Max's Trip to India as Told by Max

At the end of July, I spent one week in India for business. I was there to support a manufacturing plant located just outside of Mumbai. It was a very interesting trip. This time of year in Mumbai is the monsoon season. The monsoon starts in May or June and goes until late September. During this time, the weather is almost the same everyday, it rains about 1-2 inches per day in periods of light and heavy rain. We were lucky and almost saw the sun one morning. The upside to the rain is that everything is green and growing and it keeps the heat down to 80-90 degrees. The downside is that it is very humid and often muddy.

My Indian colleagues were very friendly and welcoming. They welcomed us with a traditional ceremony that included placing a red dot on our foreheads, lighting a large oil lamp and presenting us with flowers.

While the people were extremely nice and welcoming, the amount of poverty was striking at times. There are people everywhere. We were located some distance outside of Mumbai and all along the roads were small tents or simple concrete buildings were people live. The amount of construction and road traffic was amazing. Large apartment buildings were being built everywhere and many road projects underway. However, with all of the rains, the conditions of some roads were poor at best. Often drivers would drive into oncoming traffic to avoid large potholes. As one of my Indian colleagues put it, if you can drive in India, you can drive blindfolded in the US. As you can see in the picture below, you are looking at the front of several trucks and our rearview mirror on the front windshield of our car. I am just glad we had a driver.

And on top of worrying about the trucks, there were many of the these 3 wheel minicabs on the roads. They don't go very fast and often carry 5-6 people.

Overall it was a great trip. The people were fantastic and the food was good and spicy. After a week there, it was good to come back to France. I am looking forward to wherever my next interesting business trip takes me.