Friday, July 18, 2014

Jakarta Diaries : 9 : Return

We went to Bandung on Saturday, and Sunday was reserved for shopping, packing, as I had a flight on Monday. I did some shopping of small souvenirs, gifts for relatives, and friends, as this was my first trip abroad.

In India, although picture is changing pretty fast, but a trip abroad is still a special thing. My father went on a business trip to Japan, a few years ago, and it was big news. Some relatives who came to know about later, were furious on us asking why didn't you tell us before? 

Since I belong to IT industry, it was obvious that I would go on site some day or the other. But as they say in industry, first on site is always special. And I can say yes it is. I really enjoyed my time here. People in my office, who are used to travelling, now, could tell from my excitement that this was my first trip.

Work wise, I learnt a lot. I saw many new places and enjoyed it. Since I had to leave alone for one month, I had to cook for myself, and that enhanced my cooking ability.

Technology has made a lot of things very easy. Google alone has provided most of the useful applications. Google maps to navigate through places across the world. Google translate to communicate in many languages. You can download a specific language pack required, and run it offline. I don't know about the grammatical accuracy, but it came in handy while communicating and negotiating with the taxi drivers.

The basic Google functionality, to search about anything has revolutionized the world. I wonder how people have traveled and explored the world without these applications. I salute to both kind of people, those created these technologies, and those who survived without these.

Watching a lot of movies also helps in a way. You see scenes on airports, immigration checks, days in a foreign country, that there is readily developed sense of familiarity with all these things which otherwise scares people.

I returned via Kuala Lumpur again. My second flight from Kuala Lumpur to Mumbai was delayed by an hour. It was really boring hour in the waiting lounge. After taking off, the weather troubled us a lot. The thoughts about the missing Malaysian Airlines plane MH 370 were playing in everyone's mind.

As we were behind scheduled time, we had to circle around in Mumbai for some time, and I kept guessing the places visible from my window. After spending enough time in air, my flight finally landed in Mumbai, and I returned to my India. :) 

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