Day 15

India-Beijing (Friday)

Waking up at 6AM was not as bad as I thought since I was able to fall asleep right away at 10PM the night before. Arriving at the airport, I began experiencing how truly different the security system is in India. First, you have to show them a printout of your flight plan before they will print a boarding pass for you. Once you get your board pass, you move to have your checked bag screened by X-ray before passing through security. Then you move to the check-in counter, show your boarding pass and let them take your checked bag. Passing through security, the only two things you have to separate are your laptop and mobile phone. They don’t care about shoes or liquids. Pretty nice, I have to say.

The flight to Trivandrum was long, very long. We actually had to stop in Mumbai for 20 minutes which broke the 4-hour flight into two. You would not believe how quickly they turned around that plane in Mumbai. I mean, they probably had 25 Indians descend on this plane and vacuum, collect trash, replace magazines, replaced cloth head covers, pillow, you name it. It all happened in about 10 minutes. They were actually pushing me out of the way so that they could vacuum where I was standing. You would never see dedication like this in the US.

Landing in Trivandrum, I felt as though this was a place I needed to leave as quickly as possible. It is right on the southern tip of India so it’s a tropical hot-as-hell climates with lots of humidity. Pretty much abject poverty wherever you look. The fact that I was there to talk about the local hospital buying a $5M piece of medical equipment just didn’t seem right to me. I’m certainly glad that they want to treat patients with brain tumors, but it looks to me like they have some other pressing issues to deal with as well. Later in the meeting with the neurosurgeon he explained to me that they spend so much money on protecting their border with Pakistan that very little is left over to spend on their infrastructure and healthcare system. It appears as if we are not the only one facing a problem with radical jihadists. Every Indian I spoke with was in favor of any aggressive action taken by the US because it will inevitable help them as well. They are just trying to raise the standard of living for as many Indians as they can, and they believe they can achieve this goal through economic and capitalist gain. Certainly they have been successful in this regard as of late with the largest middle class in the World. India will also overtake China with the World’s largest population in the next 20 years. Australia has a population of 22 million people. India grows by 22 million people EVERY YEAR! Just try to wrap your head around that. Every year India adds another Australia to its population. I say we keep on their good side as much as possible…

The hospital was a huge military looking installation with 7 floors and no AC. Flies and bad smells everywhere. The neurosurgeon we met with has submitted more clinical papers to the world neurosurgical group than any other, 15! Hard to believe does not begin to describe this. He politely listened to my brief presentation and spent the rest of the time telling me all the places we should go in Trivandrum, but of course, we had no time for that. He just didn’t want me to leave thinking that Trivandrum was nothing but poverty. Right, I’m sure seeing a couple of nice hotels and beach resorts would change my mind on that one.

We hit the airport, sweating through our shirts, and boarded the plane to Chennai, a larger city also on the southern tip, but closer to Sri Lanka on the eastern side of the country. The flight went by real fast and despite the rumblings in my stomach, I did not get and food born illness. I spent a while talking to Manish about BL stuff at Chennai before going to a hotel for a couple of hours to shower, change and re-pack. Manish was an amazing host, he setup the entire trip for us, took care of all the logistics and was extremely kind and generous. We had great talks about the nature of Indian culture (he is a Hindu) the differences between Hinduism and Buddhism, the problem with radical Muslims, the future of BrainLAB in India and just general life stuff. I hope I get a chance to return the hospitality to him when he comes to the US.

The Ramada Chennai is probably not their best location in the world, but it served its purpose. I was able to shake off some cobwebs of not knowing what time zone I was in by cleaning up and getting a fresh set of clothes on. I relaxed a little bit in the room before heading back to the airport. The girl who showed me to my room also offered me a free foot massage…a standard item when checking into this hotel I guess. As tempting as that sounded, I had been in these socks and shoes for 12 hours in hot tropical climates, so I really could not bring my self to torture this poor girl like that and respectfully declined.

Getting to the airport around 9:30 for my 11PM departure, I actually had plenty of time. Unfortunately, this airport offered absolutely nothing in the way of food and drink so I just sat in a chair and fell asleep for an hour before they called us to board. This flight was the overnight portion of the trip, so I really needed to be able to sleep the whole way since I arrived at 6AM the next morning. Popping a couple of lunesta did the tick as I slept the entire flight without waking up once. When I did finally get up from my drug-induced stupor I was in Singapore and it was the next day. Walking around the airport, it took me a while and a huge red-eye from starbuck to shake off the grogginess. I had two hours to kill and I did so by sleeping in the lounge for an hour, then walking around and shopping for the rest of the time, with caffeine in hand. Fortunately or unfortunately, I came across a duty free watch shop that had a watch I had been thinking of buying for years now. The Jaeger-LeCoultre master chronograph diving watch. The price was less than I would pay in the US and it was tax free, so I pulled the trigger. I absolutely love it, but can help but think that I might not have bough it if I was in a normal state of mind. Either way, it looks great, and I’m happy I did it. Unless, of course, I find out it’s fake, but they gave me a certificate of authenticity and they were a high end shop with lots of other brands and also located at the airport and supported by the government, so I doubt it’s actually fake. I will take it to a dealer when I get home though, just to be sure.

Boarding the plane, I was feeling pretty good and ordered a glass of champagne at 9AM! Maybe the earliest I have drank since college. Right now, it’s 11:45 (according to my new watch) and I’ve already had two additional glasses of wine. Considering I am meeting with our CEO later tonight, I should probably switch to coffee at this point…

More to come!