Year 2012 - a year of changes

Opposite to IST, Alameda, Lisbon

Time has gone pretty fast. When I was selected to follow the Erasmus Mundus European Master in Distributed Computing (EMDC) in the first half of this year, going to Lisbon seems to be far away. But sorry for repeating the phrase again - time has gone pretty fast. I was selected to DMKM (Erasmus Mundus Master Course in Data Mining and Knowledge Management) as well, where the first year will be at University of Lyon Lumière Lyon 2 in France and the second at University Polithenica of Bucharest in Romania. Distributed Computing and Data Mining both are my research interests. Considering the advantages of both the courses, finally I decided to follow EMDC. I quickly accepted the offer for EMDC, and started working on that.

Getting the Portugal study visa of course needed a considerable effort. It also made me travel twice to New Delhi. I utilized my first trip to New Delhi in summer as a sight-seeing tour in New Delhi. It was a great experience, including the negotiations with the three-wheeler drivers. The second trip made me float. I was even worried whether my travel documents got wet by the heavy showers, on my way to the Portugal Embassy in Chanakyapuri. Thanks to God, my bag was strong enough not to let the water in.

I was working at WSO2 for the last 2 years, and it was my job since I graduated. Interestingly I was an intern too at WSO2. It was a great learning experience, as my first job. For some unknown reason, the Emirates decided to send me in the business class, though I had bought a ticket for the economic class. That gave me a positive feeling (Feeling lucky.. :D)

Lisbon seems pretty cool, and started to settle down here. Along with these changes, Llovizna too is facing a few changes (may I say, improvements?) I foresee, the completely new set of blog posts dominating the blog, along with my traditional mixture of technical and personal posts. I see a few posts on my experience on studying abroad, and related tours. Hope that will make Llovizna sexier. ;) To match with this, I have enabled the Google ads into my blog, as I feel they give provide some advertisements that are related and useful to the readers. For example, I could see the advertisements of the European scholarship programs in the blog post that mentions about the European Study visa. Hope the overall reader experience is made more positive.

I hope the upcoming days will be more exciting, as the course is starting on the 17th of September. I will keep the readers updated on this. Tenha um bom dia!

New Delhi by tuk-tuk..

Three-wheelers are very handy option to travel in New Delhi, as you can find them everywhere, and they are pretty convenient and cheap too. However, you should be careful to avoid paying more than what it deserves. If you are clueless, you will be left paying 5 times the amount that it really costs.

Negotiations!

One important point is beware of the three-wheeler drivers. Unless you speak Hindi (or the local language of the region. I noticed a similar behavior among the drivers in Hyderabad, where they mainly speak Telugu), they will try their best to charge as much as they can (You will be charged 250 INR, where they charge 50 INR normally for the locals), and they may even tend to cheat. Ask for an estimate from the friends, before going out. All the three-wheelers are metered. The meters either do not work, or the drivers just do not obey them. Don't ever dare to get into a three-wheeler without negotiating the price beforehand. That will just get you ripped off. Moving three-wheelers tend to charge lesser than the one who park, specifically the ones who park as groups on the road sides.

Some three-wheeler negotiations

The typical success scenario.

/Me: *Stops a moving three-wheeler*
Me: "Chanakyapuri..."
3W driver: "xdsve cwsnujfe mxiwwemo huer?" (Hindi that you won't understand anyway)
Me: "Vinay Marg!" (I assume his question is, "Where exactly in Chanakyapuri")
3W: "Hundred rupees!"
/Me: *gets in!* (My assumption was right!)

Now the failure scenario.

/Me: *Stops a moving three-wheeler*
Me: "Chanakyapuri..."
3W driver: "xdsve cwsnujfe mxiwwemo huer?"
Me: "Vinay Marg!"
3W: "fehus feua feuh"
/Me: *confused* *What does he say* :-o
Me: "How much?" (Had to ask the price now.. :()
3W: "Two Hundred Fifty!" (Since I asked in English!)
Me: "That's just too much" *Walks away*
3W: "Hundred fifty" *shouts

/Me *ignores and walks to find another threewheeler.

A good negotiation

/Me: *Stops a moving three-wheeler*

Me: "Chanakyapuri..."
3W driver: "xdsve cwsnujfe mxiwwemo huer?"
Me: "Vinay Marg!"
3W: "fehus feua feuh"
/Me: *same expression, as the second 3W guy above. Let's ignore.
Me: "Ninety" (Saying my own price!)
3W: "Hundred Twenty!"
/Me: *Walks away slowly*
3W: "Hundred ten" *shouts
/Me: *gets in!*

No random tourist guides!
Never let a three-wheeler driver be your tourist guide. They try to offer their own tourist packages, "I will take you to India Gate, Lotus Temple, and Connaught Place shopping area, round trip - all Delhi covered - 2000 Rupees." He said, 100 INR to Birla Mandir, and he would wait for 20 mins and pick me up for a round trip with 250 INR. Any child would understand that I have no real reason to accept this offer, as I can just get down and get another three-wheeler for 100 INR, which is way cheaper. When I explained him this, he came down to offer the trip for 150 INR. Still it can't go above 70 INR. If you are from a developed country, you of course can ignore the above issues, as both 50 INR and 250 INR will be like 1 - 3 USD, which you can safely consider negligible.

A culturally rich summer at Delhi..

Mid Summer Break (10th - 19th of July, 2012)

Recently I had an awesome mid summer break of 10 days at New Delhi - the capital city of India. It was a nice experience, visiting many worshipping places, such as Lotus Temple (The Bahá'í House of Worship), The ISKCON temple (The International Society for Krishna Consciousness), Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, and Birla Mandir Laxminarain Temple. I have also paid a visit to India Gate and Qutub Minar. HOHO bus is an ideal option to travel around New Delhi for just 300 INR, in two days, where you can tailor your own journey covering 19+ tourists attractions of Delhi. India is a multi-cultural and multilingual country where you can experience a diverse cultural experience.

Roaming

Make sure to set your roaming to the correct network provider to get the cheapest roaming rates for SMS and Calls. I had mistakenly let the "Mobile Network Selection Mode" to be "Automatic". The rate was initially very cheap, as my mobile picked IDEA Cellular networks as the network in Pahar Ganj, New Delhi, as my mobile network is Dialog Telecom. However, when I moved to Chanakyapuri, the network changed automatically to "Reliance", which cost me 2000 LKR for just 3 calls, where I had taken around 10 calls for 1000 LKR in the previous days! So make sure to set the Mobile Network Selection Mode to "Manual" from Options -> Mobile Network -> Network Selection Mode, and Mobile Network to the relevant network, as advised by your local mobile network provider.

Graffiti on a road side wall

Pick your accommodation!
Pick your hotel carefully. Some economic hotels are located in a highly congested areas such as Pahar Ganj or Arakashan Road. Some of these hotels may be nice. But may not suit all the travelers. Travel  review sites such as TripAdviser provide useful information on planning your trips. Make sure to add your own reviews, once you come back home after your trip! During the summer days, Delhi gets really hot. 45°C is pretty average for a summer noon. Be prepared for that. Take a bottle of water or two, with you, always. Some of the economic hotels or hostels tend to have a limited water supply. That is an interrupted water supply in the high demand time such as the morning time, or water with very low pressure. Be aware of this, and be prepared.

Colourful India
Getting into a three-wheeler and paying only for what you traveled is an art, and it needs some experience. I have blogged it as New Delhi by tuk-tuk, as it tends to make this blog post longer. Make sure you read it. :)

Don't forget to explore the yummy North Indian food. If you turn on the Tv, you will be impressed by hundreds of Indian channels, with local movies and songs! Road side walls are often filled with graffiti in many parts of New Delhi. Some of them have interesting messages too. Some roads have rickshaws that run in the local roads, which sometimes create traffic jams, along with the other careless drivers, who never seem to obey the traffic rules.

Love India
India is full of cultural marvels. It takes lots of time to explore it completely. This was my second trip to India, where I had already visited Bangalore and Hyderabad last year. Hope to see more of India in a later trip.