Good Morning Bangalore

It was very hard to sleep. The hotel was so noisy. Cars were driving by all night honking their horns. Then as soon as the sun came up a siren like an air raid siren kept going off. Nice place. Still cannot figure out what the siren was for.

When I left my room for breakfast I was startled that there was a guard outside of my door. He told me good morning and asked if I wanted him to get house keeping. then he rode the elevator to the first floor with me to the place where breakfast was. I had no idea I was so safe last night. It is making me think that it is not safe here. The people are very worried about safety of the National Cricket Team. But I am not an Indian athelete. The Volvo guys met me for breakfast and we chatted about how strange it was.

After breakfast we discovered that the driver had been waiting for us in the lobby. He was not allowed to park his car at the hotel so we had to walk down th eblock to his car. Ok. More security issues. Once we got to the car we were off to the TATA Advanced Materials facility. We were told that it would be a 1.5 to 2 hour drive. Oh yeah. Over an hour with the smells of an Indian car.

The traffic was so bad. There were cars, people, scooters and 3 wheeled cars everywhere. Driving in India is crazy and it feels like you take your life in your hands.
This is a naration of our drive to the plant.

It was starting to be about 80 degrees by now. Fun stuff.

We finally made it to the plant. We had a discussion. Then they served us lunch. Then we went on a plant tour. Then we had more discussions and then we were done and were on our way back to the hotel before dinner.

There were all kinds of cows walking the street in Bangalore. I wanted to know who owned the cows and what did they eat. They caused a lot of traffic problems. Good to be a cow here.

This is not a place that I need to come back to. This is one of the places that you don't need to come to visit unless you have a good reason to. There is a lot of poverty in the streets. There is rubble in piles in the side of the raid everywhere. Where is this from?

I figured out why it smelled like smoke. People just pile their garbage in little piles on the side of the road. And when it gets big enough someone sets it on fire. That is the garbage collection service. And we have to get smog checks?!?!?

It took us almost 2 hours to get back to the hotel.

There are a lot of muslims in Bangladore. It is sketchy and does not feel welcoming.

The Volvo guys want to meet in the hotel bar before we go to dinner with the TATA people so that we stick to our strategy. I will let you know how dinner goes. One day down. Starting to get excited that I get to come home soon.