{"id":138,"date":"2014-03-05T04:38:13","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T04:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/?p=138"},"modified":"2014-03-05T04:45:18","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T04:45:18","slug":"pod-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/2014\/03\/05\/pod-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Pod people"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20140305-081633.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, here I am back safely ensconced in my pod. I spent the last day in Bangalore watching cricket and walking around a bit outside. Since you really couldn’t walk too far, I did circuits between the train bridge and the first street Intersection of Death.<\/p>\n

After that, a nice filling meal at the buffet (loved the Queen’s Pudding), an hour workout at the gym and more cricket.<\/p>\n

The driver was a few minutes early (1:10am), so I headed out and slumped into the very nice car (again from Emirates), and watched the city pass by one last time on the 45 minute drive to the airport.<\/p>\n

The trip went well, but it’s hard to work during the day in India, then try to catch up on normal work in the evening. A happy consequence was that the time did pass by quickly.<\/p>\n

So what did I think of my first trip to India? It was a unique experience, certainly. Sheila and I have seen abject poverty before, but I saw some very hard conditions. The one thing that struck me was that it was a quiet poverty. In some Indian cities, almost half the population lives below the poverty line. I believe that in Hyderabad that number is around
\n15-20%, and 10% in Bangalore.<\/p>\n

I really didn’t see that much of it passing along the central streets between work and the hotel. There were just a few blue plastic tarp “tent cities” that I actually saw. The residents went about their daily ritual with vigor, although I can’t begin to understand their experience. I think maybe I should try harder to.<\/p>\n

Other that that, both cities are bustling as they continue to quickly evolve in the ever-growing computer age. I saw towering concrete pillars of windows and steel, built to house the silicon onslaught, that shadowed tent city denizens as they showered at the local fire hydrants. I lost count of the number of autorickshaws and motorbikes that whizzed by, either set of which absolutely outnumber conventional cars on their own.<\/p>\n

I’ve met the friendly face of India, smiling, helpful and unassuming. A perfect example of dharma and the living testament of the Vedas. Amid all the chaos I saw a serene beauty in the people. How can anyone have a better experience?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, here I am back safely ensconced in my pod. I spent the last day in Bangalore watching cricket and walking around a bit outside. Since you really couldn’t walk … Continue reading Pod people<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aviate.org\/mikestravels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}