As you can see, the JW Marriott in Mumbai is spectacular!  Here are some pictures from Day One – planning at the Marriott ( and recovering from my trip).    It takes 20 hours to get here, including the layover in Munich – flying Lufthansa…and arriving around midnight makes it even more fun!

Despite the long hours, it really was a good trip.  Lufthansa did a great job with customer service; the food was good, the seats are great for day travel, and the plane in great shape.  Unfortunately, Lufthansa business-class seats don’t recline to a completely flat bed like the United Airline seats on the 747 (reference my posts from last September’s trip to Australia).  This makes sleeping difficult.  It’s also hard to get a good night sleep when leaving at 5 PM, and arriving at 8 AM for a layover in Germany.  You loose 7 hours in time change, three hours eating, and about 4 are left for sleeping on a seat not suited for side sleepers like myself.

The Lufthansa first-class gold star lounge offers room for three people to take a nap (that’s right, just three!)  Everyone else is stuck in stuffed chairs that don’t recline and lack any sort of head support – so napping during the five hour layover is also not an option.  They also don’t offer free wireless in the lounge!  What’s that all about – this is a first class lounge…what are they thinking?  At least the food is good and they do serve soft pretzels.

On both my flights I had the privilege of sitting with businessmen from Germany.  We discussed US politics, home schooling – which is illegal in Germany according to both my travel companions, and global economy.  We arrived in Mumbai 30 minutes early, about 11:00 PM, on Mothers day.   My driver was waiting for me – good  thing!  Getting around Mumbai takes a lot of experience.  There are no obvious road signs or patterns to the road system from what I can tell.

Today, I’ll spend my time preparing for tomorrow’s workshop on identifying security sales opportunities, moving up the ladder to access decision makers, and how to create compelling justification.  It’s about a million degrees and humid outside, but the pool looks amazing, so check out my Picasa album…