Bangalore

I am sitting in our Bangalore hotel room watching the sun go down as I write this final entry about our adventures in India.  Bangalore has been a great stop.  It is a cosmopolitan city but it is growing so fast the infrastructure has not kept up.  New sky train lines and high rises are under construction throughout the city.  The airport is a half complete supersized structure and the road leading into the city is undergoing massive development. 

Views From Our Hotel

There are currently 18 million souls living in the city and many are members of the wealthy, burgeoning middle class living in glass towers but many more are still sleeping in alleyways of the urban core.

Many folks have heard of Bangalore, there are some who know where it is, and even fewer that have been there but most people have telephoned Bangalore at some point.  Bangalore is one of the technical digital capitals of the world and is home to many international businesses’ technical call centers.  All of the major computer technology players are located in the city, not just call centers but innovative technical design companies.  IBM has a huge presence here.

I asked a businessman how Bangalore’s exponential growth came about in such a short time and he explained it this way.  Bangalore already had a plethora of technical digital expertise prior to the year 2000.  When the Y2K fears started to surface companies went looking for technical help and found it in Bangalore.  This resulted in companies relocating here and soon other professionals followed.  Bangalore has more foreigners than most Indian cities.

I can undersand how foreigners like it here.  The weather is appealing.  As soon as we got off the plane from Kochi we entered the dry warm air of the interior and were relieved to have left the heavy humidity of the coast.  Temperatures were around a high of 26 degrees and a low in the high teens.

Tuk Tuk - Our Favoured Form of Transport

Our first evening was spent celebrating Jinder and Kal’s 24 wedding anniversary.  We had a great meal at the number one Trip Advisor rated restaurant, Tandoori.  We enjoyed fabulous Indian food and even better gin and tonics.  After we left the restaurant around 11:15 pm, we also had the best Tuk Tuk race of the trip.  Jinder, Stan and Doreen boarded a shiny new Tuk Tuk and whizzed past us shortly after the  start of the journey back to our hotel.  Jinder let out a victory whoop as they screamed by.  I believe it was Deborah who said to our driver, “you’re not going to let them beat you are you?”  Our man didn’t say a word and wound up the little engine as much as he could but to no avail, the newer machine was simply much faster.  Eventually Jinder’s Tuk came to a stop at a red light ahead.  Our man maneuvered past the four lanes of traffic to the extreme outside.  He accelerated as he approached the intersection and we screamed as he blasted through the red light.  We had cars crossing in front of our nose and scrapping our rear as they sped by on their green.  We had little chance to do anything but check our shorts before we were home.  The victors gave the losers the suitable jeers when they arrived.

Twenty-Fourth Anniversary

The Hotel Had a Cake Waiting in the Room

Our second day was all about shopping in the morning and pool time in the afternoon.  Many purchases were made but most notable were Stan’s choice of suit, Deborah’s Indian party dress and Kal’s multiple colorful sarees.

Too Much Butter Chicken

Stan's Shopping Is Done

He Married a Super Shopper

Just Outside of the Wall on Right, 10 m down, Poverty

Jinder’s Bangalore business partner Vivek hosted us to evening meal at the Barbeque Nation restaurant in the evening.  The Barbeque Nation was exactly as it’s name implied, all kinds of Indian food barbecued at your table as well as a buffet containing more dishes and a dessert bar.  The barbeque chicken, shrimp, sausage, potatoes, and vegetables just kept coming, long after everyone was stuffed.  No one could understand why such waste was taking place when someone finally read the notice on the table.  There was a small sign mounted on a small brass flagpole sitting in the center of the table.  The sign read, “as long as this flag is still standing, the food will keep coming”.  We finally clued in and bent the flag over and the feeding ceased.

The Food Just Kept Coming

Then We Read The Sign

The Food Finally Stopped

Street Dessert - Betel Leaves & Sugar & ?

Our Hosts - Vivek & Vlonda (sp?)

After an early breakfast the boys spent our last day golfing at the Bangalore Golf Club.  It is a private club and Vivek gifted us 18 holes of golf and joined us to sign us in.  He could not join us, as he had to work.  The course was established in 1876 and is in the heart of old Bangalore.  We each had our own caddy.  The caddies selected our clubs and gave us great advice on how to successfully play the course.  I can’t say their advice was truly reflected in our scores but we learned a lot.  We were all very pleased to have survived the first tee.  Number One calls for a shot across the members parking lot covered by a wire mesh.  We can proudly say we all cleared the net.  I am not sure we will ever have such an experience again but it will be a memory of a lifetime.

People Watching is Always Fun

After a few cold Kingfishers it was back to the pool in the late afternoon and soon our little group began to break up.  Jinder and Kal left at 6 pm.  Deborah and I have a cab to the airport scheduled for 10 pm and Stan and Doreen will leave the hotel at 11:30 pm for their 3 am flight.

That is it for now.  Hopefully I will find the time for one last post to sum up our total Indian experience.

Off to the airport.