Moving to Delhi with Nokia Maps

When not exploring cities and taking photographs, @Clinton Jeff can be found on http://zomgitscj.com/ writing about everything mobile related.Today he tells us about how he got to know the city he is living with the help of his Nokia Maps. Moving can be a pretty huge thing. Especially when you’ve ...

When not exploring cities and taking photographs, @Clinton Jeff can be found on http://zomgitscj.com/ writing about everything mobile related.Today he tells us about how he got to know the city he is living with the help of his Nokia Maps.

Moving can be a pretty huge thing. Especially when you’ve moving from a small town in India to the capital. A pretty huge thing. It doesn’t help when people around you, tell you about the tough ‘city life’. “You’re going to get mugged” “You’re going to get stabbed” and that was just from my parents! But alas, I’m a city boy you see. Born and raised in Kuwait. I missed the hustle and bustle, the constant car horns, the mass of humanity. The little town was great for while I did my engineering, but this city boy had to get back to civilization!

Now little did I know, that Delhi was a very huge city. A very very huge city. Moving day came, and I landed in New Delhi Indira Gandhi Airport with little more than my suitcase full of clothes for the new job, my trusty (and rusty) ol’ laptop and a Nokia E72. In the dead of night, I silently checked into a cheap motel in a “safe” district as my friends told me, and proceeded to catch up on some much missed sleep. I had to hit the office the next day, bright and early, and I had no idea what to expect.

Morning came and I got ready in my finest ‘working man’ clothes and walked out the door of the cheap motel. Oh wait, where was I? I quickly fired up Nokia Maps and saved my location. “Cheap Motel”. I’m going to need to remember where I stay, arnt I? My office instructions were too vague for a Nokia Maps Search to help, but a helpful rickshaw man came along and said it was only a 50 rupee ride away. “Awesome”, I thought to myself, “Hope I don’t get too lost”. The fact that I saved my maps for offline use was also a huge advantage, since I was on national roaming and didn’t want to spend a lot on just data. A quick 5 minute ride later, I was outside my new office building. Waitaminute, that wasn’t a 50 rupees worth, of a ride! Again, Quickly fired up Nokia Maps, to check where I was.

Great. This was a 10 minute walk, maximum. Cannot believe I fell for that. My mother warned me about evil rickshaw people! Deciding that I was going to walk home later, I walked into the new job.

A surprisingly great first day later, I was out of office, late evening, with the sun all set, and the moon glowing warming in the cool November weather. Perfect for a walk. Now I’m going to need to figure out how to get back, and hopefully not give my parents the satisfaction of me calling them up to say “Hey, you were right, I got mugged”. Ugh.

Nokia Maps was called upon again, and in a couple clicks, I had a nice path laid out to walk back to the cheap motel. Just 8 minutes it seems. I trotted along as the nice Nokia Maps Navigation lady kept yelling things at me. “Go Straight for 200 meters” “Turn left here”. Sure some folks looked at me funny, to hear my pocket barking orders at me in an American accent, but I was happily walking along. A little over 8 minutes (slow walker) later I was back at the hotel. Day one complete.

Oh wait. I didn’t have dinner yet. Gah!

Again, I opened up Nokia Maps, and used the “nearby” feature to find a coffee shop nearby. A four minute walk apparently. Again I headed back into the night, and a nice quick walk later I found a ‘Cafe Coffee Day’, seemingly appearing out of nowhere like a mirage. Ah the joys of a nice hot meal. I stuffed my face and headed back to the motel, following orders from the Nokia Maps lady again. Voice guided Navigation was a pretty handy thing to have around. At that time though, you had to purchase a walk or drive license for navigation, but I had the 30 Day Trial.

Days became Weeks, and Weeks became Months. Fast forward a few months, and I had moved into a new apartment, and was completely oblivious to my surroundings. By this time, Nokia announced their free Voice Navigation for Drive or Walk, which as you can tell, I was very overjoyed about. All this while, I was saving useful locations to my Nokia phone. A new bakery I came across, a nice little gym that I’ll pay for but never go to, a cheap little restaurant where I could get my dinners at. Because I couldn’t speak the local language, I didn’t need to just know WHERE a place was, I needed to know HOW to get there. And I preferred not to leave my expensive phone out for everyone to see, so the voice navigation through my headphones, worked great. Even temporarily reducing the volume in my playing music, to tell me. Just great. The Nokia Maps client was updated, with a very cool feature to see what what’s nearby in terms of places to eat, places to go shopping, sights, public transport, and much more.

By this time I had also saved friends addresses, useful malls or theaters to spend a Saturday at, and a lot more. All saved and organized neatly, on my Nokia Maps. Since I’m a total klutz when it comes to anything related to direction, I really needed the help. Since then I’ve been through several Nokia devices, but had my favorites always present and synced on over.

Today I’ve been living in Delhi for close to 2 years, and I have a much better understanding of where I am, and how to get to places than I did when I first moved here. But even then, once in a while I’ll have to go to an unexplored part of town, and I’m very reassured that I’ll be able to find my way out, thanks to the trusty ol’ Nokia Maps. Even being able to check out my route online and syncing it down to my phone.

While this piece might sound a bit fluffy, I guess the point I’m trying to make is, that Nokia Maps came in intensively useful for this boy-moving-into-a-big-city. I’ve only mentioned a couple moments here but there are countless other times when Nokia Maps and its navigation have managed to pull me out of a completely clueless situation.

And for that Maps Team, I salute you! You’ve prevented me from walking into the wrong neighbourhoods (and being mugged). And you’ve prevented me from being scammed by the aforementioned evil rickshaw wallahs of Delhi! For that I say, Much thanks.

-Clinton a.k.a CJ.

Source : http://blog.ovi.com/2011/07/26/moving-to-delhi-wit...