htech inc. Blog

It’s the end of the week again and today is a special day for Wouter, it is his birthday. Some members of his team started the celebration early by going to his apartment and cover his face with pie. It seems that this is a tradition in India. In the office there was also pie at lunch and of course happy birthday was sung.

After work a group of the office including me and the birthday boy went to celebrate in the LeatherLounge. My first thought was a kinky bar, but that was absolutely not the case. The name refers to the seats which are all leather. It was a combination of a lounge with a dance floor. The music was what I would associate more with a disco then a lounge. The lounge closes at 12 o’clock and then we went to the restaurant for some food. It was a exhausting, but a good day. Had a lot of fun.

Today I’m a full month in India. It has gone by pretty fast and I did not expect it to go this easy. I enjoy going to work and I don’t mind the long hours. There is always much to do so I don’t have any time to get bored.

I’m fortunate that Wouter (Dutch colleague of the Netherlands) was here before me. Thanks to him the transition wasn’t very difficult. He showed me the best restaurants and the stores were I can by the things I need. If I had to find it all out by myself, it would have taken more time.

I’m also happy with Santosh (my driver), because he always knows where I want to go while I never know how the places are called. Sometimes we have a small translation problem, but we always seem to manage.

There is not much to write about my day. I did some swimming, some reading, watched some TV and did some shopping. So I leave you some pictures of Pune.

As the title says, I visited 4 temples today. 2 of those were places I found on Wikipedia and the other 2 were close by. The first temple I visited is one of the oldest temples of Pune. It was build in the eight century. It is carved out of one rock that is now located in the Center of Pune. Seeing that you stand about 2.5 meters below surrounding grounds it must have been hard work to build it. Also some pictures of the small temple next door.

The third temple was also found on Wikipedia. It is actually an entire complex. Build on a mountain slope there was also a very nice view of the city. Don’t much to tell about it except that it was very well maintained and a place that every visitor of Pune should visit when they have the time.

The forth temple was also a temple complex. There were several temples close together. This was build on top of a mountain, but not as high as I had to climb last week. Also there were stairs to walk. That made it quite easy.

This day I started early, but because there was no electricity a little later than planned. It happens quite frequent in Pune that there is no electricity and it doesn’t make the life of an IT minded man any easier.

Around 10 Santosh drove me to one of the forts that are around Pune. There are quite a lot of them to see. It took us an hour to get there, at the base of the mountain of the fort. Santosh had previously drove all the way up to the fort, but that road was closed. The last monsoon rains had destroyed it and it was currently being rebuild. This meant we had to climb the mountain in other to get to the fort. It was only 4 km to walk so I didn’t expect much problems. Boy was I WRONG.

It took us nearly two hours to get from the car to the main entrance of the fort. It might have been 4 km but with an incline of about 60%. It was a real tough job to get there, but the harder the work, the bigger the reward. Climbing this mountain was a lot of fun and I believe we did in a very high speed. We past a lot of people.

Pictures of the mountain slope.

When we were on top there was less of the fort left then I had hoped. Although I was not disappointed at all. The sight from the mountain was really spectacular. I posted some pictures, but it doesn’t do it justice. There are so many details a picture does not show.

Pictures on the site of the fort (Santosh is resting and having something to drink with me)

Pictures of the spectacular view

After walking here for about two hours we started the descent back down again. And as Santosh had problems keeping up when we climbed to mountain, this time I couldn’t keep up with him. The slopes are so slippery and my shoes are clearly not build for that. I slipped out a couple of times and when Santosh hadn’t stopped me, I would have fallen a long way down. In the end we made it down safely in about one hour. A lot quicker than going up and a lot less tiresome. After this adventure Santosh wanted to show me a other temple, but a was beaten. We drove to my apartment where I first ate some lunch (at 17.00 hours my first lunch) and then I took a shower. After that I fell on my bed and fell asleep for 45 minutes.

This Saturday I slowly awakened in a very hot apartment. Put the AC on and had some breakfast at 11. Around 14.00 I drove off with Santosh (my personal chauffeur) to see a temple in the rural area of Pune. This temple was mentioned on Wiki so I wanted to visit it. In the morning (when I was still in bed) it was very crowded. Many people in Pune visit the temple that is made for the god that protects the city. I believe it is called Kasba Peth. It is one of the oldest temples of Pune. It is a very serine place with a big garden surrounding it.

Pictures of the garden

Pictures of the temple

After this we visited the Energy park, that was founded to show the India government and people the importance of reusable energy sources, instead of coal, gas and oil. It was quite interesting and cleared the way for the build of the large hydroponic dam that powers most of Pune. I also found a reference to the Windmill and of course the Netherlands were mentioned.

Pictures of the Energy Park

After this Santosh drove me to some of the prides of Pune – the colleges. I went to the Pune University that has been in existents since the time of the British. It was a impressive sight. Mainly because you see the traffic a vew hundred meters away, but it is totally quit at the main building. There were not many classes on Saturday.

Picture of the Pune University

After this Santosh drove me to the Agricultural University. This was a very impressive university. It situated on a very big piece of land in the edge of the centre of Pune. When entering the estate you have to drive for a few minutes to get to the main building, located at the centre.

Pictures of the Agricultural University of Pune

When the main building is passed we could see a long pasture of grain stretching very far. All around it you see the city buildings. I also found a stable with a Bull that had impressively large horns. After making this picture Santosh drove me home.

Thank god it is Friday, the weekend is here. This week was very tough to get trough. Had a lot of long days. Working more than 10 hours a day was no exception this week.

There were however some highlights on Wednesday. A delegation of the ADP US Office was in Pune to take a look at the different projects that are now going on and how they are progressing. I had an opportunity to meet Craig Spendiff. He is responsible for the off shoring projects of ADP. A very nice man to talk to.

Then I also had a very inspiring presentation of Regina Lee, currently president of the ADP National Account Services US. She has worked for ADP since 1982, that is 27 years now. She has made a very promising career within ADP inc. and told everybody that the ADP family is not something you leave easily. When you do a good job, everybody can make a good career in ADP.

I’m now going to bed and sleep for some 12 hours. Tomorrow I’m going to see some sights of Pune and I need my energy.

Special shrine at the reception for the visit of Regina Lee

The SP Infocity is the compound on which the ADP building resides. It is a big compound and still growing. There is a large open garden and when I want to smoke I need to walk of the compound, a 5 minute walk through the gardens. It is quite refreshing.

Entrance and sign of the compound

First garden after entrance

Central park

Other parts of the garden.

Security is a big issue in India. When I want to enter the compound the care is (was) examined. After I took a picture of the entire security force they like me a lot and we can just drive by without any inspection. I believe I made some friends there.

Security of the compound.

Upon entering the ADP Building my backpack is carefully examined by the G4S personnel that work for ADP. They first ex-ray it and then they check the contents manually. Especially my photo camera is something they don’t like. It is forbidden to take any pictures inside. For that same reason mobile phones are not allowed inside. You get a locker appointed to put it all in. Unfortunately I didn’t get approval to make a picture of the G4S guards.

The ADP Building

My second week in India wasn’t easy. There was a lot of work to do and my health wasn’t at peak efficiency. The last had its climax last Wednesdays when I really broke done. The diarria and tons of work I did weren’t a good combination and then I kind of fell apart. Went to a doctor (Drs. Bavhe) and was impressed be his skills. He was very calm and reassuring that he could get my health in order. Had to take medicine for 5 days.

This is the doctor’s office

Getting the medicine was a new and unique experience. You can get medicine here at a lot of stores. About 15 within a couple of minutes driving from my apartment. The sellers aren’t schooled like in the Netherland. When you need 10 pills of a certain type (as in my case) and the strip contains 12, they just cut the excess of and you only pay for the ten. Problem with this system is that you have no information about any of the medicine. Thanks to Internet I found out that one of the medicine isn’t approved in the EU and the US, so I didn’t take those. The others were specially made for people with diarria in India. These are helping quite good and health has improved a lot.

Working with the India crew went a lot better than my health. The crew is quite capable and more inventive then I anticipated. Wijnand (a colleague of mine that is working with the India time for some time now) has learned them a lot of important things that they actually put to practice and they saw the holes in the original design I made as I hoped they would.

Unfortunately the new Senior Developer hasn’t shown himself yet. I hope he does next Monday. We will see. The other new crew member that has been trained in house is performing like expected of a junior developer. The crew is very supportive to each other, but needs to discuss more than I have now seen. I hope the code review session of next Tuesday will help to stimulate this.

When I arrived in Pune almost 1 and a half week ago I had my first night in the Corinthins Club Hotel. In the previous post you already saw same pictures of it. On Wensday the 4th of February I moved to my apartment. Here I will stay until the 15th of may.

The apartment is quite nice and so are the facilities, the only thing that I don’t like is the smell in the apartment and it took some time to get rid of it. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to post the smell.

On Thursday Nicole and I were invited to go to a special “town” where a part the traditional Indian culture is shown. We had a lot of fun and tried a lot of new things like a Bull Ride and some foods.

Images of the entrance of the cultural village and the fisrst dancer.

Nicole is getting a Hand painting and hitting the gong.

A female making traditional Rotti and the restaurant where we ate.

There was a female dancer with a pot of fire on her head that she kept level all the time. Also a dancer that picked up a needle with her eye. That looked very grouse and I’m glad I didn’t take a picture of that.

On the Friday after that I got sick. I got a bad case of diarria that ruined Saturday. I also had a little fever with it so I stayed in bed all night. On Sunday I was initially feeling better so Wouter (a Ducth colleague of ADP) and I went for shopping. After that we went to see a movie (Outlander). I got real sick just before it started, but continued to watch the movie, during which it went a little better. Movie was nice, not really special.

Today is already the second day in Hydrabad, full of presentations of the ADP India team. Besides the presentations we also had a little time on the work floor of ADP Hydrabad talking about their monitoring systems and seeing it in action. It all look very professional, even more than I see in our own department.

Picture of the ADP Building in Hydrabad.

The most interesting part of the day for me was the presentation of the Microsoft Interest Group, which I immediately joined, off course. They were the people responsible for reviewing the code that was created in Pune. I now understand where they get their expertise.

It is unfortunate that we didn’t have time for a closer look at Hydrabad. It seems a interesting city. The differences in lifestyles between rich and poor is clearly visible and I’m told it’s even worse in Pune.

After the meetings we went to the airport. Do to time shortage we had to take a quick bite to eat at the airport. We embarked on a propeller driven airplane, a first for me. The flight was very comfortable.

Nicole leaving the hotel.

Arriving in Pune at nighttime didn’t give any proper opportunity to make any pictures of the airport. It is not as nice as the airport in Hydrabad, but better then we have seen in Delhi.

Whilst driving to the hotel we were confronted by a parade that was going on. A lot of drums were played and the road was very crowded. At home the street would be close, but here the traffic got through some way, as did we. I took some pictures, but because of the darkness there isn’t much to see.

The hotel was quite different from any I visited before, it was more some kind of resort. We had a cabby take us to the hotel reception for check-in. The rooms are very large and nice, even larger than the previous.

As you may have noticed I’m a little behind with the blog. I have been so busy with settling in the apartment an work that there was no time. I will try to make it up in the next comming days. Dates will be in sync with text, but not with posting time.