India 2012: The Driver

Recently, I've come across many articles about the Indian Driver, the loneliness, the monotony. It's a waiting game for them: waiting for fares, waiting for customers, waiting for hours on end sometimes. I guess it's 'worth' it if these drivers are waiting for a paying fare, but what in the world would YOU do all day if you had to wait for someone for 8 hours? I'd take on extra fares, but that can go terribly wrong if your paying fare decides to call you early. Personally, I'd go crazy if I had to wait around for someone, doing absolutely nothing. The lack of brain stimulus would do me in.

However, long waits are at least paid waits, and this is much preferable to scrambling for fares, competing with other drivers, but not too much to drive down the cost of the fare (if the customer isn't crafty enough to get the meter price). Auto and taxi drivers will even offer to 'wait for free' when they're having slow days.

And it's exactly this waiting that blows my mind, or rather the significance of this waiting: time is cheap. Of course, not everyone's time is cheap in India, but for these drivers, it's their most abundant resource. True, time is not limitless, but in a day, a driver has 24 hours, which he doesn't have to pay for, meaning the cost of going 20km in 30 minutes versus a period over 4 hours remains nearly the same when there isn't any potential for other fares.

Oh drivers...

Kangaroos and Boomerangs

Okay so the closest thing I got to a kangaroo was 'Essence of Kangaroo" in pill form at the airport, but I did see a lot of souvenir boomerangs. And a surprising amount of Sydney for being there for business meetings. One thing that was heartbreaking was that I was invited to the opera on Friday night...the same night that I was taking a flight to Melbourne. Sigh...next time?

Australia is pretty awesome. It's a tad like the US in that it was kind of founded on the same grounds around(ish?) the same times. The big difference is that I suppose we fought for our freedom, and Australia is still part of the Commonwealth. Also, I heard a surprising amount of penal colony jokes. Quaint. Another thing that is kind of frapping (you know what is the the English equivalent of frapping? not shocking, not stunning, hmmm) is that there are so many Asians. It makes sense seeing as Australia's nearest neighbor is Asia. In Australia, the region is called "Australiasia" WTF! HAHAHA

Because of the mining and perhaps the fact that it's so isolated from everywhere else, Australia weathered the 2008 financial crisis rather well. That and China's government when on rampant spending spree to prop up it's economy and thus bought a whole bunch of natural resources from Australia. And what's the most apparent sign of this mining wealth - the good wages but expensive prices of everything. It's rather surprising just how expensive food, cabs, everything is.

But this is definitely mitigated by the FANTASTIC QUALITY OF LIFE in Australia. Not bad you Aussies!

So yes, I saw a bridge, an opera house, a few wharves and harbors. AND I even saw some big o' manufacturing plants!

Damn you, you delicious hot as hell chicken wing!

Then I got on a plane to Melbourne, which is a total college town. Whereas Sydney seemed more refined, Melbourne (or at least the parts I saw) seemed younger, buzzing with life. There are tons of restaurants and bubble tea places, pie shops, churros galore!

The inner suburbs can be compared to the cute neighborhoods of Brooklyn...but not really. A little more small town, Philly? Not sure. But lots of fun.

And then I rode on some old roller coasters and bruised my shins up and down. Fantastic fun.

All in all a great introduction to a land far far away.

Next stop: NEW YORK! And then Dubai :)

India: Gap in India Life

Ya, it's been awhile. But it was because of work travel! So updates (and some pictures to come)

Australia is kind of awesome!