February 2011

A good chunk of the day was spent sleeping, but I did make it out to Sachin's house to buy his beautiful Jaipur miniature paintings.  Last year I thought that I could get them in Jaipur or Delhi, but the quality just wasn't there, so I skipped them. 

I'm sitting in the roof top restaurant at the Mewar Haveli, looking over the lake and the early morning sun is lighting up the white-washed buildings on the opposite shore. 

Arriving at the Bangkok airport, I did a happy dance in my head, and thought how can you not love Thailand?  The airport has huge displays of live orchids, and clean clean clean bathrooms and great airport food.

No matter how many times I've been to a place while on business, I always try to experience one thing new or see something different.  I racked up a staggering 44 different suppliers in Bali this year, that's an unheard of number, but it didn't leave time for exploring. 

You know you've got a jones when you'll pay four times more for a drink than you've just paid for lunch.  The drink is an iced double espresso at Starbucks.  Lunch cost me 80 cents, my coffee is $3.  Worse, this is the second time in four days that I've been here. I've been known to roll up my eyes at the Brits who bring tea bags and creamer with them to India, and I give a small groan when I hear gringos in Mexico complaining about the instant coffee, and yet here I am sucking down liquid heaven at devilish prices. 

So much for good intentions. I went to see Kartini today, with my nice neat little wish-list for furniture.  I didn't want to over-buy again, so I was going to purchase only by the list - 10 consoles, 5 cabinets, etc. 

Nusa Trans sent two of their kids over to the hotel this morning to haul me around the outskirts of town for furniture.  One of my regular suppliers has so much good stuff that I started agonizing over whether to send back a second container.  When I got back to town, lo and behold, there was an email from Chris suggesting that I put together a second container from Bali.  We sold so much furniture in 2010 that we really need it, so I guess I'm going for the second one. 

Making up for days lost in travel makes for long days, but these have been long, enjoyable days with lots of pockets of pleasure thrown in. 

Air France got us out of Chicago 28 hours late, on a special flight, but that meant no connections, so I got routed from Paris up to Munich, and then to Delhi.  Unfortunately my luggage didn't follow, but hopefully it will catch up before I leave for Bali tonight.  

Camping out at the Hilton is far different than my usual camping out on the airport floor.  Air France made a valiant attempt to take off, with two wing de-icings, but after four hours on the tarmac, the flight was scrapped and AF put us up at the Hilton.