Year: 2010

Early Bird Rewards

At least two major virtual happenings, one that has massive implications on the future of the web, and the other, slightly more subdued, but not lacking in potential. The latter – Twitter Annotations, announced at Chirp, allowing developers to “add any arbitrary metadata to any tweet in the system.” You can take a look at the various possibilities here, here and here. The former – Facebook’s Open Graph, unveiled at the f8 conference, and aimed at making itself the centre of everything that happens on the www. A combination of plugins, developer tools, new markups which can make the user experience on any site that plays along increasingly personal, social, semantic, from plain hyperlinks to layered information. Already, one small manifestation can be seen at the bottom of this post – a Facebook ‘Like’ button, which will carry your liking of this post into your activity stream on Facebook. More and more data, not just what you do on FB, but outside as well, across the web. From what I read, smells like Google, perhaps worse, because the flow of information seems possible only through the Facebook conduit. A good round up of implications here.

When I returned from he break, and read up on these developments, my first thought, which i also tweeted was

And that’s the point of the post. During the break, the only network I was hooked on to was Foursquare. One of the things that happened, thanks to long waiting times in the Kolkata airport was that I became mayor of the neat CCD outlet just outside the airport complex.

CCD has completed the re-branding at this outlet (unlike the one inside the airport) and has done a decent job at establishing ‘conversations’ as the prime focus area, in terms of in-store design. The feedback posters, ‘snippets’ at each table and the ‘quotes’ design on the roof were nice touches. When I got back, I found a CCD account following me on Twitter. Seemed like a more synergistic effort after the earlier snafu.

It made me think once again about how alert brands need to be in such a dynamic scenario. If CCD were an early adopter, would they have braved the earlier storm better? What if they become active on Foursquare now, experiment with the new services being built on top of it – friendticker, snacksquare etc, still in their nascent stages. Or at least acknowledge their outlets on Foursquare and engaging the users. “@xyz congrats on becoming the mayor of our abc outlet”, and then build on top of that relationship. Won’t that help them gain some crucial evangelists in a new medium? If not evangelists, at least someone who will listen to their side of the story when something nasty happens? Wouldn’t they get a headstart on ‘authority’ by being an early bird?

Even the era of quick responses being a reasonable expectation seems to be blurring by fast. Perhaps brands are now required to have an advance scout mechanism, to test out new services, features, changes, understand the implications and see whether/how business and objectives needs to be realigned. Page Rank, Social Platforms at consumer and enterprise level, Social CRM, Location based services, tools and platforms keep shifting. Early adoption and balancing objectives with diverse ways and platforms of engagement may become an imperative. Multiple options, two way communication manifestos, its all changing real time. Hold on tight.

until next time, service level disagreements

April 29, 2010
Sikkim Day 7 – Up & Away

One more monastery before we left. We bade farewell to Mintokling and left for Enchey monastery, located within the town. It followed the same pattern as the other two we’d visited, the only exception being a lot of sleeping beings we found – a foreigner, a few dogs. The monk in charge was pretty rude when we almost stepped into an area inside the sanctum, we weren’t supposed to. We didn’t bother to point out that they should ideally cordon off that area, since there was no way to put a sign. Buddha really wouldn’t have minded.

As we reached the limits of Gangtok, I wished I could take a snap of the CCD outlet with arguably the best view among its kind. We left for the 4 hour drive to Bagdogra, and there was a sense of finality as we passed familiar places and checked them off, like a countdown. – Ranipool, Singtham, Rangpo, and then into West Bengal – Malli, Teesta, Rambi, Sivok, and finally Siliguri. We stopped at the newly opened mall for lunch, actually still under construction, but with a restaurant, a multiplex and a few shops operational. We thought we’d try the food court, but the elevator wasn’t working and climbing up 4 floors (still under varying degrees of construction) didn’t really appeal. The loos worked, but were also victims of rigorous testing by the construction workers. Prakash, our driver from the first 2 days, claimed that the legendary Pawan Chamling owned the mall.

The sudden shift from all the cold mountains to the stifling plains was very depressing, especially as we passed shanties and huge mounds of garbage as we continued from Siliguri to Bagdogra, in typical city traffic, where we shift to cm/hr measurements.

We’d been sent a message the previous day, asking us to report 2 hours in advance owing to congestion. They were right, the baggage check queue almost went out of the airport. Bagdogra airport was a revelation as far as standards went. International check in times, aside, this was one of those heritage airports, from the time IA/AI planes ruled the Indian skies. Utterly ill equipped, the staff seemed to be always paying homage to that era. Their security checks were indeed pertinent – one visit to this place and you’ll be very tempted to you-know-what-mentioning-which-could-get-me-into-trouble. The railway station ambiance was topped with a bunch of women, exceeding their baggage quota by 216 kgs (!!) and then shifting bags to cabin baggage/ putting them back like veg shopping. We sat waiting, and I got bored enough to check my mail. The place was so crowded that I stored this in my drafts “‘Opening a secure connection. Content cannot be seen by anyone else’ does not include the guy looking over your shoulder.”

We finally took off, about 20 minutes late. Our plans to make a quick dash to the Howrah Bridge from Kolkata airport were dashed, as the taxi operators weren’t sure of getting us back in time. So we sat in the CCD outside, and drank in the airport sights at dusk, quite an ironical finale to a vacation, as though helping us make the transition to routine.

Sikkim proved a decent trip – for me, vacations are in the mind, and a different setting can only help. Despite a few niggles, there’s no reason to follow the advice of one of the drivers ahead of us, on the way from Gurudongmar.

The single biggest thing for me was regaining the motivation to continue that book, for whatever it’s worth. But for now, we seem to have developed a 3M fatigue – momos, mountains, monasteries, so maybe its time for a break from that. Like I told Mo, we were carrying the Leh baggage, and it will always be a difficult gold standard to measure up to. But having said that, there was a coincidence that seemed to me like the Joker character introduction in Batman Begins. The first chapter of the book I was reading was set in Tibet, at the exact same place mentioned in the first bottle of water I got during the journey.

Maybe, someday………….. 🙂

PS. For those interested, we customised a tour with Yak & Yeti

April 29, 2010
Sikkim Day 6 – Sikkim Pop and Zero Point Someone

The room did have a nice view from the window, but it was better from the balcony. The only snag was reaching the balcony, as the door refused to budge. I remembered my erm, MBA education days when I jumped out through the window (we did that during a few lectures) and opened the door from outside. It was worth it, as always. 🙂

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqT3gUvxs-s

We left the hotel by 7, after a hurried breakfast, to see the famous rhododendrons in Yumthang, and to visit Zero Point, where all roads apparently ended. Yumthang was only about 25 kms away, and as we climbed further towards Yumesamdong, the flowers changed their color from purple to red to a pale pink. Apparently there are about 10 different versions. The driver made us listen to Sikkim pop, and even a Nepali song, the latter reminding me of early 90s Bollywood.

We finally arrived at Zero point well over a couple of hours later. It turned out to be the Himalayan version of Kumbh Mela, with potential participants of music reality shows belting out everything from Shammi Kapoor to SRK hits, and generally going crazy at what perhaps was their first encounter with snow. Alcohol is freely available, thankfully so is coffee, though it stays hot for less than a couple of minutes.

The driver said that there was a proposal to build a road from here to Gurudongmar, but the Lachen guys stopped it with a petition. Tibet is less than 50 kms away. We returned, and stopped at Yumthang for what appeared to be the driver’s brunch, and watched while people irritated a yak and almost got gored in return. We made a brief stop at the hotel, and after a quick lunch, started our trip back to Gangtok. The driver estimated a 5 hour journey, which actually turned out to be 6. We also saw this interestingly named place on the way back to Chungthang. Sometimes life does seem like a

We passed the tourist points we’d halted at earlier, but thanks to the rains, they had absolutely no crowds. The driver, to our irritation insisted on following another driver, who was painfully slow. He also educated us on the pitfalls of shared cabs, as each passenger had his own tastes and harassed the drivers on where to stop, and not stop. At Naga falls, he seemed to give up on his companion, and told his passengers that he had seen their driver drinking. If we weren’t in a hurry, I’d have loved to stay and watch.

We hurried because though the rope way seemed a lost cause, we thought we’d roam around Gangtok a bit more and maybe drop in a Lal Bazaar again. The driver, though, was glued to his mobile, after having been out of a network for the last couple of days (the network is practically non existent long before Chungthang) I think he let all his near and dear ones know we hadn’t done him any harm, though the chances in those last few kilometres to Gangtok were pretty high. A Buddhist with a liking for Hit beer, our driver.

We finally reached Gangtok at 7.30, and after getting dropped back at Mintokling, decided to check out the last place in our list, for dinner. Arthur’s, on Tibet Road, another place recommended online, almost opposite Cafe Live & Loud, turned out to be a near replica of Allen’s Kitchen, but a few rungs lower in terms of character. While we waited for the food, we heard the owner tell a friend of his who had arrived just then, that if she’d come a few minutes earlier, he might have left immediately, because there was a large group of South Indians. Meanwhile, we leafed through magazines and found one with Charukesi’s Sikkim article, as the owner came over and asked us where we were from. 🙂

The chilly pork was quite good, as was the Chicken Thupka. The article too. Prices are very reasonable. We decided to pay another visit to Baker’s Café, found it closed, and went to our backup option – Cacao. It had only one other group, and we sat watching the street on our last night in Gangtok. Peaceful.

April 28, 2010
Sikkim Day 5 – Amitabh Falls and Feats at 17100 ft

This was the big day, the day we would visit the lake at 17100 feet – Gurudongmar. The driver said that the earlier we started, the better. Our versions of ‘early’ obviously didn’t match, and we left, with me still in REM mode, at about 5 AM. For the record, that’s practically the day before, not early morning.

But the views of the sunrise, as we moved past heavily wooded mountains was worth the early start. We stopped at Thangu for breakfast – eaten in a tiny ‘hotel’, as we warmed ourselves next to the stove. Breakfast consisted of Maggi noodles with loads of chilies. Thangu also serves as the first loo break. I use the word ‘loo’ very loosely here, it is a shack with a hole in the ground, hopefully with some moving water way down that will ensure that you don’t get to know the intricate details of what the previous occupant had the day before. Thangu also has a military camp, and a tourist guest house, where, the driver said later, he had picked up a trio of Dutch cyclists a few days back. (they cycled till there from Chungthang!!)

The next stop was at Gaigong, where the military guys checked our papers, and warned our driver to refrain from using his army fatigues style jacket. They didn’t notice my umbrella. Immediately after Gaigong, we noticed some yaks having their breakfast.We moved on, and gave a lift to the yak owners. We dropped them off a while later, at a place which offered no shelter from rain or sun. The driver said he pitied them, because they were refugees from Tibet, who hadn’t even seen Gangtok. They survived on yak milk, and provisions the army sometimes gave them.

The terrain was barren, but breathtakingly beautiful, literally. The driver advised us to munch on popcorn we’d purchased at Thangu, as its smell apparently boosts the metabolism. Ok. We raced with another cab and had fun climbing the last 1000 feet.

I asked the driver where the name Gurudongmar came from and characteristically, he gave me his own bizarre explanations. I was tempted to give it right back to him with an equally bizarre ‘Guru -Dong – Mar’ version, based on ‘Tehelka’, the Bollywood film. (featuring Amrish Puri as Dong, and Dilip Dhawan – ‘Guru’ in Nukkad. Amrish Puri actually kills him after this song. Mar. Note that the film also deserves credit for the first use of the Avatar hairstyle in Bollywood)

Gurudongmar is quite a beautiful place, and has many stories associated with it, as I learned from the military camp at Gaigong later. Drinking the water from the lake is supposed to help women conceive. Also, one part of the lake, apparently marked by the Guru in question at the behest of locals who needed drinking water, remains unfrozen even in the coldest winters. The lake is at 17100 feet, and you tend to struggle for breath sometimes, but if you have erm, enough airs, you can take a walk around the lake, while watching most people participate in a puke fest. I was afraid for D, but she seemed strict about her retch workout timings.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCH9r08i4G0

The return journey was relatively uneventful, though we detoured a bit for the Chopta Valley view. Photography is prohibited in military areas, and the driver raced ahead when I asked for a single shot of the ‘café at 15000 ft. We got back to Lachen by 1.30, and after lunch, immediately set out for Lachung, 50 odd kms away. Bollywood refused to leave me as the stereo played a remix of ‘Saat samundar paar’ from Vishwatma!! Awesome! The only tourist attraction was Bhimtala falls, according to the driver, who also said it was more popularly known as Amitabh Falls, because of its height.

We reached Lachung by 5.30, and settled ourselves in a room with a view, and I started reading “Chasing a monk’s shadow”. Dinner was significantly better though D refused to the chicken, after her nocturnal adventures of the previous two nights.

April 27, 2010
Sikkim Day 4 – Seven Sisters and the Houses of Lachen

Before we left Gangtok, we thought we’d take another shot at the rope-way. We reached there, sharp at 9.30 -opening time, and as should be expected from any self respecting government run set up, they claimed that routine maintenance would ensure that it opened only by 10.30.

We couldn’t wait, for this was the day we began our journey to North Sikkim…with a driver who went by several names.. and surnames – Bhutia, Denzongpa. In turn, he was confused by our itinerary, until we told him, we’d pay extra for our trip to Zero Point later.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItOVTAtJY30

The first stop was Tashi view point, from where, on cloudless days, one could see Kanchenjunga. Dark clouds loomed in the horizon, literally, and we saw the gurudwara at Gangtok, less that 10km away through a telescope, for Rs.10. And from there began the ‘Bone Awareness Drive’. The roads, which even on their best days, wouldn’t offer much solace, were more like rivers thanks to the rain. The Mahindra Maxx waded and bounced across them, introducing us to new sights and hitherto undiscovered bones at every turn. D reminded me that we could end up with a Wonderla experience. My back wished I was back in the hotel bed, but the scenic view made up for all of this.

The rain meant that the tourist’s attraction was more for the toilets provided at the scheduled tourist stops. The next stop was the ‘Seven Sisters’ waterfall. Our own waterfalls cost us Rs.2 each, the dowry has to be paid for, after all, I grumbled.

Phodong monastery was relatively more peaceful, with monks munching away at the local version of Lays. This guy seemed to have some food for thought though.

We had lunch at the Hotel Kanchendzonga, so named because they took a fancy to it, not for any view. Simple, but effective meal. Mangan was the next break, but the erm, tourist attraction was the garage, where our driver had a few repairs done on the brakes. Then came the Naga falls. Falls count anywhere as tourist attractions, it seemed, judging by the crowds, though the roads practically served as waterfalls anyway. We got lucky at the Singhik view point, beating the rain by a few minutes. Amazing view.

By the time we reached Chungthang, it was 6.30. From there the road split – left to Lachen, and right to Lachung. We’d left Gangtok for Lachen, so we began the climb with the fast setting sun as our companion. The 30 km took us about 2 hours.

The driver discussed how tourists were spoiling Sikkim’s ecosystem by littering and not even acknowledging the ubiquitous garbage disposal bins. From there we moved on to philosophy, the pace of life and respect for human lives in cities, and how even cows were now contemplating why they were crossing the road at night. The last one was important, because they chose to do so in the middle of the road, and narrow roads meant we had to coax them to finish the job and then contemplate. Horn vs. horn.

Lachen had homestays disguised as hotels. We reached there at about 8.30, and had a simple meal, right in the kitchen, followed by sleep in a strictly functional room (with clean loos) I stretched out and completed ‘The Immortals of Meluha’, while D woke at 2.30 and chose to retch, such was her gall.

April 26, 2010