Home

Well, at least my body is home. The long journey from Bangkok to LA to Minneapolis to Prairie Farm was complete at 9:00 AM on Thursday. Recovering from jet-lag and my head still swirls with images, colors, sounds, smells and tastes of Bangkok and Bangalore. What a wonderful experience and we'll always be grateful to Alex for his generosity and talent as an A++ tour guide. The image above is our happy group on a boat in Bangkok with Alex's wife Chat on the left and his son Michael between Doug and Lauren. This will conclude our the blog of our trip, thanks for following along and a happy 'Laew phob gan mai' to all our friends and family!

Last Night in Bangkok

I'm a big architecture fan and had seen this restaurant featured on one of the blogs I check. What a treat to see this fantastic space in person! The Dome - 65th floor, open air, very, very nice. We have just a limited amount of time tomorrow then will head for the airport for our 7:00 PM flight to LA. Will post some more images in the morning.

Back in Bangkok

Very good to be here again. Took an overnight flight from Bangalore and will stay here a day and a half before departing for LA. The Shrine above is a famous 'four faced Buddha'. At every construction project, a Shrine is erected to apologize for disturbing the earth. This one is for a hotel that had a particularly bad run of luck that was stopped by this Buddha with four faces. It is renowned in Bangkok as being one of the most effective places to pray for good luck.

Beautiful India

Today was Sunday and our first opportunity to just walk around. We went to a park, and for the first time since we we've been here, I realized it was beautiful. Look at the people.

Last Factory Shots

Here we are strolling though the warehouse where dried herbal material is stored. We've got vast amounts of medicinal herbs from all over the world. Next we toured the ethanol extraction facility, not a good time to take up smoking. Surrounding the factory are 6 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds and herb gardens. I'll ask Alex a little later today which Indian god is photographed here.
Update: This is Lord Dhanvantari, believed to have brought all knowledge of healing to man. Our DBA in India has always been Dhanvantari Botanicals.

Baldness & Sanitation

In many parts of the factory, you need to go through sanitation procedures and wear booties over your shoes, masks and hair nets. Of course, as you could imagine, with a mop-top like mine the hair net was absolutely essential. Here I am with Alex in one of our positive pressure clean rooms where finished, powdered herbal extract is graded and sifted.

Our Factory

As many of you know, the parent company I have worked for this last 6 years is a nutraceutical ingredient manufacture. We opened a state-of-the-art facility here in Bangalore in 2002. In doing presentations on our line of herbal supplements I often show images of the facility. Yesterday was my opportunity to see it in person and it was even more impressive than I thought. The top image is the 8,000 sq ft R&D building. The second image shows founder Alex on the left with Doug. Last is Parag. It was really Parag's experience, smarts and tremendous drive that brick by brick, with Alex, built this place. We are all very proud of what they've done. Having flowers floating in water is a common design element in Indian architecture. The design of the buildings was done by Parag's beautiful wife, Sujatha.