Subject: [Venue-selection] Hyderabad, New Delhi

From: "Aaron Falk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 17:18:35 +0000

I’ve recently returned from a 10 day trip to my company’s office in 
Bangalore.  This was my first trip to India and, coming from the US, I 
think that India poses some substantial challenges for a business 
traveler from the West.

The most significant concern is about food- and water-borne illness.  
Concern for it is paramount to avoid severe gastrointestinal problems.  
I only ate in our hotel, used only bottled water to drink and brush my 
teeth, constantly used hand sanitizer and still on the last day I had a 
severe bout of, er, distress.

Second, visitors with food sensitivities will get little support.  I 
stayed in a Marriott which had a few western items at each meal but most 
items were Indian food and quite spicy.  I found this to my liking but 
some of my colleagues were not tolerant of spicy food and were confined 
to eat almost nothing but french fries for a week.  The kitchen staff 
didn’t have a good understanding of western palates and it took as 
many as three attempts to get a chicken breast prepared with no 
seasoning.

A third concern is transportation.  I was fortunate enough to have a 
dedicated driver for the week.  Taxi’s are notorious for over charging 
and public transportation is unreliable and not friendly to foreigners.  
Even traveling as a pedestrian is nearly impossible as there are almost 
no sidewalks, auto lanes, traffic lights, or crosswalks.  I’ve heard a 
number of stories from people who went for a walk and got stranded, 
unable to cross the road to go back.

Now, having said all this, I very much enjoyed my trip.  But I had a 
local office working to make my trip smooth and I still got sick by the 
end.  I can’t recommend it for an IETF meeting.  I think it would be 
too hard for too many folks to be comfortable and productive.  It makes 
me sad because there are many excellent engineers in India and I think 
they would appreciate and benefit from an IETF.  But the infrastructure 
for a conference of western travelers just isn’t there.

Thanks,

--aaron