.  Overall, though, the food was excellent.  

One last note about the restaurants on the island.  There are about 130 villas, beach and overwater combined and they have 5 restaurants, each with a different theme. I addition to the 3 mentioned above, there is also an Italian restaurant and a buffet style place.  This is great, because you never feel crowded, but the downside is that since you are on an island and a run to the Kwicki-Mart for a burrito is out of the question, they have jacked the prices in these eating establishments to extortionate levels.  I suppose someone has to pay for the logistics costs of getting the food to an island.  

As the first full day came to a close, we returned to the villa and despite spending the majority of the day asleep, went immediately to bed. I guess napping really does take a lot of energy!