BANG!alore

Bangalore, as it turns out, is awesome.  I don't want to make any enemies, but I think I might like it more than Hyderabad.  It's a lot more picturesque, with tree-lined streets and parks, and the temperature is much more tolerable (due, not in small part, to the trees).  It has been quite a whirlwind of a week.  After three days of little sleep at the AIESEC conference, I spent one night at home before leaving for Bangalore.  On Monday I simply mentioned to Sana that I was thinking of traveling and a few hours later he had my bus ticket ready and I was set to leave that night.  The bus drove through the night, leaving around 10 and getting to Bangalore at 7am the next day.  It was kind of hard to sleep on the bus.  It was comfortable enough, but they were blasting Hindi movies and the driver got a big kick out of tooting his own horn...literally.  When I got to the city I made my way to the trainee flat here, which is beautiful.  It is in a modern high rise apartment complex with a pool.  There are seven people living in the flat from Poland, Peru, Russia, Canada, Korea, and Japan and they are all very nice.  The Russian guy is actually an ultimate frisbee player and he's going to take me with him to play tomorrow morning.

Once I got to the flat everyone left for work.  I was relaxing and recuperating, watching the news, when I heard the faucet running in the kitchen.  I knew that I was home alone so I was very confused.  I got up and looked in the kitchen and there was a monkey staring back at me!  After the initial shock wore off I realized that he had a mango in his clutches and there were accomplices too.  After two weeks of not seeing one monkey in India, I bumped into three in the kitchen after two hours in Bangalore!  Once the thieves ran off with their prize I left the apartment too.  I had a nice walk and some lunch and then made my way to the bus depot to buy a ticket for a city tour the next day.  That night a couple of my new friends and I went out for dinner.  To my surprise there was a burger on the menu.  I had been craving a big juicy burger since I got here so I jumped at the chance.  Even though they said it was beef, I'm pretty sure it was lamb, but it tasted good and there were fries too, so I was still happy.

Today I woke up early and got back on the bus to the station.  It was rush hour so the journey was slow and I began to get nervous that I would miss the tour.  When I finally got to my stop (15 minutes late) I rushed off the bus and ran over to the meeting spot.  I was the first one there.  Gotta love IST, which really means Indian Standard Time, but according to my foreigner friends actually stands for Indian Stretched out Time.  As it turned out, only nine people showed up for the tour.  That was fine with me, but it meant less opportunity to meet people that I could spend the day with.  I ended up doing most of my touring alone, but there was one kid that I talked to a little bit.  He helped translate for me since the tour guide didn't speak English.  We started our day at the Hare Krishna temple, which was nice looking, but a bit boring.  The chants were cool though.  Next was Gavigangadhareshwara, a temple built down into the ground in such a way that the light comes in and hits the main deity on only one day a year.  I was happy to find out that this special day happens to be January 14th, my half-birthday.  The temple gets really small in the back and I had to crouch down until I was basically crab walking to get through it.

After that, we went to Basavangudi, the Bull Temple.  Inside is a 6-meter-long, 5-meter-tall bull that was carved out of one boulder in the 1500's.  It was pretty cool and they actually allowed pictures, so expect one in my next Facebook update.  Next, we went to a palace that I expected to be the famous Bangalore Palace, but it was some other, less beautiful palace.  It was still interesting though.  I asked a guy standing by himself to take a picture of me and he ended up getting really into it, moving around, directing me to pose in different ways.  After the photo session, I took a relaxing walk around the grounds, trying to imagine that I was the owner, surveying my property.  Then we went to Lal Bagh, which is a huge botanical garden.  I had another tranquil stroll there, exploring lotus ponds, bonsai gardens and a huge greenhouse that was housing a mango conference.  There were displays of mangoes all over the place, but alas, no free samples.

The last stop on the tour was an art museum.  The building itself was cooler than the art, but the saving grace was the fact that there was a vast park right behind the gallery.  Known as Cubbon Park, it is 300 acres full of awesome trees, bamboo forests, and a river.  I wanted to sit by the river, but it was blocked by a fence and I couldn't find the entrance, so I climbed some trees instead.  Then I wandered around in the bamboo forest, listening to the creaking of the stalks as they bent in the wind.  It was a great way to end the day.  Now I am sitting in the apartment, having a drink with my temporary housemates, playing music from my computer for them (Slightly Stoopid is a big hit).  I could get used to life in Bangalore...