Avoiding training across different time zones

India may well be 5 and a half hours ahead of GMT, but it is a completely different world.

The best way I can think of describing doing business in India is like this;
Think of everything you've learned, figured out, understood or even bullshitted about.  And forget it all.

This is a country where a shake of the head means yes, and a nod means no.  In some cultures.  In others it means the exact opposite.  Sometimes. There are something like 215 different cultures, and even more religions.  Each of which have their own rules and public holidays.  For example, there is one religion which forbids eating onions.  Another celebrates the "coming of age" of a woman by shouting it from the rooftops (well, the ones that weren't blown away by the cyclone) and dousing the foreheads of all and sundry with red paint.  And if you were to allow all the public holidays of all the religions, then the only working day would be Easter Saturday.

Nothing is as it first appears,  For example, our wonderful General Manager, who I will call Arji, loves tulips.  So I thought I would send her some as a surprise.  I searched online and found a website called www.talkingtulips.in.  They deliver flowers all over India (except the Himalayas apparently).  So I searched for tulips.  And this is what I got.

All the bank notes have pictures of Ben Kingsley circa 1982 on them, which is also puzzling, but after a while you stop questioning the absurdity of absolutely everything.  The average wage is less than INR100 a day (about £1.50).  You can hire a man and his "auto" (which is like a tuc tuc) for 3 hours for INR200 (about £3).  A bottle of the cheapest Indian wine costs INR400 (about £6).  And no, it's not as bad as you think.  It's worse.

Cows are sacred, and are allowed to roam the streets untouched, which is really cool.  No native Indian eats beef.  Which is odd because they can cook a brilliant steak.  And also makes you wonder how they cook beef if the cows aren't allowed to be touched.  Maybe now you're beginning to understand why I've got to the stage where it's best to not even ask.

Talking of roaming the streets untouched, I was trying to work out which side of the road Indians drive on.  So it seems were most of the Indian drivers.  It is a complete free-for-all.  The one and only rule I could work out was that you sound your horn when you are overtaking or heading for a straight-on collision.   The one with the biggest sounding horn wins.  As far as I could tell, brake lights are optional, motorcycle helmets are forbidden, and the more people/things you can get on a bike, the better.  We saw, in no particular order;

• 2 men with large MDF sheets balanced on their heads, supported by 3 of the 4 hands available
• A man with more than 60 pots and pans attached to the back
• A man with a baby who was steering whilst the man was texting on his mobile phone
• A man balancing two gas canisters
• A family of four
• A family of four with a dog in a bag
• A family of four with a dog on a lead running alongside

I'm sure you'll understand that this is more than enough to divert any normal person from even thinking of training for a triathlon.

However, to my credit, so far I managed to swim every morning and every evening.  And oddly enough, even get myself a bizarre swimming costume line tan in the process.

It appears that most Indians don't know how to swim.  And seem to think that swimming non-stop from one end of a pool to another without drowning is amazing.  They are absolutely gobsmacked when you can do more than one length without stopping for a samosa or two, so most of the time I had an audience of gawpers.  It was quite a nice feeling, being relatively good at something for a change.  That's probably the only reason why I swam so much.

Right, off to bed before the poor man pedalling like mad to keep the internet working goes for his break.