From coffee coupons to kettlebells - buying stuff on-line in India

I recently started using foursquare. This is not to fulfill any basic need, I was just curious to find out if this was something fun, useful or both.

So far the first tangible benefit I've found in foursquare is with Cafe Coffee Day: if you check-into one of their cafeterias they'll give you a discount every third visit. In theory. In practice, they don't. The address they give where this discount coupon is to be collected is not responding and I am willing to bet money on the local barista having no clue about any coupon discount even if the address worked at some potential future date.

This is not a huge surprise, unfortunately. Bad consumer experiences are everywhere in India. Domino's pizza can be ordered on-line and a couple of times I've actually managed to do it. A couple of times out of many more when I tried and failed. Movie tickets are sold on-line by all major theatres but I've never completed the process with any of them successfully. Something is always, inevitably, broken.

This is why I've been so throughly impressed with eBay. Their service simply works and even when a merchant misbehaves they automatically refund the money. Most brick and mortar shops in India don't really have any meaninigful information in the Web and have pretty poor selections on sale, which makes the advantage eBay has vs. conventional merchants even bigger - I can choose from a big selection and compare prices between vendors. Finally, the competition inside eBay really seems to bring out the best in these entreprenours.

Earlier this year I tried to buy some kettlebells. On eBay there was just one local merchant with too light ones and due to the weight using Indian eBay as a proxy to the US one made no sense as the shipping would be too expensive. I sent a message to the local merchant to message me back when heavier ones became available. I continued searching and found this company, which manufactures kettlebells near Delhi. Only thing is, while they can make 'em, they sure can't sell 'em. At least to me. I gave up trying to make business with these guys after a few phone calls and emails. Fast forward to yesterday and I get a message from the eBay merchant I mentioned earlier announcing that he's got the sizes I'm looking for, some 6 months after I sent him the question.

It seems that there's still hope for on-line retail in India.

Long August weekend in Goa

Long August weekend in Goa, a set on Flickr.

We went to visit Goa during the low season (Monsoon). Despite our fears of continuous heavy rainfall the weather was quite OK throughout our 4 days there - overcast and light drizzle at times.

We stayed at Lalit Goa, which was a fantastic change from the hustle and bustle of Bangalore with few visitors, beautifully landscaped surroundings and the waves of the Arabic Sea hitting the deserted beach.

Latter half of August is a real cluster of Indian bank holidays at least where I work here. Yesterday was Janmashtami, next Wednesday is Ramzan and next Thursday Ganesh Chaturthi. In other words, respectively, Lord Khrishna's (Hindu deity) birthday, end of Ramadan (I think) and Ganesha (Hindu elephant deity) celebration.

All pics as a slide show here.

It's getting wet

Road, not a lake, a photo by Dopeyrizer on Flickr.

It's been raining cats and dogs for a couple of days - close to 200mm of rainfall. This has eroded many roads to almost undriveable condition with deep puddles and potholes everywhere.

As you can see from below, farmland is drenched as well.

Bangalore is on a plateau, so water should in principle flow away from here to every direction, but at the moment it's just wet wet wet everywhere.

Flower show at Lalbagh

Flower show at Lalbagh, a set on Flickr.

Went to see the independence day flower show at Lalbagh gardens. The place was packed with people and with flowers and veggies of a million kind too. The flower dislay at the old greenhouse was a bit too packed for my liking, but there was more room at the other displays, some of which we hadn't seen before. Here's a link to all the pics as a slide show.

Afterwards, we went to Sunny's on 100ft Road for lunch, which was yummy as usual.