Jaipur

I spent three days in Jaipur visiting friends, seeing Jaanya running around and do some serious shopping.

Lakshmi Narayan (aka Birla) Temple at the foot of Moti Doongri fortress

Of course, there was also business and I went to see our local dealer and the construction where they will start a new outlet on the highway to Mumbai this year.

MAN Mobile Service

Happily, I also got all my favorite food: bruschetta at Little Italy's, roasted potatoes by Chhavi and fresh Mangos at Sankalps home.

Yellow Mangos

Chennai

After a layover stop in Bangalore, I landed with two colleagues in Chennai (aka Madras) in the evening. The Hilton sent a car to pick us up and brought us to the hotel. We got nice rooms and checked out the pool and health centre. Unfortunately, it was already too late to jump in as they were preparing the evening bar on the roof top. So we decided to meet later in one of the restaurants where we enjoyed a great Italian buffet.

Hilton Lobby

my room

The next morning, I tested the roof top pool - very refreshing and a great view.

pool

Later, our conference on Megatrends Commercial Vehicle India started and we attended the different sessions. In the afternoon, I skipped the sessions and went to see some local dealers with our business manager. We visited the MAN dealer, Mahindra Navistar and our biggest customer before we returned to the hotel.

On the way, there was a lot of construction ongoing for a new metro line and I saw a lot of Volvo and Ashok Leyland buses. Especially, articulated buses fascinated me as they are not common in India.

Ashok Leyland Vestibule bus

The next day, we spent only at the conference in the hotel, but on Friday we had to be ready very early to go to the Daimler factory. Daimler has built a factory for light & heavy duty trucks near Chennai and will star selling trucks under the new Bharat Benz brand by September.

From the bus we could see not only the usual traffic but also some temples.

We returned to the hotel in the afternoon and I took another dive into the pool before heading off in a BMW 3 Series to the airport. From there I took a flight to Delhi and then a Volvo bus (not as good as last year:-( ) to Jaipur.

View on Chennai

Pune

Every morning a company van (Force Traveller) picked up all the MAN colleagues staying at the hotel. During our stay more and more showed up: accounting, IT, marketing and product strategy.  Same way we got back after six in the evening. The working week here is Monday to Saturday so we joined our Indian colleagues on sixth day.

The first days, we kept on clicking all the scenes that we could from the car.

cows in the street

camels, too!

But with time passing, we retired of this task a bit and started reading the local newspaper.

Garbage trucks we saw mainly on sundays.

Sugar cane wallah

Another way of transporting goods.

On our first weekend (mainly sunday) we went shopping, sightseeing and dining out. For more see the separate blog entry.

At the end of the second week I started visiting dealerships of MAN & competitors and had a look at their branding.

Friday evening, I spent with Saswati (an Indian colleague) and her husband talking, cooking non spicy Indian food & pancakes with Nutella and watching cricket. Next morning, she took me back on her scooter to work.

We stayed at the Royal Orchid Central. They offered exceptional and fast service: welcome, set up of internet, alteration of clothes and much more.

The hotel has three restaurants, but I tested only Pinxx for breakfasts and one dinner. It was okay but most of the times we ate at the mall opposite to the hotel or in the restaurants around.
We enjoyed also the pool and health centre. The hotel did send a car to pick me up from the airport and also brought us back there for our flight to Chennai.

Pune - sightseeing

The hotel organised a car for the six of us heading out for sightseeing. We started around 11 after a late breakfast and the longest night of sleep of my whole stay. 

Our first stop were the Pataleshwar Caves that were carved out in the 8th century but remain unfinished. In front of them is a shrine to Shiva and Nandi.

Despite the other tourists and a Volkswagen colleague, there were some Hindu worshippers.

From there we went to Shanivar Wada, the palace of the ruling family that was built in the early 18th century. Today only the outer fortification walls and some ruins within remain. As there are a lot of trees it is a favorite hangout place for couples and families.

Then we took a walk around the old city looking for some nice architectural structures.

Driving past the closed shopping street MG Road we made our way to the south of Pune and visited the Parvati Temple and hill. 103 steps lead up to the about 700 m high hill from where we had a great view on the city.

We finished the tour with a visit to Inorbit Mall. As most of the people have to work 6 days a week, sundays are used for shopping. The mall even had a Spar supermarket and a McDonald's.

In the evening we took a walk from the hotel to ABC Farms (next to Westin Hotel) and enjoyed a great diner there. Unfortunately, the Mosquitos also came for their dinner - us.

Indore

There was not much leisure time in Indore as we were busy organizing the first dealer event of MAN Trucks India Pvt Ltd. After some presentations we went to Pithampur for a plant visit.

On the drive, there were some classical situations - so here are the pictures:

Keep a god or guru with you!

Big trucks, small autorickshaws

2 horse(!)-power cart

MAN plant

Attention!

Before leaving the Radisson I took advantage of their sports facilities - jogging with a view on the surroundings and enjoying a swim in the roof top pool.

In the afternoon, I experienced a very quite Indore Airport that was nothing compared to the bursting and loud Mumbai Domestic where I spent half a day on my inbound flight. I got picked up by a hotel car and received a very nice welcome by the staff of the Royal Orchid Central Hotel.

In the evening, I met with colleagues and we went out for some food. They were very brave eating at a roadside Dosawallah. Luckily for me, we went also to a restaurant where I got some spicy wrap (I took a bite) and some less spicy chicken kebab (finished that). 

India - once again!

Less than two months ago, I returned from Canada and still not all blog entries are ready but will come for sure.

Now I am flying in the opposite direction and for the first time in my life in Business Class.

above the clouds

Destination: India

Purpose: Business (that's why it's called Business Class:-))

Itinerary: 9 April: Munich - London - Mumbai

10 April: Mumbai - Indore

10-12: Indore

12 April: Indore - Pune

12-24: Pune

24 April: Pune-Chennai

24-27: Chennai

27 April: Chennai - Delhi -Jaipur

28-30: Jaipur

30 April: Jaipur - Delhi/ Noida

30-1 May: Delhi-Noida

2 May: Delhi - London - Munich

JetLite to Indore

I will do some marketing activities for our Indian subsidiary: MAN Trucks India Pvt.

arrived at Indore

Any updates, pictures and interesting stories you will find on this blog - enjoy reading.