Just a brief note, as it’s late and I have to be up early tomorrow for a series of meetings. Setting aside the work… and the driving… what’s left? Oh, yes: food. Last night, after checkin in to my second hotel in Pune (The Pride), I ate in the Golden Arch. No, not Golden Arches – the Arch [singular] is one of the restaurants in the hotel. Very pleasant, Kingfisher beer tastes much better in India than whatever they ship to the USA. It has a nice touch of bitterness that most lagers lack.
And yes, the connectivity in the hotel is pretty good: desktop 10Base-T, with only occasionally glitches.
UPDATE (10/22/05): Well, not so good. I finally ran some bandwidth tests, and got figures in the range of 80kbps (that’s kbits, not Kbytes). Surely some mistake….
Today I started late due to traffic – the recent rains have washed out even major roads, and things are a mess. After a meeting with the site director, I went out to lunch with a group of managers. We drove (on the Mumbai-Pune toll highway, and at a really impressive speed) to a hilltop resort in Khandala called The Duke’s Retreat. The Duke in question was Wellington, whose famous nasal profile can be seen in a nearby ridge. After returning to the office for more meetings running in to the evening, a few of us braved potholes and traffic to reach another noted area restaurant, the Ambrosia, which lies about 20 kms. west of the city centre. [Forget the negative reviews on the website: the food was excellent, and service was very prompt and attentive.]
Enough. I must hit the sack. Big day tomorrow.