The IT Nerd

So, after a uneventful flight from LAX to Toronto where I slept through half the flight, I am home. Nothing really happened on the flight per se. Plus the trip through customs was uneventful. So after a trip on the express bus that goes to Pearson Airport to Kipling Subway Station which is close to my home, I hit the bed to recover.

To put this in perspective, here’s a map of my travel over the last two weeks:

I basically circled the globe. That’s incredible from my perspective.

Now, to wrap up some loose ends:

• I have an appointment with my doctor this afternoon to look at my right ankle. I twisted it on my last day in India working out on the treadmill. It improved enough that I was able to make my way through airports pain free. But it flared up again during my only workout in Melbourne. Thus there’s clearly something wrong that needs to be looked at.
• I chipped my Zagg screen protector for my iPhone 5s when my phone slipped out of my hand getting out of my car in India. It’s chipped in one corner. But it’s better than the screen of the phone getting chipped. I’ll be getting an unlocked iPhone 6 shortly, so I won’t be replacing it.
• I lost my Sennheiser iPhone headset somewhere between Dubai and Melbourne. That’s unfortunate. I’ll see if I can replace them with something as good if not better next week.

So, to wrap this up, I would say that I am in a rare position to travel on someone else’s dime frequently. Sometimes that travel takes me to some very interesting places. I shouldn’t waste those opportunities as I may not get them ever again. That’s why I share my experiences with my readers as well. For me, it’s not just about serving up tips on how to travel and leverage technology. It’s also about trying got show off what this world has to offer. Because it has a lot to offer if you’re willing to sometimes go outside your comfort zone to see it.

I’d love some feedback. What would you like to see in these travelogues? What could I do better, or do differently? Drop me a note and let me know.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that there was WiFi on the flight from LAX to Toronto via American Airlines. It was provided by GoGo but I didn’t use it as it was rather expensive.

I just got off a 15 hour flight from Melbourne into LAX. It also gave me the chance to compare the Qantas A380 to the Emirates A380. Here’s my breakdown:

• Qantas wins in terms of room as there’s way more legroom on their A380 versus the Emirates A380. I was way more comfortable on the Qantas flight and I hardly noticed that I was on a plane for 15 hours.
• The infotainment system on the Emirates A380 was better. By that I mean it was more smooth and fluid when it came to navigating it. Having said that, there was an abundant amount of content on both.
• Noise and vibration was the same on both.

For me, lots of legroom is important so Qantas wins the battle of the A380s in my mind.

Now, after arriving in LA at LAX, I got the “joy” of navigating this airport. Here’s all I needed to do:

• Get off the plane.
• Pick up an “Express Pass” that allowed me to get quicker service at TSA checkpoints.
• Go through US Customs And Border Protection
• Pick up my checked luggage.
• Exit the customs area after being quizzed by customs again.
• Walk up to the connections area and drop off my luggage.
• Leave the terminal I landed at and walk to terminal 4.
• Go through the TSA checkpoint.
• Find my flight.

Boy that was fun. The fact that I have to exit security and go back through security is annoying. Oh yeah, I’ve travelled through this airport for years. While they are trying to update the decor, it looks the same as always. The good news is that LAX has free Wifi and the speed is pretty good. Not to mention that getting online was quick.

Next stop: Toronto via Pearson Airport. See you in 5 hours or so!

UPDATE: I’ve added some pictures of the Qantas A380.

Every seat had one of these screens. They are touch sensitive, but they aren’t as advanced as the ones in the Emirates A380. Meaning that it didn’t respond to smartphone/tablet type gestures that the Emirates A380 system used.

In the armrest is one of these controllers. You can control the functions of the infotainment system from here.

Today starts my journey home. I’m flying from Melbourne International Airport on a Qantas Airlines A380 to Los Angeles which will take 15 hours, and then flying an American Airlines 737 from there to Toronto which will take another five hours with a 90 minute layover in between. That means that I have a very long day ahead of me. And it started at 5 AM which is when I woke up so that I could finish packing, shower, and check out of the hotel. Even though my flight wasn’t scheduled for take off until 10:55 AM, I  wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time to check in and clear security.

Now the cab right that I took from the airport to the hotel cost me $110 AUD. So I decided to take a limo to the airport as that cost me $120. It was a 5 series BMW that was very comfortable. So much so in fact that I was nodding off in the car in the latter half of the 45 minute ride to the airport. Once there, I checked in, checked my bag, and got my boarding passes, and made my way to security. On the way there, I saw this:

This McLaren supercar which is built by the same guys who build their F1 cars was on display to promote the Australian Grand Prix this weekend. Too bad I’m not sticking around to see that. But I digress, I was heading for security and this million dollar car distracted me. But when I entered security, I was pulled out of line by security offices and my laptop bag along with yours truly was swabbed and then scanned with a trace portal machine for I presume drugs and or explosives. Now I observed them only pulling people out of the line who had dark skin (like myself) or who looked they were of the Muslim faith (for example, every woman with a hijab or Niqab was pulled out of line). For lack of a better description “white” people were not pulled out of the line. Witnessing this made me think that racial profiling was at play here. That’s very unfortunate on the part of the security staff.

So, after that, followed by the metal detectors and the x-ray machine, I reached passport control. Yes. for the second time on this trip I had to go through passport control to get out of a country. But unlike the last time, this one required no questions to be answered  and took 30 seconds. That was efficient.

So once out of security, I made my way the gate that was assigned to my flight. Fortunately, they make it easy for you to find your gate:

What was interesting was this:

They route you through these stores. Presumably because they hope that something catches your eye that you want to buy. I on the other hand found a restaurant and bought breakfast. Then I headed to the gate where I found this waiting for me:

This is the Qantas A380 that I will be flying to L.A. It will be interesting to see what the differences are between what Qantas has done with the A380 and Emirates has done with the same aircraft. I’ll report on that when I arrive in L.A.

One thing to note is that Melbourne Airport does have WiFi that is free. But you may have to re-log in every hour or so and provide your e-mail address and postal/ZIP code along with your birth date to do so. The other thing is that the signal strength can be flaky depending on where you are in the airport. But to be fair, they tell you that up front. They also have a paid service that can cost you up to $20 AUD for two hours of usage. But the free WiFi was good enough for me to post this story.

My next stop is LA and I’ll should be there in 15 hours. That should be fun.

I spent Sunday and part of Monday in the Melbourne CBD looking around and shopping for a handbag for my wife under her direction. I also snapped a whole lot of pictures and let you show you some of the pictures that I took.

First, I spent some time walking along the Yarra River with the Melbourne skyline the background:

From this picture, you can see the location where the Australian Open Tennis Championship is played: Speaking of sports, this coming weekend is the opening race of the Formula 1 racing season with the race at nearby Albert Park. I came across this display with a Ferrari Formula 1 car:

Also along with river is the Crown Melbourne Casino:

I also took a trip the Melbourne’s Chinatown. It is the longest continuous Chinese settlement in the Western World and one of the oldest Chinatowns in the Southern Hemisphere.

I came across some lion dancers while I was there:

Here’s a shot of Parliament for the state of Victoria:

The ferris wheel that you see in this shot is the Melbourne Star. Their answer to the London Eye.

Near the harbor is the Etihad Stadium which is the home to sporting events inculding Aussie Rules Football. It has a retractable roof that takes 8 minutes to close. I had lunch in the area as there’s all sorts of fine dining there:

On my way back to the hotel via rail, I noted the architecture of Southern Cross Station which reminded me of train stations in Europe:

Around the hotel that I am staying at, it has quite the nightlife outside. There’s a lot of restaurants, most of which reflect Melbourne Asian community:

That continues inside inside the arcade next to the hotel which includes a movie theater:

Clearly Melbourne has a lot to offer. I was lucky that I had the opportunity to see some of the sights. I’d love the chance to come back and see more. As it stands, I am here until early Thursday morning where I begin my journey home after two weeks on the road. Starting with my experiences flying home on a Qantas Airlines A380. That should be interesting to compare it to the Emirates Airlines A380. Watch for it.

Since I had Sunday and Monday with nothing to do (as Monday is Canberra Day), I have the opportunity to travel from my hotel to the Melbourne Central Business District where a lot was going on. To get there, I took Public Transport Victoria.

This is a myki card which can be reloaded and allows me to take trains, trams (streetcars), and buses. I borrowed one from one of the employees of the company that I am working for so that I could get around. But tourists can get them at hotels, hostels, and the like. I highly recommend that you get one and they have a deal for tourists to keep your costs down.

You can reload the card at these machines which accept coins, paper currency, or credit cards. Or you could go to the customer service kiosks at rail stations to reload your card. I did the latter.

Now my hotel is one block away from the Glen Waverly Train Station which goes to Flinders Street Station in the Melbourne CBD. This is the train that I took. It’s electric powered and operates in groups of three cars. It also operates underground.

You can easily walk through each three car section to find the seat that suits you. Each car has a pair of doors to separate them.

The trains have automated station announcements backed up by LED displays. You’ll also note the graffiti which is far more prevalent on this transit system than on the Toronto Transit Commission back home for example.

Forty five minutes later, I was at Flinders Street Station which is a large train station that has a very vintage feel to it.

What’s really cool about the Melbourne CBD is that they have a free tram service made up of these vintage trams that take you around the CBD and allow you to see all the key sights.

Just make sure you see this at the tram stop. Alternately, Melbourne has the most extensive tram network in the world with over 250KM’s of routes. You can use your myki card to get on and off them and explore the city.

A bit of Canadian pride here if I may. Melbourne is starting to put these Canadian made Bombardier trams into service. They’re similar to the ones that are going into service in Toronto.

Tune in later for pictures of what I saw during my tour of the Melbourne CBD. I have a lot of pictures to share with you.

While I’m staying in Australia, I’m staying in the  Novotel Glen Waverly. The facilities are more than decent enough. For example, they have an extensive breakfast buffet and good workout facilities that I am leveraging to help me to lose weight and get in better shape, and they’re next to an arcade that has a movie theatre and ample food choices. Plus, I’m near a rail station that will take me in the the Central Business District of Melbourne and near to an area that has a shopping center and lots of Asian restaurants.

First let me highlight some other good points:

This is the work area that I’ve set up shop in. It’s logically laid out and gives me lots of room to work from.

The entire hotel is non-smoking. Apologies to all the smokers out there, but I hate being in a hotel with you and I’m glad that you aren’t exactly welcome here.

Is there anything I could possibly complain about. Yes there is. Let’s start with this:

While it’s cool that this alarm clock has a 30-pin connector for your iDevice, I don’t think that this hotel got the memo that Apple has moved on from the 30-pin connector ages ago. Thus they should have some sort of adapter in the room for your Lighting connector based iDevices. Or provide a 1/8″ cable to connect up that way. Or better yet, have an alarm clock that has both connecters as those exist.

$4.50 AUD for a bottle of water? Really? I know that things are a bit more expensive down under. But I seriously doubt that they’re that expensive.

But those two things pale in comparison to the only thing that this hotel really needs to do something about. Internet access. By their own admission, only 25% of the hotel has WiFi access. If you’re not one of those lucky 25%, you have to hook up via Ethernet. Not the biggest deal in the world, unless you have a MacBook Pro with a Retina display, a MacBook Air or any number of ultra-portable PCs, all of which lack built-in Ethernet. Which means that if you don’t have a dongle that allows you to get Ethernet on one of those computers, you’re not getting Internet access in this hotel.

#fail

But to add insult to injury is the fact that Internet access is insanely expensive if you can get it. How expensive? Here’s option “A”:

Wow. That’s an insane cost for what you get. Now here’s option “B” in two parts. Starting with the 2 hour option:

Followed by the 24 hour option:

Who in their right mind would pay these prices? Even if I did want to pay these prices, I’ve heard from other guests that the access to the Internet is very, very slow.

#EpicFail

We’ll, fortunately for me, I have option C. For some reason, the Instant Hotspot feature didn’t work to connect my iPhone 5S to my MacBook Pro. I didn’t feel like troubleshooting that, so I went “old school” as it were:

1. On my iPhone 5S I clicked on settings.
2. I then went to Personal Hotspot and turned it on. I already have a password defined so I didn’t need to enter one. But you should enter one that is unique to you if you need to use this feature.
3. On my MacBook, I went to the WiFi menu and picked my iPhone 5S. It automatically connected in my case as I had used this feature before and the password that I referred to earlier was stored. But you may have to enter the password if that is not the case for you.
4. Done. Declare victory and have a beer. Which by the way, Australia has some good beers, but they’re on the expensive side.

I have 500MB a day via the Optus SIM card that I spoke about in my last post and I have not used anything close to that so far by just using my iPhone 5S. Thus going this route saves me money and I get a better Internet experience. And I am still not consuming all 500MB a day. At least so far.

#EpicWin

Now I should warn you that not all carriers will allow you to “tether” or share data between two devices. Thus if you’re traveling, make sure you ask before you buy the SIM card.

In the meantime, hotels like this one really need to get a clue. I don’t mind paying for Internet access. But these prices are insane and only having WiFi in a quarter of your hotel is equally as insane.

I set stuff like this up for a living. Take it from me. It really isn’t hard to provide free or cheap “all you can eat” Internet access and cover a building with WiFi. A call to a major telco will get you a fast enough pipe to the Internet at a price that will allow you to resell access at a fair price and make a couple of bucks. Or you could just build it into the cost of the room and call it “free”. Plus, deploying WiFi access points to cover your entire hotel isn’t that hard or expensive either. It just needs the right IT guy or company. By doing both, you take away an item for your guests to complain about. In my case, I’ve just written a blog entry on a blog that gets seen by thousands of people worldwide every day about how crappy and expensive the Internet access is in this hotel.

That’s not good if you’re Novotel.

Now later today and tomorrow, I am going to go into the Central Business District of Melbourne to look around. Expect lots and lots of pictures from that as this will be my only chance on this trip to play tourist. Expect a post about my experiences on Monday.

So, after 16 hours on two different aircraft (a Boeing 777 and a Airbus A380) I am in Melbourne Australia. Now I have to admit that I was dead tired when I stepped off the plane. However two things made up for it. First was Australia customs who had an automated system. Though I did fill out paperwork on the plane (one a customs and immigration declaration and another one relating to Ebola), here’s all I had to do to clear customs at the Melbourne International Airport:

Because I am on a list of pre-approved countries, I walked up to one of these self serve machines, inserted the photo page of my passport and answered a few questions. It then printed out a card with a magnetic strip and my name on it.

I then walked up to these machines making sure to stand on the foot prints, inserted the card with the magnetic stripe, looked at the camera in front of me and waited for the gates to open. After that I picked up my bags, handed over all my paperwork and I had cleared customs. If India’s visa and customs process was needlessly byzantine, Australia’s is the exact opposite. Kudos to them for making life easier for travelers.

Now from there, I went and got a SIM card from Optus because as I’ve said many times before, if you pay for roaming with a “big three” Canadian carrier, you’re paying way too much money. In my case, I am going to be here for five days so I got this deal:

• Local phone number with voice mail
• Unlimited text messages
• Unlimited calling
• 500 MB of data a day
• 4G coverage

Total price is $2 Australian a day which is slightly less than $2 Canadian a day. Since I’m here for 5 days, that’s $10. You’re never going to get anything close to that level of pricing with a “big three” Canadian carrier. That is why you should always travel with an unlocked phone. It will save you money and lots of it.

Now I took a cab to my hotel which is 45 minutes away from the airport and I managed to get this picture of the Melbourne Central Business District:

Accommodations are being provided by the company I am working for this week at the Novotel Glen Waverly which is south and west of Melbourne. I have only been here for a few hours and already I am not impressed by something. The Internet access. It is expensive and slow. So I am using the data plan from my iPhone to get around that even though I did buy $20 AUD of Internet access from the hotel which gives me 300MB or 3 hours whichever comes first as a backup. Needless to say, that’s a rip off. I’ll have more to say about that and a few other things about this hotel in my next report.

Seeing as Monday is a holiday in Australia, I will be exploring the city which is something that I didn’t have a chance to do in New Delhi. Some people from the company that I am working for this week are going to take me out on Sunday to explore the city for starters. But starting on Tuesday I will have two solid days of work before I leave for Canada on Thursday morning. Expect a write up about that as soon as I get over the jet lag.

So, after an uneventful flight from New Delhi, I am back in Dubai waiting for my connection flight to Melbourne Australia. Seeing as I had time on my hands, I wanted to give you an better idea of what this the Dubai International Airport is like. So I snapped a few more pics to add to the ones from the last time I came through this airport.  This is a very high end airport with a lot of rich clientele as evidenced by these pictures:

Yes, they actually had luxury cars that you could either win (the Bentley) or buy (the BMW). But really expensive stuff isn’t all that caught my eye:

If you travel with small children, Emirates actually provides free baby strollers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this at any other airport. Also, for the next 13.5 hours, I’ll be aboard this:

This is the Emirates A380 that I was impressed with when I flew from Toronto to Dubai. I’m looking forward to being on it again as it was really comfortable.

One more thing. I’m typing this using Skype WiFi combined with the Skype credits that I always have on my Skype account to get online. After the craptastic WiFi at Indira Gandhi Airport, I really liked being able to get online easily and have decent speed and good signal strength. But I said it when I was here a week ago and I’ll say it again. Free “all you can eat” WiFi would have been appreciated. Toronto has it. Why can’t Dubai?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to grab a bite before my flight and the next time you hear from me, I should be on the ground Down Under.

Leaving India was an incredibly Byzantine experience. Let me explain why I feel that way.

First, I checked out of the hotel and left for Indira Gandhi Airport five hours in advance. That sounds like overkill, but it wasn’t. It was absolutely required because when I arrived at the airport, I had to present my passport and my itinerary (Hint: Always print out your itinerary before you leave for the airport) to an Indian solider who was armed with an assault rifle just so that I could enter the airport. Behind him was another solider with an assault rifle scanning the crowd. Neither of them smiled. I would have taken a picture, but I figured that taking pictures of guys with machine guns would be a bad idea.

Once inside, I checked in and got my boarding passes. One for the flight to Dubai, and the other for the flight to Melbourne. That was easy. I then next had to follow this sign:

That seems straightforward. But the reality was that I had to go through passport control. Now you’re likely thinking “Passport control to leave a country?” Yes. In India you actually have to go through a passport control to leave. Thus I had to line up for 35 minutes to do so. There were two lines:

One line for the riff raff like me:

One for first class travelers:
After some questioning and poking around my passport, which comprised the same questions that I had to answer to get into the country such as “why did you come to India?” and “where did you stay?”, I was deemed worthy enough to leave the country. Bizarre.

This is what my passport looks like:

The red one is the stamp that allows me to leave the country. The blue one is the one I got when I came into the country. Once I was past passport control, I had to go past security. Not a big deal. I was in and out in a few minutes.

Total time: 90 minutes from the time I entered the airport to the time I exited security. Thus validating why you should leave for the airport really early.

Now the terminal does have a lot of upscale shops. Here’s a few examples:

Now upstairs there’s a food court. Though given I was at the airport at 1AM, most things were closed. Though I did find a coffee shop that was still open to grab a coffee and some food:

I also noted a that they actually had a smoking room. Seeing as I come from a country where smoking in public is almost verboten, that was kind of a shock:

Plus, if you travel with a laptop, you get a place to charge it:

In this airport, it pays to read the signs:

I did do some shopping. My trusty Rotring pen ran out of ink. So I got a couple of refills for the red and black in here:

Now this airport seriously needs a WiFi upgrade. It was flaky and unreliable. That pretty much makes it useless for travelers who seriously need it. Now you can get it for free if you give up your mobile number. That’s a fail because if you’re roaming, you’re going to get a few expensive text messages. In my case, the better option was to use Skype WiFi to get online. But that didn’t help me as the WiFi was so bad, it made posting this way more difficult than it needed to be.

Oh, the people who run this airport might want to update the decor at the gates as the 1970’s are way past over. Thus it makes their decor no longer cool.

So now I will board my flight and head to Dubai. I’ll have a few hours to hang out there, so I will leverage that to fully document the that airport. Stay tuned for that in the next few hours.

By the time you read this, I’ll be en-route from Gurgaon India to Melbourne Australia via Dubai. But I’d like to tie up some loose ends before talking about what’s up next for me.

First, let me cover the issue of using my iPhone 5S in India. As always, I recommend that you get an unlocked phone so that you can use a local SIM card when you travel because if you pay what the “big three” telcos in Canada want you to pay for roaming fees, you’ll pay too much. Way, way too much. Granted, you’ll lose access to your Canadian number. But you will save lots of money. In my case, the company that I am working for this week provided me a nano-SIM from Airtel for my iPhone 5s. Apparently it is a pay as you go SIM pre-loaded with 500 INR on it. That’s about $10 Canadian and I haven’t had any issues making phone calls or getting my e-mail. If you want to grab a SIM card of your own when you come to India, and you’re landing at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, there is an Airtel shop in the airport that can hook you up.

Now over to the status part. I found out a day or two ago that I am classified at the hotel as a “VVIP” which stands for “Very Very Important Person” which explains why I get special treatment from being queue hopped to people tripping over themselves to do anything from carry my bags to clean my room multiple times a day. Plus, every employee in the hotel bows towards me when I approach them and refers to me by name. I have to admit that I am a guy who would rather just go in, do my job and leave. I’m not the sort that goes for this treatment so I am kind of taken aback that someone sees me as being this important to warrant this level of treatment. After all, I am not someone like Barack Obama. I’m just an IT Nerd from Canada.

Third, let me cover the sights. I did mention previously that I am being dissuaded from touring the city. But that hasn’t stopped me from snapping some random pictures of the city of Gurgaon from the car that takes me back and forth from the hotel as well as out of the windows of the office that I am working from and from the hotel:

This is the building that the company I was working for this week is located:

There’s a few more pictures that I’d like to show you: When I work in my hotel room, this is my setup. Behind and to the left of my MacBook Pro, you can see my Olixar Travel Adapter With 4 USB Ports plugged in and charing my Belkin Travel Power Pack 9000. Further to the left, you can see the black case that holds my Western Digital 1TB Elements External Hard Drive which I am using to back up my computer. I am finding that a backup only takes less than 10 minutes and is as simple as plugging in the drive and waiting for a prompt to appear which asks me if I want to back up my computer. Several of you asked for a picture of the guard house and gate that is at the hotel. So here it is.

Here’s a better shot of the pool. It seems the pigeons are making better use of it than the guests. The entire time I was here, I never saw a human use it.

Here’s the workout room which aided my attempts to get back into shape. I am making incremental improvements in my cardio. Too bad my weight loss isn’t as going as fast as I would like. But any improvement is better than none at all.

Now, many readers have expressed concern that I am in a dangerous situation. I would say that I can understand your concern given what I have written so far. I do not feel that I am though at times I wonder if all the precautions that have been taken by the company I’m working for are required. This Wikipedia article combined with the fact that India has had previous brushes with terrorism suggests that they might be. It was certainly accurate when it comes to the frequent power outages as there were five on the day I left. But I will also say this. Everyone that I have interacted with at my hotel or the company I am working for this week has gone out of their way to make me feel welcome. Also, at no point did I feel that I was in any danger. I absolutely have no complaints about the way things have gone this week and the way I’ve been treated. The only thing that I regret is not seeing more of India other than what I’ve documented here. All that means is that I will have to return to do so.

Finally, I did get a case of “Delhi Belly.” Fortunately It passed in 24 hours. That’s a good thing.

The next part of this travelogue will detail my trip from Indira Gandhi Airport in New Delhi to Dubai, then from Dubai to Melbourne Australia. It’s a total of 16 hours in the air plus a layover of a few of hours in Dubai. So it will a long day on Friday. Watch for that update this weekend. Once I get my bearings back from flying for that long.