Ryan's Trip to India 2023

 

In December 2023, Ryan went on a conference trip to Hyderabad India. He flew from SLC to LA to Dubai to Hyderabad (LA to Dubai was a 16 hour flight on a two-story airplane!).

When he got to the hotel in India at 5am, they told him his reservation didn't start until the next day, and he had to wait in the lobby. Thankfully Ryan double-checked and his reservation was for the day earlier, so he was able to get a room and get some rest after a long day and a half of travel.

The hotel had a pool, but Ryan didn't bring a swimsuit to his work conference, unfortunately.

The big reason he was there was to help run a workshop on human-computer interaction. This is the workstation where he used every piece of electronics he owned to help in-person and online workshop participants work together. It was a hard and stressful day, but everything went well.

He went with his friend Dave in an auto-rickshaw ride, which is like the old bicycle rickshaws, but with a motorcycle. Driving in India was completely bonkers, and he was glad not to have to drive himself. (I don't think I'd ever get anywhere, I'd be too afraid to run into people).

While there, he ate lots of delicious food. Yummy naan, chicken, paneer, and potatoes in most meals.

One of the hotels had this huge Christmas tree display in the lobby.

After the workshop, Ryan and Dave took a day trip to see the Taj Mahal in Agra. They got up super early in the morning to go to the airport, flew to Delhi, drove 3 hours to Agra and saw it, then came back that same day. All in all it was about 12 hours of travel in one day to see it, but it was totally worth it.

The rickshaw

At the entrance to the Taj Mahal you can see some of the outer buildings before you go in the gate.

This is the main gateway to the Taj Mahal section of the complex. There's a big lawn (and lots of tourists). The complex is divided into two halves by this giant gate. The first half was designed to have markets and other things, and the Taj Mahal was to be a memorial to the favored wife of the emperor.

There's the Taj Mahal though the gate. So beautiful.

You can walk all the way around the building and inside it. This is a mosque that is adjacent to the main mausoleum. 

The whole thing is just really beautiful, with amazing workmanship (and it was built in the 1600s). Beautiful stone work, inlays of precious and semi-precious stones. Very impressive.

On recommendation from a friend at the conference, we hired one of the local photographers to take our picture at the Taj Mahal. He had several photo spots and dozens of poses he wanted us to try out. (I'm not sure it was worth it, but it was kinda funny to get our picture taken so many times). Ryan's model photo shoot with the Taj Mahal (he's so handsome):

When I sent a picture to my students that semester, they got creative with editing it.

There are other Taj Mahal-looking buildings around Delhi and Agra. These ones were just off the side of the road as we drove back to the airport.

The air quality in Delhi was really bad. Like, the worst I've ever seen. I didn't even know the scale went that high.

All the bathrooms had toilet paper, but they also all had a handheld bidet (butt sprayer) to clean yourself off after... you know. I think the toilet paper was just there for us Westerners.

The closing social of the conference had a great dance group come show off various dance styles from around India. It was definitely the most high energy closing social I've been to.

Mashed up spiced carrots for dessert.

This was on the first flight home. It was a pretty quick trip (only in India for 4 days, and about 3 days of travel to get there and back), but it was great to go to a new part of the world and see what things are like there. 

The Dubai airport had a lot of shops and stores, including this video game shop where you could pay to play video games while you waited for your flight.

And on the way home, we flew right over the North Pole! I was surprised to see when we left Dubai that the flight headed straight north instead of east or west. We ended up going over Russia, the North Pole, Canada, and then back down right over Utah. I thought about asking for a parachute, but figured they may not like that very much. So I flew past Utah down to LA, then back again.