Day one in Bangalore
Due to an unexpected (to me) Indian holiday, my first day in India was quite quiet. After 20 some hours in the air and on the ground from Chicago, we landed in Bangalore. We collected our bags and found our taxi. Over the last several weeks I’ve heard (lots), “You won’t be prepared for India. It’s so different than anything you’ve ever experienced.” So, I imagined landing in Hong Kong in ’83 and made it much worse in my head. I probably over did it. Yes, people drive their tiny cars in a crazy manor here (pretty exciting stuff), yes there is plenty of poverty. Yes, there is a weird dichotomy of abject poverty next to 21st modern buildings. However, it is just another country. People are people.
The Infosys Bangalore campus has hundreds of bikes for the borrowing. During regular work days, I’m sure they’re difficult to come by. On a holiday, it was easy. We grabbed two bikes and saw the campus.
We hired a car and driver for the day to take us all over Bangalore. Top highlight was an amazing lunch. Great Southern Indian seafood; 5 kinds of fish, fresh baked bread (three kinds). We also saw the parliament building and a botanical garden. Everything is green here. The weather was quite warm – I’m quite pleased I wore shorts (even if I was the only person over 5 dressed as such). Our last significant stop was a temple – I forget the name. Taps has been giving me background on religions and gods in India. Not all that different than Christianity – just not as structured. As this was a holiday, there was a huge line to see the temple. Probably a thousand people waiting and processing through. Took off our shoes, left my camera outside. We paid our fee and queued up. The line went very quickly. My biggest surprise was the commercial aspect of it at the end. We passed dozens of stalls at the end selling all manor of religious stuff. Turned me off some.
It’s 7:30pm now. My hope is that I can stay up to 9pm and then be close to being on track body-clock-wise tomorrow. I’m bushed.
The Infosys Bangalore campus has hundreds of bikes for the borrowing. During regular work days, I’m sure they’re difficult to come by. On a holiday, it was easy. We grabbed two bikes and saw the campus.
We hired a car and driver for the day to take us all over Bangalore. Top highlight was an amazing lunch. Great Southern Indian seafood; 5 kinds of fish, fresh baked bread (three kinds). We also saw the parliament building and a botanical garden. Everything is green here. The weather was quite warm – I’m quite pleased I wore shorts (even if I was the only person over 5 dressed as such). Our last significant stop was a temple – I forget the name. Taps has been giving me background on religions and gods in India. Not all that different than Christianity – just not as structured. As this was a holiday, there was a huge line to see the temple. Probably a thousand people waiting and processing through. Took off our shoes, left my camera outside. We paid our fee and queued up. The line went very quickly. My biggest surprise was the commercial aspect of it at the end. We passed dozens of stalls at the end selling all manor of religious stuff. Turned me off some.
It’s 7:30pm now. My hope is that I can stay up to 9pm and then be close to being on track body-clock-wise tomorrow. I’m bushed.
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