A day alone in Bangalore

Wednesday, August 22, Mike's 55th birthday ~

I walked with Mike to his office which is located only a couple of long blocks away.  After leaving him there, I decided to head to a large botanical garden which my GPS indicated would take a 35-minute walk.  I don't think the map program takes into account that the sidewalks are impassable due to rubble and craters, so you are walking out in the street with all makes of vehicles darting by you, honking as they go.  Crossing streets at intersections is also timeconsuming because there is traffic coming from some direction at all times.  I developed a technique of waiting until there was a small crowd of people and crossing with them.  I figured they must have survived the exercise in the past, so Darwin was on my side if I walked with them.

Upon my arrival at Lalbagh Botanical Garden, I discovered I needed at ticket.  It cost 10 rupees admission, which is about 20 cents.  The park was very large, so I just headed out to see what I could find. 

As I wandered leisurely around the park, the head of families would approach me and ask to have me pose in a picture with them.  I would be introduced one at a time to each person; the daughter, the wife, the auntie, the uncle.  On most occasions, they wanted to have my face on their camera, but on one occasion I was approached by a man, his wife, and friend, none of whom had a camera.  They wanted me to have their picture with me on my camera.  I was suspect that he might grab my camera and run, which I had not worried about with the larger families, so I snapped a couple of quick pics of them, so I would have evidence of who it was that stole my camera. (Okay, I obviously didn't think through who would be in possession of said camera if they did cut and run.)  I did think that I could probably outrun him anyway.

Children were especially interested in this freckly old ginger auntie, and they would either shyly smile or tease me by running toward me and then darting back if I smiled or pointed at them.  I captured lots of adorable little faces and they were proud to stand for a picture (with their parents' approval, of course).

One group of children picnicing with their family at the roots of a huge banyan tree started laughing and smiling at me, so I got them to come closer, under their parents' watchful eyes. As I snapped a picture I saw that they had intricate henna designs all over their hands and arms.  I oohed and aahed and they proudly showed off their beauty.  I am only guessing, but as Eid (the end of Ramadan) was the past couple of days, they must have been freshly painted for the holiday.  (Pics to follow.)

Wandering the sadly dried-out park, you are prevented from walking on the grass by a park security officer with an obnoxiously loud whistle (that's funny coming from me, eh?).  The security guy was also intent on preventing any larger gatherings of any type.  At one point a group of 7-8 young men wanted to have their picture with me, but the officer shooed us all away.  He may have been preventing a crowd from forming or he may have been protecting me.  I'll never know.

Next I met a beautiful young woman in a hajib (headscarf) who was sitting on a bench waiting for her sister.  The woman was from Malawi in Africa.  She had come for cancer treatment and was whiling time away in the park awaiting the results of a biopsy.  We visited for a few minutes and I wished her well.

I went to lunch at a restaurant listed in Tripadvisor.com as one of the top spots to eat in Bangalore.  It was a fixed-price luncheon meal for 150 rupees, which is $3.00.  They serve 15 items on a tray.  I knew I wouldn't be able to eat that much, but I wanted to see what it was all about.  I paid and went upstairs where I was led into a room with two large tables and I was all alone.  Soon they led others in and started serving us.  The plate was a tray with small carved out areas for all the more liquidy dishes they scooped onto it, like dahl.  Everything I tried was great, but I avoided anything fresh.  So far, so good.

While eating I got to chatting with my tablemates, a French-speaking Swiss couple and their 7-yo daughter.  They've been in India for a month and were leaving that night so they wanted to try this reastaurant before they left.  After finishing we went downstairs together.  They offered me a ride in their tuktuk.  They had hired a tuktuk and driver for 100 rupees ($2) an hour to take them around.  I asked if I should also pay and both Cristoff and the driver insisted, no, no.

So I had the exhilerating experience of being out in that chaotic traffic in a three-wheeled, open-sided, motorized rickshaw.  I giggled like a girl for the first five minutes.  The driver took us past the parliament buildings, new and old and then took us to a handicrafts bazaar.  We said we didn't need to shop, but he insisted that he was hungry and we could wait - and shop - while he got some lunch.  This is a common technique used for tehm to get tourists in to the shop that rewards their efforts.  By this time I was far from my hotel according to my phone map.  I told the driver I would get out and take a different tuktuk back.  He got all put-out and drove me back to the hotel.  I said goodbye to my new Swiss friends from Geneva; Cristoff, Sara, and little Zoe.

It was Mike's birthday, but he didn't get back to the hotel until 8 o'clock.  Poor guy.  Just a few minutes before he got back, the hotel delivered a beautiful birthday cake to our room for him.  We puzzled out that he had only a short while earlier mentioned to his colleague that it was his birthday and he should get back to me, so his colleague must have called the hotel for the cake.  Very sweet gesture, very sweet cake, and very sweet end of an exciting day.

First India Impressions - not fully processed

Mike and I are on our third day in India and I'm trying to process the flood of impressions that I have taken in during this short time.  I'm going to satrt with some free association of things we've seen.

Walking near the hotel on our first day, we had one guy after another herd us toward their shop of choice.  It makes me hesitant to try walking around by myself for fear one of these guys won't leave me alone.  In the shops there is a salesman dedicated to each section of the shop, handing you off from one to the other as you move through the building.   The pressure to buy is polite but palpable.

The women are so colorful and beautiful.  They are dressed so festively to match any collection of women dressed up for a fancy party or gala event.  How beautiful they must feel. 

There were two beggar women banging repeatedly and incessantly on each of our car windows as we sat at a stoplight in an intersection crowded with horse-drawn carts, scooters, tuktuks, rickshaws, bicycles, and pedestrians. The woman on our right side was holding a baby not older than four months and when she caught my attention she would gesture of feeding the child.  I would smile and nod but look away.  She would immediately begin tapping forcefully on the window.  It was the longest red light of my life.

There are children, small children, playing alongside the freeway.  There's are families of four riding on scooters and motorbikes.  Only the father/driver is wearing a helmet. The chaos of the traffic makes it unbelievable that a parent would risk a child's life that way.  I'm afraid of even trying to cross the street.

In the small towns there are water buffalo and cows and dogs all walking down the middle of the street with cars and tuktuks and scooters all waiting and honking to get some vehicle or some animal to move out of the way.
Our trip to Agra and the Taj Mahal was a ten-plus-hour trip.  We hired a car and driver, Iraj, and were met by a guide, Ishi, when we arrived in Agra.   I really felt our affluence as we drove through the town of Agra.  The dirt and the poverty is indescribable.    I will post pictures as soon as I get them downloaded from the camera.

Riding around in a car is harrowing.  The horns are constantly tooting and there are vehicles coming at you from all directions.  We've been told by two different drivers that all you need to drive in Delhi are three things:  a good horn, good brakes, and good luck.  So far we've been lucky.  On our return from Agra yesterday there was some disturbance on the brand new, opened last month, expressway.  We couldn't tell if it was an accident or what.  As we got closer, we saw large stones scattered on the freeway and many people gathered on the road.  Our driver never stopped, just kept weaving around the rocks and people.  Not knowing what they were protesting, I threw my shawl around my head to cover my differentness.  It was perhaps more exciting than when we were driving through the jungle in Belize and we had to have an armed guard to protect us from Guatemalan robbers who cross the border to steal from tourists visiting the Maya ruins.   No harm came to us either time.

The countryside is so green.  Now that I'm experiencing the monson today, I'm reminded of  what makes things green.  That would be rain.  We saw mostly fields of rice and corn.  There were many women working in the fields.  You could tell it was women even from a distance because of their brightly colored sarees or salwar kameez they were wearing.  We saw many people carrying on the heads unbelievably large loads of sticks or bags stuffed with whatever they were harvesting.  

Humidity or Sauna in Delhi

The Scandinavians have never invented a sauna that can match the heat and humidity here in Delhi.  I can't wait to see if I've lost weight.  We're drinking tons of water.  Bottled of course.  So far, so good.