CAT | work
Flying back on the first flight back to Malaysia this morning after meetings in Manila. When I arrived in the lounge there was clear weather but then suddenly this thunderstorm moved in…
View of the thunderstorm from the lounge
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Last evening the trip continued to Hong Kong where I’m holding a training and have customer meetings. I’m going to be here all week for this and will continue to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday since I have a meeting there on Monday.
Hong Kong is extremely hectic as usual but it’s hard not to like the city with it’s skyscrapers, nice weather and good places for camera and electronic shopping.
Landed in Taipei around lunchtime. Only staying to tomorrow evening when it’s time to go to Hong Kong, but at least there are some time to prepare for tomorrows meetings. Also managed to have dinner in Taipei 101.
Not the best work environment
It’s time to go back to Bangladesh for the third time to hold a series of customer workshop. Last time I was there I ended up staying a extra day due to a faulty airplane. This time I’m supposed to be there for 4 days together with Magnus. We also decided not to stay inside central Dhaka which can be fairly busy (especially the traffic is crazy). So, this time we went for Radisson SAS which is located between our office and the customers office.
The boat
Not to hard work
Beautiful day and perfect weather
Today I got the chance to sail with the Ericsson boat from the last Volvo Ocean Race down in Abu Dhabi. It’s a really cool experience to be on-board one of these highly streamlined competition boats. There are virtually no dead weight and everything is build in a way to maximize performance and minimize weight.
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Feels like the wild west when they ask if you carry a gun before a meeting...
Barbwire or electric fencing on every house
So, after being back in Dubai for 12 hours it was time to take the taxi to the airport to go to Johannesburg, South Africa. After a eight hour flight and some problems with the hotel booking I was able to go to sleep fairly late. The next day was filled with customer presentations so not much time to do anything (you wouldn’t go out anyway…).
When I arrived back at the hotel the next day the door to the room next to mine was broken up with a crowbar… Not the best feeling of security.
As usual there was no time to see anything besides the usual trip between the hotel and the office, but having traveled a lot the last weeks I was happily surprised when I was able to get a earlier flight home so that I landed Thursday night rather than Friday morning. There has been a lot of 6 day workweeks the over the last year.
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Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, not the same during winter...
Copacabana Beach
View of Rio
View of Sugerloaf Mountain taken from Corcovado
Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado mountain, appearing from the mist
Thursday was a early morning, I had to go up at 0430 AM to get to the airport to take a flight to Rio for the customer meeting that we had been preparing for during Tuesday and Wednesday. The flight left from Congonhas (CGH) which is one of those airports that are heavily criticized for different safety problems. In Congonhas case it has to do with slippery runways which caused a big accident back in July when a landing plane skidded of the runway and crashed into a warehouse killing more than 180 people.
After having a customer meeting in Rio during Thursday, my colleagues continued back to Sao Paulo. Since the weekend was starting in Dubai and my flight didn’t go back to Dubai until late Friday evening I stayed behind in Rio to do some sightseeing during Friday. The weather wasn’t the best since it was still spring in Rio so you didn’t really see any of the hectic life around Copacabana Beach which you are used to seeing on movies and on pictures.
Still, I rented a taxi for a couple of hours to drive around in Rio and despite the weather I managed to see some of the more famous sights in Rio, and especially Christ the Redeemer which was voted as being one of the New Seven Wonders of the World back in July, 2007. I think it was actually the first time I had a unbooked extra day whilst traveling so it was nice to be able to see something else than airports, hotels and meeting rooms.
Having spent a full week back in Sweden hunting, I was supposed to do some work in Sweden also. This however got changed on Friday and I was requested to go to Brazil next week to do a demo for a potential customer. So, trying to get the trip organized I made some new bookings so the return trip to Dubai went over Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
This also meant that the flight for Brazil left at 0530 on Monday morning with a transfer in Paris. And with some standard delays I ended up running through the terminal and jumping all the security queues to be able to get on board in time.
You realize that South America is a long way from Europe after spending roughly 15 hours traveling before reaching the destination. Since I had to work first thing the day after I had booked a hotel close to the office and took a cab straight from the airport to the hotel. The general recommendation was not to walk between the office and the hotel after dark due to the high crime rate, even though it only was 1 km between the two places…
Since I had been for vacation in Sweden, I hadn’t brought any suites or black shoes so after the first day of preparations I had to make my way to the local shipping mall to find dark trousers and a pair of black shoes to have something to wear for the customer presentation.
Redundant power is always important...
Auto rickshaw
Townships in Mumbai
The hotel was nice
Poor people in India are extremely poor
This week it was a hectic schedule planned:
- Fly from Dubai to Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Fry from Sri Lanka to Mumbai, India
- Fly from Mumbai to Jakarta with stopover in Singapore
- Fly from Jakarta to Dubai with stopover in Kuala Lumpur
- Ship dogs to Sweden
- Fly from Dubai to Langkawi, Malaysia with stopover in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur
Had to hold presentations and demos for 4 different customers in three countries spread all over Asia this week. First stop was Colombo in Sri Lanka. The country seems to be a good place to do vacation in if it wasn’t for the Tamil tigers who are making a stir in the country. There where a lot of checkpoints and military presence in the capital.
Next stop was Mumbai, India where I met with two customers before taking the night flight to Jakarta, Indonesia. At this time I had started to develop a serious cold and I was basically sitting and freezing and sleeping all the way from Mumbai to Jakarta. Landed att 10 in the morning and immediately took a car to the customer so that I could join in the meeting 15 minutes late. After lunch it was time for my demo and once the meeting was concluded I basically went back to the airport and managed to get a earlier flight to Kuala Lumpur which seemed to be a better airport to be in waiting for the flight back to Dubai.
I arrived back in Dubai on the night between Thursday and Friday. The day was then spent preparing for shipping the dogs back to Sweden. This means doing vet examinations, getting the paperwork in place etc. On Saturday it was then time to ship the dogs so we assembled the cages and went down to the cargo village to finish the last paperwork and ship the dogs. Irritatingly enough it turned out that shipping the dogs back to Sweden was roughly twice the price compared to shipping them to Dubai. Anyway, after sending them the worry started and we kept in constant touch with my parents to make sure that everything should run smoothly upon arrival back in Sweden.
This however did not go all that smoothly, as it turned out there where a lot of trouble once the dogs actually arrived. As per idiotic bureaucracy of course the dogs needed to be declared for VAT purposes (even though they where shipped from Sweden just 8 months earlier). Also, additional money had to be paid for vet examination, paperwork etc.
Overview from Frescati city center towards Rome
Overview from Frescati city center towards Rome
Yesterday I went to Rome to have a meeting. It was really refreshing to leave the hot and moist summer of Dubai and land in Rome where the temperature was much cooler and the first thing you felt leaving the airport was a soft breeze from the ocean.
The venue was Frescati which is a suburb to Rome and I must say that I really like Italy. It’s a bit hard to get by with only English but they have great food and good wine all nicely tied in with a excellent landscape and a lot of history.