Food for Thought: 2010

It came suddenly ... I am working here in Heat Exchanger planning। As planning people rarely get an opportunity to go abroad on official tours, I was pleasently surprised to know that my name was proposed for 'Technical know how transfer training ' of LP Outer Casing of 660 MW at the works of M/s Siemens at their Indonesia plant.

Passport problems:
Right from the begining the tour was caught up in problems. As the time was less, I applied for Passport under Tatkal scheme to Dehradun passport office. Rs 2500/- was the Tatkal fee beside Rs 2500/- for agent, and I was promised the passport the day after tommorow. On that day I was about to leave for Dehradun to collect the passport personaly, I got a call from the passport office that I could not get a passport because I was already issued one from Lucknow in 2006. It took a visit to passport office Lucknow, one to GPO Allahabad, 3 visits to passport office Dehradun, one FIR, 2 affidevits & a total of 15K bucks to finally get my passport. And above all, all this took just 15 days.

My teammate got a fracture:

As the preparations were on as everything including the passports were ready, we had to face even a more serious problem. On a fine sunday morning, my teammate Ashish Ranjan got an accident & got a fracture on right hand. The chances of our first foreign trip again seemed very dim. But we kept the moral high and against all odds I completed all the formalities while ashish sir was in hospital.

Finally the day came:

Finally we left by Janashatabdi for Delhi, where we collected the tickets, foreign exchange & insurance from our agent. The flight to Bangkok was in the night. Terminal 3 at IGI airport was recently inaugurated & was swank new. The Budhha statue was especially appealing. Both of us were flying for the first time, so there were some anxiety & we came to know about variuos immigration procedures. After taking the boarding pass, immigration & security check we took light dinner at the Food court. Thai airways served well & we arrived in Bangkok in early morning. Took some rest in the transfer lounge as connecting flight to Jakarta was in the morning. We reached Jakarta around noon. There is a time gap of exactly 2 hours between the Indian & Indonesian time (Java time). So we had to adjust our time accordingly.

A difficult arrival in Indonesia:

It was a rather difficult arrival in Indonesia. We were provided with Arrival forms in the plane. At Sukarno Hatta Airport in Jakarta, while in immigration line we came to know that along with Arrival form, Immigration form was also required. I asked an airport employee about the form. He told that we were supposed to be provided with the form by the airline itself, however he could arrange it for us for 5 Dollars & I admitted. But my head worked on time & I told him that I would arrange it from the Airlines office on the airport premises & would not pay him a penny for it, now he relented & gave the forms to us. I wondered at the sheer height of corruption.

Cilegon city:

Cilegon is an industrial city on western coast of Java island, it is around 80 km from Jakarta city. We took a taxi from airport for our hotel which costed us 4 lakh rupiah (Indonesian currency is of extremly low value, notes of denominations 100000, 50000, 20000, 10000 are commonly used). The highway was good but the road toll took a toll on our pockets, on a 80 km strech we encountered 4 tolls.

Finally we reached the city & our hotel. We got a pleasant surprise as the hotel was a resort with golf course & cottages, a golf car was used to ferry the guests from reception to the rooms. The city was also good with supermarkets & all, there was one supermarket The Ramayana Mall. Actually there is a lot of Indian influence in Indonesia, but mostly it is in Bali. We could not go there because it was around 500 km from our city. Though there was not much in Cilegon to see we went to the local beach & took a general view of the city.

Siemens Plant:

Siemens is basically based in Germany & the Indonesian plant is a very small unit. They are making Gas turbine parts, LP turbine & some condenser items. Though small, the plant is well organised and is headed by a German GM. Total manpower of the plant is aroud 500 people.

The people at Siemens treated us well, we were provided with an Innova (the name was something different, but it was a Toyota vehicle same as Innova, Japanese vehicles like Honda, Toyota & Suzuki rule on Indonesian roads), which took & drop us at the hotel & sometimes for siteseing. We were provided with a office with PC, projector and of course tea/coffee maker & were briefed about the working & systems there.

The main challanges : Language & food

The main challange was the language problem. Indonesian is the official language with the roman script and its really confusing, Air in Indonesian means Water in English, Makan means Food, Selamat Paagi is for Good Morning. Only respite was that the hotel & Siemens people were able to communicate in english, but outside it we were left with the mercy of god.

Similar was the case with food, more so with a vegie like me. We were virtually on survival diet, rice was the only thing which we were familiar to. The only silver lining was the supplimentry breakfast of the hotel with breads, chocholates, Juices & milk. Our Tops mixed pickle which we carried from India was a faithful companion all along.

Jakarta, a world class city:

We left Cilegon one day earlier to our flight & used it to see the Jakarta city, which is a city of world standards, in terms of highrises, its swank taxies it is far ahead of even New Delhi & Mumbai.

Monash is the national monument of Indonesia, its a huge tower with a golden flame on top of it. A crane goes rite up to the top & gives a mesmerising view of the city. However we could not go inside as the time was already over, but the compound was open & we admired this architetural marvel erected in honour of freedom fighters as our very own India gate is.

Bangkok, the ultra modern city of Asia:

Our next stopover was in Bangkok, which was the real high point of our trip. Bangkok airport is named as "Suvarnbhoomi" airport. There is a beautiful depiction of "Samudra manthan" in the departures area. This airport was inaugurated just years back & is considered one of the best in the world.

In Thailand, visa is available on arrival. In the queue 80 % applicants were Indians. Actually Bangkok & Singapore are favourite tourist destinations for Indians because of hassle free visa, their global population & lot of shopping options.

We arrived there in the evening & spent the time in seeing te local market around our hotel, which was predominently an east asian market. Market was on full bloom until 12:00 in the night. The next day we went to the grand palace complex, which has the famous temple of the emerald Budhha & various other budhhist temples. Most of our time was consumed in this complex, also our flight was at 5:00 in the evening so we left our hotel around 2:00. Colourful radio taxis, skyscrapers & wide roads of Bangkok city mesmerised us.

Back to Apni Dharti:

"Go east go west, India is the best" & we realised it in our one week outing. We were feeling like we were out for months. The plane finally entered into Indian territory & we flew over Calcutta, Varanasi, Kanpur & numerous other towns. It was around 8:00 PM & mine was a window seat. It was a clear sky, illuminated towns & cities were giving an illusion of a sky full of stars. Finally we touched down at IGI airport at around 9:00 PM. My first foreign trip was over.

And now are the trip photographs arranged in a systematic manner & with captions wherever needed. Have a happy viewing ...

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Terminal 3@ IGI Airport, New Delhi

View from first floor

Food court
Wall paintings

Budhha Statue in departures area

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First flight@ Thai Airways

View from my window

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Transfer lounge @ Bangkok Airport

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Arrived in our hotel @ Cilegon, Indonesia

Hotel Permata Krakatau