Business Trip to India, Singapore, and London

It was a whirlwind trip: three countries over two weeks. Every weekday at work, one weekend day flying, and Sundays free to poke around Chennai (India) and Singapore.

We had fantastic hotel in India. The hotel was big and clean, very nice restaurants, a fitness center where I got an hour massage for $20 or so. Plus the staff greeted me by name and treated me like a queen. Everyone: the security guards, hostesses in the lobby, waiters, clerks at the desk. I was in a single women traveler wing so I had to use my room key to even get in the wing. They have happy hour in the hotel but for the women (who I guess might not want to go to the bar) they had a woman staffing a trolley at that time every day. The trolley had a pretty big wine and liquor offering plus snacks, juices and pop. The woman who worked that talked to me every day. It made going to work every day, for long days, much nicer coming back to this kind of treatment.

I arrived very late Saturday night and spent Sunday walking around, getting my massage, and then got a taxi driver to take me shopping and driving around for a few hours. He took me to a silk and crafts shop where I got two silk outfits to wear to work. I bartered with the sales guy but in the end I kind of gave up. He had me laughing, trying to tell me he couldn't go any lower on the prices or he wouldn't make a profit.

Photos from the office, including a potluck lunch and games with the women's group at the office.

After a week of meetings I left Saturday morning for Singapore. I flew business class on India Air. If that was business class I do not even want to imagine what coach was like. It was obviously a used plane.

Arrived Saturday night in Singapore, got a taxi to the hotel, and hunkered down for the night. Unpacked, had room service, checked my email. At 11:30 PM I was dead tired and ready to sleep. Pulled back the sheets and they were dirty. They came and changed them but I was so grossed out I checked out first thing Sunday morning. Which was good because I got a fantastic hotel right at the airport. Could see planes at the terminal and the runway but it was no louder than a hotel along a freeway. Room was big and posh.

Then I went out to explore Singapore a bit. Singapore is a big, clean city with expressways, malls, but very clean and nicely landscaped. It's tropical, with lots of rain and heat, so the plants are of course beautiful. Other than that, tho, kind of bland and typical of a big city anywhere in the world.

I went to this place where fish eat skin off your feet. I squealed like a girl and had a really hard time keeping my feet in the water!!!! But it was very cool and my feet were much smoother after 20 minutes!

Then went to Chinatown and Little India on advice of co-workers . In Chinatown I was passing a restaurant and this English-speaking man told me it was great, I should sit down and join him and his friends at their sidewalk table, and I would love the food. He was Chinese, schooled in Australia, retired stockbroker traveling the world. He said he likes to meet people and learn about where they come from. His friends spoke no English. He ordered good pork soup dumplings for me. When I asked if mangoes were in season he stood up and said, "You like mangoes? Sit right here. Don't move." His friends were laughing. 10 mins later he came back with bags of fresh fruit which we all shared and he sent two mangoes home with me.

On my final day in Singapore I popped out of the office to attend the birthday party of the daughter of a woman I used to work with at Ford. Her husband works in the Singapore office. He found me and told me he was JoJo's husband and that she had told him to have him call me. He left work to drive me to his house where they were having the birthday party, then came and got me and took me back to work. Isn't that sweet? It was really nice to see JoJo again. She left Ford about 2 years ago and they moved to Singapore.

Worked in Singapore for three days, then left Wednesday night for London. I flew Malaysia Airlines through Kuala Lampur. Both the Singapore and Kuala Lampur airports were really impressive with designer shops, etc. I bought some jam at the Harrod's store in K.L. so my Visa bill would show transactions in the currencies of every country I visited. :-) The flight from K.L. to London was 13 hours but it was a great flight. The seat reclined almost flat and they gave me a silk comforter!

Arrived in London about 6:00 AM, taxi to the hotel for check-in and a quick shower, and i was at the office at 8:30. Spent a day meeting with a new man on our project- just a really great guy. He invited me to dinner with him and his wife. We went to a nice Nepalese restaurant that Mom and I had discovered on my last trip there. I thought it was really sweet of his wife to come out to dinner like that.

One final night on the road, then left early the next morning for my flight home. Northwest was the worst flight I had on the whole trip.