Industry day! I was so excited to go visit a manufacturer and see what happens before the product gets to me in the pharmacy. Well, it was a bit of a disappointment. First off, we left super late, which is super typical, but when I was up at 6 to be ready and we didn't leave until after 9, I was not happy about that lost sleep. Anyway, we visited Vitma Laboratories, which was about an hour away. The bus had no air conditioning so we had to drive with the windows open, and people really liked to yell at us, talk to us, and beg for money through those open windows, which made for an interesting ride through the city.
Once we arrived, we were told no pictures, which is understandable. But then we couldn't have our bags, which made everyone nervous. We all carry our valuables with us so nothing happens to them, and now we have to leave them on the bus? That bus driver could become a rich man taking off with that bus. We obviously had to abide, but were not happy with it.
The facility was much newer looking than I expected judging by the area it was in - rural country. We learned that is is accredited by the highest international standards, including the U.S. FDA. It was an extremely clean facility, and I was super excited to get the tour started!
Well, shortly after beginning, I was kind of disappointed. Not because of anything wrong with the facility, but just because it wasn't what I was expecting. I thought we were going to a manufacturer, to see the production of the products we supply our patients with every day, but instead we were visiting a laboratory that does quality and assurance testing of the products from outside vendors. Anything they had that involved drugs, we weren't allowed to see. They got our hopes up when they told us we were going to do a lap of the animal testing lab where they do pre-clinical trials, but then we weren't allowed inside. Upon conclusion of the tour, we went back into the conference room where it began so the VP (I think) could talk to us. He told us if we were interested in pursuing a career with Vitma, to send him our CV and provided us his email, which was extremely generous. However, upon inquiry of how many pharmacists they staff, he stated that they do not hire pharmacists. So we all looked around at each other amazed trying to figure out exactly what the point was of us even being there and where the miscommunication of what group of individuals that was coming to tour was.
We made the hour long trip back to the Marriott where we almost missed lunch because we were so late, ate as fast as possible, then I headed up to my room to recoup. When my wifi reconnected, my group text from the USA delegates blows up -- there was drama surrounding the sarees we went and purchased last night; we told her we were leaving on the bus by 6:00pm but she insists they won't all be done before 7:30pm. Also, some other parties had them delivered to the hotel when they were done so they could stay in General Assembly (can't be more than 3 blocks away) but she insists they never deliver and will not do that. Well since we don't have a working phone to call her to find out if they are done or for her to call us when they were done, our only option was to go down there and talk to her some more in person. Since there were no scheduled workshops in the afternoon, just GA, and me and Christine could observe GA but not actively participate because we were not one of the 3 Official Delegates of the USA (just normal delegates but I'd love to be an OD one day), we volunteered to be the runners of the sarees, which was appropriate because it was our idea to buy them from this place anyway.
We walked to the saree shop, receiving countless honks and stares on the way. At the time I found it extremely rude but upon further contemplation I really think it's more of an awe factor than being vulgar, you'll understand why later. The woman gets very defensive and thinks we are insulting her work by saying she needs to hurry it up although we were truly just asking her what we should do if she can't finish on time since we already paid all this money for these sarees. She still guaranteed 7:00 but said that because she is making so many of the delegates sarees for the night, and factor in that in India nothing starts on time - she herself referred to this as "Indian time," which is so true because to date nothing has occurred when it was supposed to. She suggests coming back at 5:30 to check, since we're were next in her queue and one of ours is already done. We bring the one that's done back to the hotel, and talk about what we should do until 5:30. One thing comes to both our minds -- ride elephants. It's something we both said were on our bucket lists way back when this congress was still in the planning stages. I google where we can do this is Hyderabad and the only result is the zoo. So we sunscreen and bug spray up, grab the camera, and head down to the rickshaws. A driver says that it is an hour away (it's about 3:00 now) and he will take us there, wait for us to be done, and come back all for INR 1200. Less than $20? Score! This was probably still a rip off but we have not yet mastered the skill of haggling very well so we go for it. The ride there took us through new parts of town we had not seen yet, including what appeared to be an industrial district with people producing/selling steel, bamboo, plywood, and veneer. Our driver took us past a large car museum (these things were at least 20 feet high I don't know why they exists but they were cool) tried to get us to stop to buy bangles to which was had to scream no no no no no, and we were on our way.
We arrived at the zoo and it appeared to be a lot more developed than we expected. We went and bought our tickets - INR 30 for entry and INR 20 for a camera ticket. We get in for less than a dollar? Prices here are so crazy. We grab a map and run straight for the elephants. Now, let me try and compare it to a zoo experience from home. You know how we have security measures to ensure the animals can't attack you, or be harmed themselves by people being idiotic, like glass or a moat or a steep incline? Yeah well those don't exist. All there really is is a fence, which was particularly concerning in the exhibit of cheetahs. They were right up close and personal, which was super cool but super terrifying. Deer seemed to be one of the main attraction, they had cages everywhere. Now they just looked like the deer you could find in your backyard anywhere in the U.S., but here they must be really exotic. We found the elephants, and all they had was one info poster. No big exhibit broadcasting them, no info booth to buy tickets to ride, no way we could see to enter the exhibit, nothing. Just a fence and them right there on the other side. They were super close so we got good views, but we didn't come here for views. We see a sign for lion, buffalo, and bear safaris up ahead (bear and buffalo safari? Interesting) so we head that way to ask them about the elephant riding because the internet says this is the only place to do it, we must just not be seeing the ticket booth. Well, there was a huge language barrier with these guys, but we eventually get the answer that they took the attraction out for that 8 years ago do we could not do it. We were super bummed but there was nothing we could really do. The safaris were also all closed because the cars were getting work done to them so we couldn't do that instead -- I was scared anyway because there might have been even less fences involved. So we decided to just head around the rest of the loop and head out, it was starting to drizzle anyway so it was probably the best idea. Well on the way we pass multiple parties of people who seem extremely interested in us. I would be concerned, except that most of them contained toddler children and I don't think toddlers are in the business of mugging people. We just tried to ignore it because we realize we are two white girls wearing tank tops (it was so hot - but we still had pants on!) so we just took the attention for what it was. We finally had a guy ask us if he could take a picture with us -- this is nothing new to us, people did it all day on our visit of the fort. But unlike those people he didn't just hand his phone to his friend and come stand on top of us and turn us towards the camera. He said he understood if we didn't want to, and although we in no way wanted to we agreed because he was being so nice about it. Well this was a horrible idea because the floodgates now opened. Every single party that had been following us jumped at the opportunity and formed a queue to be next. I don't call it a line because here in India nothing is ever a line but pushing and shoving and so we had a nice crowd surrounding us with seemingly no escape. I don't know how she did it, but Christine managed to get away and leave me to the wolves, alone taking pictures with strangers and their children and their grandmothers and everyone else. Christine is laughing historically taking pictures of me being in pictures surrounded by people wanting pictures taking pictures of the pictures, all just because they were amazed by the fact that I'm white. People may say we have a race problem in the USA, but this experience made me realize just how culturally exposed we are. These people didn't think I was a side show attraction which is how I felt at the fort, just amazed because they just truly had never seen a white person before. I have not seen a single group of people of any other heritage since I've been here aside from us at congress. There was one time I saw two men on a scooter who may have been black but they were moving too fast to tell. Oh by the way if I haven't mentioned the traffic situation here it's horrible. The lanes don't matter at all people just drive and honk to let you know they're coming so you have an instant headache since at least one car is honking at all times. Also while families ride scooters together, there are scooters everywhere -- the best I've seen is a family of 5. Dad driving with daughter in lap pretending to steer, 2 small boys in the middle and mom bringing up the rear. I can hardly fit one passenger comfortably on my scooter, so either they're masters of balance or the scooters are bigger, I still can't tell.
Anyway back to the zoo. We rush the heck out of there I finally just scream "WE HAVE TO GO I'M SORRY" and we run away. It begins to rain pretty hard at this point anyway so it's a pretty good excuse. We planned on leaving by 4:30 latest and it's only 4:15ish, so we ask the driver if he could take us for those bangles after all - they will add to our India night outfits well. He takes us to a store selling "real" bangles whatever that means. They had costume jewelry and 9K gold which I've never even heard of but I'm going to say it's not super pure (correct me if I'm wrong). Christine found a costume piece she really liked, but all the ones that matched my saree were "real." I haggled the price down to what was about 3/5 the original, it was still probably too much compared to what I should have realistically paid, but they were pretty we were in a rush and they matched. My saree was green and there weren't many green and silver things. We stopped by the saree shop to find out everything was picked up already except the one they were still working on, so we just went back to the hotel to start getting ready. Since we were the only ones who went to the saree wrapping workshop, we had to do basically everyone's. It really takes skill to make it not look like a toga. We also found out they were selling fake bangles at the hotel 12 for 100 rupees, which is literally pennies each and we were laughably upset that we spent more than that on ours until we saw how horrible quality those were then we felt more confident in our purchases. Anyway, we had a huge wrapping session in our room, I guess we were good at it because we had girls from other countries we hadn't met yet who heard we were good at it and came by our room. I rushed everyone out so that we could catch the last bus to the location - this was our first night off sight for a night event. They pushed the busses from 7-8 and we were right on the 8:00 tail of it, and the place was 45+ minutes away. We heard we were going to a bazaar which didn't really excite us much because that means we're shopping in these sarees when we were expecting to dance the night away to traditional music. We arrived about 9:00 to a bazaar with plenty of stalls. Had I been prepared for that I would have brought money and been in a shopping mood but since I didn't really get lunch I was hangry by this point and in a horrible mood and I could tell my blood sugar was super low. They directed us to where the food was which was just starting when we got there. Again had I known I would have ate earlier but also come on an earlier bus so I'd have had time to shop - anyway it doesn't matter in getting food right? Wrong. It was a bowl of rice with "vegetables" in it (maybe a carrot slice) and there's no water. Maybe I was being prissy (probably) but I was starving, I was eating cardboard, I had no water to wash down the cardboard, and emotions were at an all time high. There was a stand selling water so I bought s liter and chugged some down and felt a lot better. But I must not have been being too prissy because there was basically no one NOT complaining about dinner. There was no place to sit, we were eating out of bowls, food with no flavor when this is our one Cultural Night to enjoy the host country to its fullest extent. Granted I'm not big on the Indian food at all so I was okay with this, it was more the sitting situation. When they did bring us water, it was in bags. It was the weirdest thing and it was enhanced with minerals and metals (Mg I think?) and it tasted horrible and just added to the whole experience. Then, there was no music and dancing, but instead traditional performances which were strange but traditional so I could appreciate them. Now I know I am in no way portraying the drama around this night and it's numerous disappointments because even as I'm writing it I don't have the emotion I did that night. You just have to take my word for it that everyone was just pissed. We paid all this money and fought with the producers for these sarees which are hard to wear to ride a bus far away to a location where no one is expecting the activity so no one is prepared for it, they aren't selling alcohol which is a huge deal breaker for most people, the food is bad and the performances don't have any way for us to really participate just stand around and watch. Needless to say, at 11:30 when word got out that the busses were back, everyone ran for it. And I mean ran. Pushing for a seat because no one wants to wait for the buses to have to make the round trip back to get them. They were sending buses away without being full so people were getting left and it was so frustrating but we all got on a bus and made our way back. Some people tried to make the best of the situation by continuing the party (or rather starting it) up stairs at skybar or down by the pool or really just having fun anywhere in general but my mood was so bad and I was still feeling kind of sick and just over this day as a whole with the disappointment of the industrial visit then no elephants then the event, so I just showered and went to bed. Christine made the most of her night with people and I'm happy for her, part of me wishes I had too but I know I needed the sleep. Here's to making the most of tomorrow! Namaste.