Dhaka Trip

I took a Kingfisher flight from Bangalore to Kolkata and a connecting flight to Dhaka. The flight from Kolkata being an ATR could not even take my hand luggage, and had to check in. The flight to Dhaka was less than 30 mins. Hope they had a high speed train between this place, so could have avoided the long wait in the airport.

We were put up in a Hotel named, The Hotel Eastern Residence (House No 14, Road 27, Block J, Banani Dhaka, 880-2-9890337). A very good hotel and if you are staying in a group they give you an apartment sort of complex with a common area and independent rooms. It also had a kitchen though it cannot be used. They have good restaurant as well. Good value for money at $50 per day with breakfast.

One thing which strikes you in bangladesh is the huge number of overhead optical fiber. May be astonishing for a Telecom engineer like me and the knowledge that there are more than 300 ISP (Not joking). Another thing which strikes you is the traffic. As one of my friend puts it if the roads are jammed means the economy and people are doing good. Saw lots of cycle rickshaw, which borders have not made to vanish on either side of Bengal. Public transport except the BRTC buses look shabby and are not well maintained. It seems people ram their vehicle against each other to go ahead. Driving needs to be very skillful if you need not ram into people or vehicles.

Hotel Sajna near the hotel had some excellent food and hospitality. One thing striking about their service was that when they delayed their chutney and my dosa got cold, they gave me a new dosa. Something which i have never seen anywhere i had gone. Most of our dinner was in this place.

Could not make to any place as had 12 meetings in 3 day!!

Shanghai Visit

Part 1: Reaching Shanghai

I started on Sat and took a connecting flight through Delhi. This was also my first trip to the International terminal at Delhi. The smiling bust of Buddha set the right welcome to the large terminal which was badly needed in Delhi. The problem which need attention by DIAL and same in Mumbai on return is the the pathetic state of transit from existing domestic terminal to the International terminal. In the onward transfer, we found the bus has broken down and was fixed after 30min of work but as the time i had was good enough did not face the problem i faced in Mumbai airport transit.

The rates at the airport was entertaining with the amount of stores and large space with enough electric plugs for laptop and good seats. One thing which was odd was the cost of everything including lays etc even on the vending machines. The flight was on time and had a nice trip to Shanghai on an Air India trip. The presence of experienced hands as air hostess was a big change from the young and bubbly sir hostess in all other private flights. Sometimes i do feel that in case of emergency all their experience may be handy compared to the young and energetic version in other flights.

Reached shanghai and had a easy transit. I was told to take metro or the maglev at the airport as it was the optimal way reach the hotel. The metro it seems stop at 9 PM and as i reached after that, i took the maglev. A 7 minute ride as smooth as the flight [ with no turbulence at all :) ] was worth the try. It touched 301 Kmph before decelerating. If you show the boarding pass on the shanghai maglev you get a small discount on the ticket. At the longyang station i took a cab. An European lady could clearly make out that i am new to city and guided me to the taxi and guided me on what i should check. Like in Indian auto and old taxi they have a lever to put down so that the meter work. Though meters were automatic somehow they have kept the lever aspect intact may be for the police to see it from outside itself.

Reached the hotel Westin Pudong in the outskirt of shanghai. The hotel was nice and clean but was not connected to the excellent metro network which the city can boast of. It was 2.5 Km away from the nearest metro station. Was well into night, so had a good sleep before which i noted that this was the only hotel with a wide window in the bathroom and bathroom looked bigger than the room itself :).

Travel to Shenzhen, China

I recently went to Shenzhen for a interim meeting. I had taken the dragon air from bangalore to Hongkong. I had two options from there, either take a ferry or take a bus from outside. I opted for the former as i need not take the hongkong immigration. The ferry ride was good but was not so exciting as one could hardly see the shore as it was misty. I got through the chinese immigration and took a taxi. I had been warned that i should ask for a bill. I opted for it as soon as the driver said he will provide one. Then i came to know that we are supposed to take a taxi which has red color. They have meters and charge as per government rate. So i ended up paying extra. So if anyone of you are opting for ferry ensure that u look for the red taxi. Also always carry the hotel name in chinese character as no one speaks english.

In the return, as there was some Tsunami warning and i had no clue how safe was ferry i took the shared cab facility. I had some doubts about the visa and if i could go through hongkong by car. The hotel person did confimr that there is no issue. So i took the shared cab facility. The first incident happened at the chinese emigration as one guy had a visa which had expired few days back. He was taken out. Now we had another car coming to pick us up. We were three of us and then we enter Hong Kong immigration. There i had trouble. they asked that how can u enter hongkong without a stamp earlier. I was detained. I showed the ferry details and my flight details and they gave a temporary visa. Things were smooth but by now the earlier shared cab had left so i had to wait till the new car came. After an hour i boarded the cab which took me to hong kong. And as hongkong had people who talked good english i did not have much trouble. So in retrospect i was right to take the ferry.

Even though we read that now hongkong is part of china for all practical purpose they are two countries. :)