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Internet Access Sites in India

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R E C E N T L Y
This week in travel Wanderlust's select guide to the top travel-related news stories from around the globe
(12/04/98)
In the driver's seat
By Dawn MacKeen
The smart alternative to renting, driveaways let you take someone else's car cross-country -- for free
(12/03/98)
At home in Tuscany
By Ferenc Máté
The slow-paced pleasures of rural Italy come to life for two new residents
(12/02/98)
The belles of St. Mary's
By Jennifer Moses
A Jewish writer learns about the Old South, and herself, in the most unlikely of places
(12/01/98)
Afoot in the South African bush
By Lance Gould
A New Yorker ventures on a walking safari into the wild world of wildebeest, Cape buffalo and dung beetles
(11/30/98)

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DESPERATELY SEEKING E-MAIL | PAGE 1, 2, 3
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Two hours away from Vadodara by train, I reached the larger city of Ahmadabad. In keeping with its standing as capital of Gujarat, India's wealthiest state, I found two connections there. One was in an upscale hotel -- the Holiday Inn -- but its modem was often busy. I followed another lead across the mud flats, to a software development business located near Mahatma Gandhi's ashram. The owner told me he no longer offered public Internet access, but invited me in anyway. I took off my shoes at the door, accepted a cup of chai and settled in. On the wall was a flyer advertising classes entitled "Learn to Surf Internet like a Professional."
On my last night in Ahmadabad, I splurged on a room at the Holiday Inn. After seven weeks of grueling budget travel in India, I figured I deserved it. For $98 a night, I got hot showers, CNN, bedtime chocolates -- and wonder of wonders, a phone jack. For the first time I could make my own Internet connection, which would enable me to access AOL. Thus far in India I'd been making do with Hotmail, but I was eager to tap into my other mailbox. I plugged in my laptop and dialed Kathmandu -- the nearest AOL access number.
It wasn't entirely easy. The maximum modem speed of these lines was 9,600 bps -- almost six times slower than what I could get back home -- and I kept getting disconnected. It took over an hour to download all my e-mail. The true folly of this was only revealed to me the next morning, however, when I was presented with a $300 phone bill.
It was back to public Internet access for me. In the beautiful desert oasis called Udaipur, I tracked down the town's sole Internet connection just 24 hours after it was established. Squashed into the corner of the Comfort Travel office, I was their first foreign customer. I showed the owner, Siddhartha, everything I knew about Hotmail and search engines. He, in turn, opened the office for me late in the evenings, when we'd have the best chance of connecting to the server in Ahmadabad.
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Before I left India, I returned to Delhi. "Oh madam, you are back!" said an enthusiastic Mr. Jain in the Hotel Imperial. But he had bad news. "I am so sorry, but we have had a flood through the ceiling and the equipment is damaged," he lamented, gesturing at a chaotic scene in the Business Center. Now what?
I wandered up to the center of Connaught Place and started asking around. Before long, I had found it: ground zero of Delhi's coming cybercafe explosion. Hand-lettered signs directed me along a twisted path through trash-strewn alleys, behind office buildings and past bicycle repair shops, squeezing between market stalls and evading the hard stares of scruffy men. "E-mail -- Internet This Way," they said. The signs led to a laundry, where the staff led me through a garage, a gate, a patio and two doorways, then down into an airless office space. Nearly 30 computers were neatly lined up on the tables; about five were working. The software was outdated. Sweaty backpackers moved in and out, protesting angrily that these prices were higher than Nepal. But there you had it: Delhi's first cybercafe, where the unwashed masses could walk in and use a computer for one-third the price of the Hotel Imperial. A few blocks away, a business office had also started offering access during normal business hours.
Despite tenuous phone connections, swamped servers and scarce hardware, middle-class India appears to be on the verge of an Internet boom. A few hundred miles north, in the Thamel district of Kathmandu, Nepal, I caught a glimpse of what that might look like in the future. There -- amid ear-splitting stereo wars that blast Eric Clapton and Tracy Chapman into the streets, between restaurants selling burritos and brownies and apple pie, above the throngs of foreigners dressed in tie dye and hiking boots -- you find cybercafes. Dozens of them -- complete with fast modems and gleaming monitors, rock music, soft drinks and hip young employees. The typical budget traveler, in addition to having a backpack and a Lonely Planet guide, now also has a Hotmail account. There are more than 25 cybercafes packed into this labyrinthine traveler's ghetto. And the strangest thing? Last year they say there were only two.
It is due to the vagaries of international development aid and the demands of a booming tourist trade that Nepal has both an average annual income of $220 and a world-class telephone system. India -- with its vast land area, decrepit phone lines and growing software industry -- may take a different path. The Internet phenomenon has swept around the globe with extraordinary speed, but it slows to a crawl when confronted with India. This is a nation with its own rhythm; its own powers of gravity and patterns of logic.
And -- in some ways most powerfully -- India has its own sense of time. I think about my friend Siddhartha, named after the original Buddha, who brought the first Internet access to the ancient city of Udaipur. His tiny office was in the plaza of the 400-year-old City Palace -- the spectacular residence of past maharajahs. One night we left his office at 9 p.m., after an evening of Internet tutorials. The two of us were the only people looking up at the carved marble façades of the palace, lit gold against a starry sky. Our footsteps echoed in the quiet space, against the cobblestones. Siddhartha said goodbye and headed down the hill on his motorbike. I paused under the palace's great arched entryway and looked back. A few pigeons flapped through the shadows of the stately, elegant buildings.
Searching for ways to reach cyberspace had become a journey in itself.
SALON | Dec. 7, 1998
Lisa Dreier is a freelance writer and nonprofit consultant in Northern California.

Go to our guide to Internet Access Sites in India.

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Become a Salon member. Click here.


	A L S O__T O D A Y Internet Access Sites in India T A B L E_T A L K Hitting the slopes? Discuss snowboarding and other winter sports in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y This week in travel Wanderlust's select guide to the top travel-related news stories from around the globe (12/04/98) In the driver's seat By Dawn MacKeen The smart alternative to renting, driveaways let you take someone else's car cross-country -- for free (12/03/98) At home in Tuscany By Ferenc Máté The slow-paced pleasures of rural Italy come to life for two new residents (12/02/98) The belles of St. Mary's By Jennifer Moses A Jewish writer learns about the Old South, and herself, in the most unlikely of places (12/01/98) Afoot in the South African bush By Lance Gould A New Yorker ventures on a walking safari into the wild world of wildebeest, Cape buffalo and dung beetles (11/30/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		DESPERATELY SEEKING E-MAIL \| PAGE 1, 2, 3 - - - - - - - - - - Two hours away from Vadodara by train, I reached the larger city of Ahmadabad. In keeping with its standing as capital of Gujarat, India's wealthiest state, I found two connections there. One was in an upscale hotel -- the Holiday Inn -- but its modem was often busy. I followed another lead across the mud flats, to a software development business located near Mahatma Gandhi's ashram. The owner told me he no longer offered public Internet access, but invited me in anyway. I took off my shoes at the door, accepted a cup of chai and settled in. On the wall was a flyer advertising classes entitled "Learn to Surf Internet like a Professional." On my last night in Ahmadabad, I splurged on a room at the Holiday Inn. After seven weeks of grueling budget travel in India, I figured I deserved it. For $98 a night, I got hot showers, CNN, bedtime chocolates -- and wonder of wonders, a phone jack. For the first time I could make my own Internet connection, which would enable me to access AOL. Thus far in India I'd been making do with Hotmail, but I was eager to tap into my other mailbox. I plugged in my laptop and dialed Kathmandu -- the nearest AOL access number. It wasn't entirely easy. The maximum modem speed of these lines was 9,600 bps -- almost six times slower than what I could get back home -- and I kept getting disconnected. It took over an hour to download all my e-mail. The true folly of this was only revealed to me the next morning, however, when I was presented with a $300 phone bill. It was back to public Internet access for me. In the beautiful desert oasis called Udaipur, I tracked down the town's sole Internet connection just 24 hours after it was established. Squashed into the corner of the Comfort Travel office, I was their first foreign customer. I showed the owner, Siddhartha, everything I knew about Hotmail and search engines. He, in turn, opened the office for me late in the evenings, when we'd have the best chance of connecting to the server in Ahmadabad. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Before I left India, I returned to Delhi. "Oh madam, you are back!" said an enthusiastic Mr. Jain in the Hotel Imperial. But he had bad news. "I am so sorry, but we have had a flood through the ceiling and the equipment is damaged," he lamented, gesturing at a chaotic scene in the Business Center. Now what? I wandered up to the center of Connaught Place and started asking around. Before long, I had found it: ground zero of Delhi's coming cybercafe explosion. Hand-lettered signs directed me along a twisted path through trash-strewn alleys, behind office buildings and past bicycle repair shops, squeezing between market stalls and evading the hard stares of scruffy men. "E-mail -- Internet This Way," they said. The signs led to a laundry, where the staff led me through a garage, a gate, a patio and two doorways, then down into an airless office space. Nearly 30 computers were neatly lined up on the tables; about five were working. The software was outdated. Sweaty backpackers moved in and out, protesting angrily that these prices were higher than Nepal. But there you had it: Delhi's first cybercafe, where the unwashed masses could walk in and use a computer for one-third the price of the Hotel Imperial. A few blocks away, a business office had also started offering access during normal business hours. Despite tenuous phone connections, swamped servers and scarce hardware, middle-class India appears to be on the verge of an Internet boom. A few hundred miles north, in the Thamel district of Kathmandu, Nepal, I caught a glimpse of what that might look like in the future. There -- amid ear-splitting stereo wars that blast Eric Clapton and Tracy Chapman into the streets, between restaurants selling burritos and brownies and apple pie, above the throngs of foreigners dressed in tie dye and hiking boots -- you find cybercafes. Dozens of them -- complete with fast modems and gleaming monitors, rock music, soft drinks and hip young employees. The typical budget traveler, in addition to having a backpack and a Lonely Planet guide, now also has a Hotmail account. There are more than 25 cybercafes packed into this labyrinthine traveler's ghetto. And the strangest thing? Last year they say there were only two. It is due to the vagaries of international development aid and the demands of a booming tourist trade that Nepal has both an average annual income of $220 and a world-class telephone system. India -- with its vast land area, decrepit phone lines and growing software industry -- may take a different path. The Internet phenomenon has swept around the globe with extraordinary speed, but it slows to a crawl when confronted with India. This is a nation with its own rhythm; its own powers of gravity and patterns of logic. And -- in some ways most powerfully -- India has its own sense of time. I think about my friend Siddhartha, named after the original Buddha, who brought the first Internet access to the ancient city of Udaipur. His tiny office was in the plaza of the 400-year-old City Palace -- the spectacular residence of past maharajahs. One night we left his office at 9 p.m., after an evening of Internet tutorials. The two of us were the only people looking up at the carved marble façades of the palace, lit gold against a starry sky. Our footsteps echoed in the quiet space, against the cobblestones. Siddhartha said goodbye and headed down the hill on his motorbike. I paused under the palace's great arched entryway and looked back. A few pigeons flapped through the shadows of the stately, elegant buildings. Searching for ways to reach cyberspace had become a journey in itself. SALON \| Dec. 7, 1998 Lisa Dreier is a freelance writer and nonprofit consultant in Northern California. Go to our guide to Internet Access Sites in India. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.