Valentine in the Land of Spices

Valentine has always been my unlucky day. You may just call me the valentine's bachelor if you wish. I was smacked on the face with a business trip to the land of spices, India. Not too happy about it, I landed in Mumbai on the 12Th, stayed one night with some of my colleagues, moved to Pune where we had to have some training in one of the IT subsidiaries of the company.


And the Evil Day comes...
Yes, It was the day of the 14Th, not too enthusiastic was I. I had far more important things to do that day. A day earlier we were introduced to two of our colleagues from India Sachin and Ravi and today they were at the hotel to escort us to the offices.

On our way to the offices we pass by an ice cream stand, one of those cheap ones. They called it a Kulfi stand and basically Kulfi was the name of the cheap homemade (more like street made) ice cream they did. Sachin insisted on us trying this Indian speciality ice cream and assured us that the cheaper it gets the tastier it is. and in fact that was true !

The offices were crammed, no AC, but allot of tea to drink. I believe that was the energy drink they all used to work. A couple of hours of discussion, checking email, MSN, and some blogs we were done for the day. By then it was 7pm, the smell of valentine has spread, you cant see a single guy or girl walking by the street. Yet, Ravi and Sachin sacrificed their valentine to tour us around Pune. Big thanks to Sachin for sacrificing his date with his wife, I really felt sorry for him, but according to what he told me Ravi "is too desperate to have a date".


Still not that enthusiastic, we were deciding on were to go for dinner, and how. Then suddenly the idea of experiencing India using the Indian's common ways of transportation pops in both Sachin and Ravi's minds. So we were asked to wait for a couple of minutes so that they come with their vehicles to pick us up. While they went to get their vehicles me and a colleague decided to ride a nearby Auto Rikshaw (those 3 wheeled motorcycle taxis) and have a quick experience. Never Had I thought that today would be one amazing day ! The Auto Rikshaw adventure was only part of the fun we experienced that day.


Suddenly we hear some engine roars of what it seems to be a motorcycle. Sachin and Ravi arrived, with a motorcycle each. Picked us up for one of the most amazing tours we had on the roads of India, the craziest roads I have ever been on. For 30 minutes we were just driving through the crowds, taking rights and lefts, taking pictures until we finally reached a restaurant. To our disappointment it was packed with daters. Finally we ended up in a low profile restaurant filled with losers like us.

Still not forgetting bout the online date, I arrived back at the hotel at 1am, ran to my laptop, switched it on to realize that the hotel Internet servers were down and told they'd be up tomorrow.

Yet, even though I didn't experience valentine as how it is supposed to be experienced, I had my greatest fun.

So how was your valentine?