One of the obvious contrasts to India, here in Bangkok, seems to be the efficiency of workers...at least in larger businesses than a family run food stall. Yesterday we walked by two men laying down a pipe in a small ditch across a road and then cementing it over. Two hours later the job was complete. In India, it would have taken at least eight men and several days.

One example is when we arrived at the domestic airport in Delhi, there were, I counted them twice, 15 baggage handlers waiting for our plane of 120 passengers. I'm not sure what they all did. I wish we were allowed to take pictures of their airports.

On a similar flight with 11 baggage handlers loading the plane, I watched one guy throw a bag on the conveyor belt and press a button to watch the single bag ride alone to the top. Then he threw a second bag on...Five others were squatting in the baggage carts watching him do this until a supervisor came up and scolded them. The scene was very entertaining.

At each hotel reception desk, five people check in one reservation at a time. Each of the five seem to find a time to point at the paperwork and mumble something before the transaction is complete.

We passed a gas station in Delhi that had 3-4 uniformed attendants for each of the 4 gas pumps.

I'm not sure if it's a statement about the low cost of labor or inefficiencies of service or a motivation to employ as many people as possible in the country, but it seemed to be the way of doing business everywhere we went. Again, I qualify my statements by saying this doesn't apply to small entrepreneurial shops and stalls, which were almost too efficient, never giving you enough time to count your change.