It’s weird! Almost one week ago I’ve entered Austria again and I expected that the reentry culture shock would have been a challenge. But I didn’t expect that the place, which I hated most before I went to India, would be the place I tend to feel most comfortable at after India: The Mariahilferstrasse (Vienna’s main shopping street). This place seems to me the only one which isn’t that silent and a bit crowed, especially on a Saturday. Just to pretend that there is life in this city;-) Cause the rest of Vienna still feels like a Ghost town.

Well, now I’m spending my last hours in Sodom (formally known as Bombay or Mumbai) and it’s time for a short summery:

3 S months are not enough to know a culture, but it helped me to extend my mind to get any idea what India might be about: So how to describe India – the official slogan points out: “Unity by Diversity” but I would just describe it as the county full of contrasts. You won’t find the best of anything in India, but you find everything: from deserts to mountains to tropical beach paradises. You find absolutely poverty and the biggest slums in the world, and on the other side of the fence you find the classy villas and one single town which generates 38% of India’s GDP.

Yeah, that’s India you can just love it or hate it! I do it both and I’ll definitively miss it!

At least one thing in India is like you expect it: You spend 4 hours in the train to come to Agra, the worst city of India, with the worst rickshaw driver and then they charge you an increadable entrance fee. But after that you see it:

THE TAJ MAHAL, shot one or two oblige photos and then you go again. I wasn't impressed at all! I wouldn't say that I was disappointed neither, because I expected something like this. A white building, even a little bit small which looks exactly like the building you have seen approximately 1000 times on a picture postcard. For me it was just a waste of time.

So that's my advice: skip the Taj, I did the same with Jaipur after my experience in Agra, and go directly to Jodhpur. Even with 39 C fever I enjoyed this town much more than this famous white marbal building.

… are in anyway a special experience. I had lot of time to sleep, to relax and to read, and I could chat with a 10-year-old boy about this stuff.

That morning I arrived in Delhi and had to realize that my cell phone doesn’t work any more. So I’m disconnected for the next 10 days – I don’t know how to survive this ;-)

Anyway I meet my friend here on the train station and spend one relaxing day in Delhi. I don’t know why the people call Bangalore the “Garden City” – if you compare it with Delhi here just parks… But there is one thing I have to mention: Rickshaw driver in Delhi are really the worst ever!

Yeah, least I forgot, this is one picture of a menu card of a restaurant in Mysore – it’s true (hope you can read it):

it's not really relaxing: two farewell parties within 24 hours (one at my company and one in our flat) - the results: headage, no sleep and no time - so there are just 90 minutes left before i leave bangalore and 100 things to do!
but it was a cool time...

Now it’s time so say goodbye! I can’t believe that this 3-month went by so fast. Today is my last regular working day, but this doesn’t mean that I won’t come in tomorrow as well.

The good thing of being abroad is that you can look back afterwards and have a lot of things to remember. I had an amazing working time here, could realize what development work is really about and I also think I could give them a bit of meaningful support. And this is more than I ever expected. Not everything is finished yet but I think we are on the right way. I’m almost sure that the waste management project, which was one of my main tasks here, is going to reach the break even within the next months. So that we have the capability to provide a financially independent solution, which means that the standards and the system we have developed here can be used for other projects in Indian to create jobs and helps to establish environment standards for a sustainable solution.

At lest I shouldn't forget that I had a lot of fun here as well. Doing all this weekend-trips and seeing almost everything you have to see in South-India was fabulous.

Tonight is my is combined farewell and getting old party and tomorrow evening I’ll sit in the 40 hour train to Delhi, which might be a special experience as well…