Grand Voyages, Great Lies

The Moving Streets of Bangalore

  

   At 10m in Pondicherry we presented our case to the bus depot manager.  The case was we didnt have a printed ticket due to the failure of a the printer in an internet cafe… but we did have a reservation checked by phone and we had paid by card….his solution was, after many head wobbles and taking some information, to write a little note to the head office…then issue us with boarding cards…hoorah now we were reassured that we would be vacating Pondicherry on a bus bound for  Bangalore.

before boarding we ventured into a cheap looking bar full of local men drinking beer. the curious stares didnt bother me or make me feel unconfortable…gosh two white women drinking beer and smoking! we were going to look odd anywhere purely because we were western so i wasnt going to pay extorionet prices in a hotel for that to happen anyway. plus the bar was right next to the bus depot so i convinced kate to stride up the stairs behind me an we ordered two beers. the waiter asked me for a cigarette- i gave him the paper nd tabacco but hilariously he brought it back to us.. the only women in the bar and curiously white at that…him and his friend had had several minutes crouched over with concentrated looks trying to roll the tabacco and sadly failed. this left me and kate in chuckles after i had returned a rolled cigarette to him. We no longer felt we were too young or western to be in such a place. As Brits to be fair we were probably the most experienced drinkers in there…but sensibly stuck to one beer before boarding the sleeper bus. A screaming baby and several near falls from our bunks later we arrived in Bangalore.

A 5am rickshaw to the HSR complex ( i still don’t fully know what the abbrivation stands for, just that its a development of houses and shops out side of the city centre) ran us into trouble as finding the guesthouse wasnt as easy as we had thought. We eventually found the right building thanks to the persistant rickshaw driver but with no signage of  hosteli started for the first time to question Hostel world, the website we mainly relied upon to find us decent well priced hostels/guest houses. After accidently ringing on nd waking the neighbours we persisted to ring the bell to the door they had stired us towards. Thankfuklly we managed to wake the receptionist/chef/cleaner who turns out to be quite a decent guy.

worried at first that we may have selected a hostel in the middle of nowhere (despite the seemlying central description on hostle world) after a sleep and a nicley cooked breakfast we went exploring the area. we were provided wth a map from the kindly chef- who it turns out is a cartographer as well…though his maps arent in the same league as his coffee.

we found we werent 5mintues from a few bus stops, resturants, cafes, beauty palours, chemists, nurseries, juice bars and interent cafes. Infact everything we could want. After some lush pinapple juice we were determined to visit the main bus depot and the BDA shopping complex. I am in need of a camera and Kate, a watch. Much walking of the crazy street system later wwe concluded that the map while useful wasnt intirely accurate and we became confused with the apparently logical numberings of cross streets, main streets and side streets which introduced us to lettering in the system. There is 17^th cross, 27^th main but then 17^th cross B, C ect…just when u think you have a grasp of the street system in this newly built and fairly high class area of town 17^th main will jump to 26^th main…we rickshawed to the BDA complex and found a mix of shops in what looked like a beaten down precinct. A scatteriing of pricey technology, jewleery and quiet designer clothes stalls, mixed with cheap hardware stores and mini super markets. It felt like a shopping centre that hadnt quite taken off yet or one near to closing down. All the upper levels were devoid of shops.

we crossed the road and passed some road by stalls that in my mind looked much more intresting and found a terrace cafe which by its décor and custom appeared to be wheree the cool rich kids hung out to buy expensive coffee drinks and smoke sheesha. on our way back during much confusion and disorentation due to the streets( by now we had concluded that they were akin to the moving stair cases described in harry potter) we stooped at a supermarket and bought facial scrub – my skin was in tatters after the sweat and dirt of sadhana, non organic toothpaste that doesnt taste like mould…it is in fact colgate and cost only 33ruppees, and some other small luxeries to make us feel more human.

despite the choice of some western food and more expensive resturants we dined cheaply and very satisfyingly at a stall cooking parrota – a swirled kind of bready pancake served with spicy chutneys.

the next morning- wednesday we venture into bangalore, after much confusion with the buses at the stop nearest to us we rickshaw to the main bus depot in the HSR layout where we are told we can get a big10 bus to M.G. rd, the main shopping road in bangalore. after waiting on a corner and  seeing only buses marked 500 in regular consession i, un sure that the bus depot manager had even motioned to this particular coorner opt for a rickshaw, luckily it wasnt as expensive as we thought it would be.

we are quite lucky with our accomadation. at first we though we were in the middle of no where, but thiss new development complex has a life of its own outside the city and it perfect for the stop off and relax we want while planning our tripto mysore.

what we saw of bangalore seemed to be just another big city and indian city ofcourse with colourful and mish mashed delights round every corner though im not sure all would apprieciate them as much s my essy eye. lots of colleges and universitys, a few great malls, the first which we entered reminded us so much of being in a kendals back home (somewhere we would never shop) that we left within 5min. Kate got her watch for what seems like a gd price and i got a really gd camera for what seems like a gd price back home. Most food and shops where either expensive by our indian standards or extremely cheap.

i rebelled againts kates expensive watch purchase….which only actually equated to around 3 pounds and bought a super cheap one for 60 ruppees, about 80p. ets just say mine makes a fun piece of jewlery. the simplicity of the bus depot in the centre was a relief. we managed to quickly locate the stand we needed to get to mysore (with buses every 5 minutes) and the bus we needed to get back to the HSR layout. This aided by the help of the easily found inquiry desk. The men outside the inquiry reception seemed adiment we wanted to go to either pondicherry or goa. they were hard out of luck.

funnily when i wqs calling up hostels from an initernet cafe near M.G. road we were quizzed as to where we were from, information we dont mind divulging. A fellow internet user overheard and introduced himself. He had lived and worked in manchester, in wythenshaw, working for the NHS….I should of gotten his name, would have been typical if he had worked in the same departmnt as my mum! After all when we arrived at Sadhana one of the first people we met was an architect from Bury who lived not far from preswitch!. tuh! small world.m in Pondicherry we presented our case to the bus depot manager.  The case was we didnt have a printed ticket due to the failure of a the printer in an internet cafe… but we did have a reservation checked by phone and we had paid by card….his solution was, after many head wobbles and taking some information, to write a little note to the head office…then issue us with boarding cards…hoorah now we were reassured that we would be vacating Pondicherry on a bus bound for  Bangalore.

before boarding we ventured into a cheap looking bar full of local men drinking beer. the curious stares didnt bother me or make me feel unconfortable…gosh two white women drinking beer and smoking! we were going to look odd anywhere purely because we were western so i wasnt going to pay extorionet prices in a hotel for that to happen anyway. plus the bar was right next to the bus depot so i convinced kate to stride up the stairs behind me an we ordered two beers. the waiter asked me for a cigarette- i gave him the paper nd tabacco but hilariously he brought it back to us.. the only women in the bar and curiously white at that…him and his friend had had several minutes crouched over with concentrated looks trying to roll the tabacco and sadly failed. this left me and kate in chuckles after i had returned a rolled cigarette to him. we no longer felt we were too young or western to be in such a place. as brits to be fair we were probably the most eperience drinkers in there…but sensibly stuck to one beer before boarding the sleeper bus. A screaming baby and several near falls from our bunks later we arrived in bangalore.

A 5am rickshaw to the HSR complex ( i still don’t fully know what the abbrivation stands for, just that its a development of houses and shops out side of the city centre) ran us into trouble as finding the guesthouse wasnt as easy as we had thought. We eventually found the right building thanks to the persistant rickshaw driver but with no signage of  hosteli started for the first time to question Hostel world, the website we mainly relied upon to find us decent well priced hostels/guest houses. After accidently ringing on nd waking the neighbours we persisted to ring the bell to the door they had stired us towards. Thankfuklly we managed to wake the receptionist/chef/cleaner who turns out to be quite a decent guy.

worried at first that we may have selected a hostel in the middle of nowhere (despite the seemlying central description on hostle world) after a sleep and a nicley cooked breakfast we went exploring the area. we were provided wth a map from the kindly chef- who it turns out is a cartographer as well…though his maps arent in the same league as his coffee.

we found we werent 5mintues from a few bus stops, resturants, cafes, beauty palours, chemists, nurseries, juice bars and interent cafes. Infact everything we could want. After some lush pinapple juice we were determined to visit the main bus depot and the BDA shopping complex. I am in need of a camera and Kate, a watch. Much walking of the crazy street system later wwe concluded that the map while useful wasnt intirely accurate and we became confused with the apparently logical numberings of cross streets, main streets and side streets which introduced us to lettering in the system. There is 17^th cross, 27^th main but then 17^th cross B, C ect…just when u think you have a grasp of the street system in this newly built and fairly high class area of town 17^th main will jump to 26^th main…we rickshawed to the BDA complex and found a mix of shops in what looked like a beaten down precinct. A scatteriing of pricey technology, jewleery and quiet designer clothes stalls, mixed with cheap hardware stores and mini super markets. It felt like a shopping centre that hadnt quite taken off yet or one near to closing down. All the upper levels were devoid of shops.

We crossed the road and passed some road by stalls that in my mind looked much more intresting and found a terrace cafe which by its décor and custom appeared to be wheree the cool rich kids hung out to buy expensive coffee drinks and smoke sheesha. on our way back during much confusion and disorentation due to the streets( by now we had concluded that they were akin to the moving stair cases described in harry potter) we stooped at a supermarket and bought facial scrub – my skin was in tatters after the sweat and dirt of sadhana, non organic toothpaste that doesnt taste like mould…it is in fact colgate and cost only 33ruppees, and some other small luxeries to make us feel more human.

Despite the choice of some western food and more expensive resturants we dined cheaply and very satisfyingly at a stall cooking parrota – a swirled kind of bready pancake served with spicy chutneys.

The next morning- wednesday we venture into Bangalore centre, after much confusion with the buses at the stop nearest to us we rickshaw to the main bus depot in the HSR layout where we are told we can get a big10 bus to M.G. rd, the main shopping road in bangalore. after waiting on a corner and  seeing only buses marked 500 in regular consession I, un sure that the bus depot manager had even motioned to this particular coorner opt for a rickshaw, luckily it wasnt as expensive as we thought it would be.

We are quite lucky with our accomadation. at first we though we were in the middle of no where, but thiss new development complex has a life of its own outside the city and it perfect for the stop off and relax we want while planning our trip to mysore.

What we saw of bangalore seemed to be just another big city an indian city ofcourse with colourful and mish mashed delights round every corner though im not sure all would apprieciate them in the same messy way as I. Lots of colleges and universitys, a few great malls, the first which we entered reminded us so much of being in a kendals back home (somewhere we would never shop) that we left within 5min. Kate got her watch for what seems like a gd price and i got a really gd camera for what seems like a gd price back home. Most food and shops where either expensive by our indian standards or extremely cheap.

I rebelled againts kates expensive watch purchase….which only actually equated to around 3 pounds and bought a super cheap one for 60 ruppees, about 80p. ets just say mine makes a fun piece of jewlery. the simplicity of the bus depot in the centre was a relief. we managed to quickly locate the stand we needed to get to mysore (with buses every 5 minutes) and the bus we needed to get back to the HSR layout. This aided by the help of the easily found inquiry desk. The men outside the inquiry reception seemed adiment we wanted to go to either Pondicherry or Goa. They were hard out of luck.

Funnily when i was calling up hostels from an initernet cafe near M.G. road we were quizzed as to where we were from, information we dont mind divulging. A fellow internet user overheard and introduced himself. He had lived and worked in manchester, in wythenshaw, working for the NHS….I should of gotten his name, would have been typical if he had worked in the same department as my mum! After all when we arrived at Sadhana one of the first people we met was an architect from Bury who lived not far from preswitch!. tuh! small world.

…after a month a Sadhana Forest we are ready to get on the road. We have a bus ticket bound for Bangalore on monday and a hostel awaiting our arrival.

Last week we went on a 6 day impulsive excursion with two american guys we met at the lodge to Kodaikanal- 12hours ( 8 hours on the decent) south west and 7000ft up.  We took a semi-sleeper bus for around 5 pounds and the journey went smoothly…apart from an hours drop off waiting for a transfer we had no idea about. We were woken at 5am and scurried off the bus at a place which could of been anywhere….we were given chairs so it looked liked we were in for a wait, so we cracked open some peanut butter.

Climbing up the mountain road to Kodai actually took my breath away. Ive seen beautiful sights before but at 7am looking at the lush green forrested mountains above and below the snaking road, for a breif moment i actually didnt breathe. Waterfalls cascaded from the other side of the valley and clouds drifted just metres away blocking views momentarily.

We had considfered staying in Vattakanal so unpon arrival (after a breakfast of iddly and REAL dosa) we jumped in a taxi van and drove away from the entrance of the swish hotel we had been dropped infront of. As we drove bumpily down what i would later learn was Vattakanal Road, one of our american friends requested to stop at what he was almost certain was the small house of a man he had stayed with on a previous trip. Strangely/luckily since this man David didnt live there himself, he was at this house feeding his dogs he kept there…and even more strangely/luckily he remember our friend.

After a breif inspection of the house- 3 small stone rooms with a kitchen, bedroom with a double bed and a double fl0or materess, and a storage room- we were happy to stay foor the tiny price of 2pounds a night and the  sweet chai(tea) which the elderly indian man with a variation of a handlebar mustache made every two hours when we were home. On offering him some boiled egg one morning – he accepted politely- we learnt that normally he doesnt really eat breakfast , or lunch, he starts the day with grass and beedie follwed by chai and beedie every 2hours.

We walked the 3km to Kodaikanal and Green Valley View ( a valley not green but a mass of white cloud blocking EVERYTHING- you could of been at the end of the world) most days. Passing the trees, monkeys and endless stalls and shops selling oils, spices and chocolate – a novelty up in the cool mountanis with the promise upon purchase that it wouldnt melt for 40days. We in turn were passed by locals, taxis a few scattered tourists and clouds that brushed our faces.

The weather and enviroment was such a contrast from pondicherry and auroville. We were still in the same state of Tamil Nadu but we had replaces the flag like stripes of red earth, sparse but green trees and blue skies with lush green grass, dense trees and cooling white clouds. The evenings in our small stone dwelling reduced us to wrap up in wollen blankets agaainst the cold…and also the mystery biting creature- in our tired state we concluded it could of been the blanket. It was pretty sharp. Though the ridiculosity of the biting blanket and the awarness of teeth kept us awake with laughter and angst.

We ate a lot of iddly – rice flour balls served cold for breakfast with various sauces and cooked for ourselves – a rare change from the mass meals prepared at the lodge. The jounrney home ran smoothly…to smooth as we arrived in Pondy at 3am and were forced ( but lucky enough) to hail a rickshaw back to Sadhana. But we had the jounry down the mountains fresh in our mind. It had been noisy and colourful with the fire works of dwaili, and exciting and invigorating if you include the 5000 large fire crackers set off with out warning at our feet while waiting to board our return bus. We were bombarded with shells and force to take cover behind the wall we had been sitting on….maybe we should of moved when the indian men started to unroll a supisious long thin red strip over 4 metres long…passing right by us…..or even before that when they appeared with a large red box with warning signs on…..but we had done as the locals did and sit by…..idle and trying to fit in….the result was loss of hearing and bags covered with ash and shells…

Sunday, we decided to keep the adventurous spirit of the weekend and venture into Pondicherry. Catching the bus from thee side of the busy road- after a hot walk up the dirt track was simple, standing on the bus was ... [Continue reading this entry]

....friday was our last day of work before our weekend, it involed more bunding in the forest with the goal of 'zero run off!'  and then some hard work in the sun for Swami the resisdant handy man who helps ... [Continue reading this entry]

  We are on the five day count down to letting loose and exploring for a good nine or so months....We have our flights, we have our visa's, we have insurance and our jabs are complete....i ... [Continue reading this entry]