20091019 - Kick off and… my baggage arrived!

Today I will try to keep it short as I just noticed that it is already past midnight. After a nice Indian breakfast in the hotel (it is also possible to take western breakfast), the kick off started. I finally got to meet the five team members that arrived during the night. Gavin and Arjun provided us practical information and the hotel manager presented himself. Then we had a teambuilding exercise in which everyone should draw their lifeline leading to this moment. It was quite interesting to see how everyone had a completely different approach to do this.

The most important lesson of today was how to know the price of a rickshaw ride. The rickshaw is the most common form of transportation in Ahmedabad. It is quite simple really. Every rickshaw has a meter (don´t forget to check whether it is set to zero before you start your ride…). Using a rate table you can see what price corresponds with the number on the meter. By rickshaw we went to a restaurant where we had a very nice traditional Indian vegetarian meal.

In the afternoon we went to the old city. As it is currently Diwala (similar to Christmas and New Year for us) most shops were closed. However, there were some streets stalls open. It is really interesting to see the people with their colourful clothes and their transportation methods (camel, elephant, horse, mule, etc. preferably painted). However, that feeling is mutual as they find us very interesting too.

As the airline did not have any further information on my baggage, I went to the Himalaya Mall (next to the hotel) to buy some clothes to wear tomorrow. Although most of the shops were closed, I found a shop where I could buy a colourful (red and orange) traditional outfit (baggy pants with long blouse and scarf) in my size (although everything is baggy, it still needs to fit around the shoulders and chest which turned out to be a challenge).

Ordering dinner was an event in itself as we didn´t know any of the dishes on the menu and the waiter didn´t speak English. But again we turned out to get a very good Indian meal. We decided to go to a fair that we spotted on our way to dinner. That was great to see; all of the women were dressed up (I think) wearing beautiful colourful saris and other traditional clothes. Attractions were the same as in Europe (´Break Dance´, ´Teacups´, etc.) only the condition of the attractions was a bit different so none of us went on a ride.

Today was a great day. And it became even better when I returned and my baggage had arrived in the hotel! That´s a relief!
But that doesn´t stop me from wearing my colourful traditional clothes tomorrow :-)