Victor Feinman

I just got back from a weekend trip to Bangalore. This trip was definitely unique from any other trip in that all I took with me was my backpack. I was literally backpacking across India. Well that was a little of an embellishment. However, we left our campus with no plans on which hotel to stay at or any means of returning. We just took off with what little money we had and went on an adventure. An adventure we got.

Once we got there, we literally walked in circles. The first on our to-do list was to find a hotel that was cheap and had a room available. We would walk into hotels that from the outside looked like a run down place, then upon entering, we find out it is a five star hotel. We didn’t want to spend all our money on a hotel room so we finally found this place that charged us 810 NIR for a night. If you do the math, that’s about $20 USD. A little more then we wanted to spend, but it would do. We were kind of getting worried that we wouldn’t find a place to stay, and we wanted to go around the city before it got too late.

We all agreed on going to the aquarium, the problem was getting there. None of us have taken an auto rickshaw yet and we have all heard horror stories about them. In case you don’t know what an auto rickshaw is: it is a three wheeled cart taxi that holds 2 people comfortably but possible to squeeze 6 people. The have the same engines and steering as motorcycles do. They don’t go too fast and they are at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to road in India. Even scooters rank higher then they do.

Us in an auto

So we tried to all pile in one auto but they have an unwritten rule between drivers to not use the meter when there are more then three people (people meaning foreigners). So we took two autos instead. The driver asked for 30, but we just insisted on him using the meter. He finally gave in. We split up and took two autos. We had a general idea of where we were and where we needed to go. When we got there the meter read 22 NIR. Which when we looked at the map, we realized they took us all the way around the park. Big deal, we paid them a combined 50 NIR ($1.25 USD) for there services and left.

The admission to the aquarium was 5 NIR. We walked in only to find a really poor excuse for an aquarium. It was a bunch of tanks set in the walls of a round building with tags that may or may not of had the type of fish in the respective tank. It was nice to see some species we haven’t seen in the states though. A funny note, Ted was taking a picture and at the same time his flash went off, the power in the aquarium shut off. Ted thought flash photography wasn’t allowed and he caused the power outage. But we knew the power infrastructure in India wasn’t good and that was why most stores also had diesel generators as back ups.

After the aquarium we just took a walk thought the park. We took some interesting pictures of us on top of a bolder and in trees. Around the outside of the park is the high court of India and another government building which looked amazing. We were not done our sight seeing for the day just yet. We booked another auto to take us to the Bangalore palace. The Bangalore palace was nothing compared to the Mysore palace, but it had a cool fort/castle exterior to it. Unfortunately no photographs were allowed of the outside of it. We wanted to go in it, but the cost was too high for us poor backpackers. Now it was time for some shopping. We asked the driver to take us to MG Road, a shopping district. He insisted that we stop off at a couple of shops along the way. My god, he must of thought we were made of gold or something. The items in the stores that he showed us were very expensive and extravagant.

We finally made it to MG Road. We were happy because we were hungry and there was a McDonalds on this road. I ordered a Chicken Maharaja Mac. It was pretty good. I swear it was the first time I ate from McDonalds in a really long time. The probably process about 8-10 customers a minute and there is always a line. That McDonalds is banking!

It took us a couple of hours to finish shopping on that street. I picked up a pair of running shoes I needed. It was off to the autos again. This time we were going to Hauser Road, where the modern mall was. This place was huge. Everything was in it. On the top floor there was a movie theater. We almost bought tickets to see a Bollywood video, but changed our minds and decided to eat instead. The food court was crowed. Not a seat available.

This was the end of our sightseeing / shopping in Bangalore for the day. We still wanted to see the Temples but we would have to save that for the next day. We didn’t want to take an auto back to the hotel because it was too far, so instead we took the local busses. We ran into a few locals who helped us get back to where we needed. For the most part, Indians will go out of their way to help you. You should have seen this bus. There were people hanging out the side door that is how packed it was. No breathing room. I had one hand holding on for dear life, and the other on my back pocket, where my money was.

We took an auto from the bus station to our hotel. This is where we found out about the prepaid booths. At these boots, there is a government official who determines the rates of the autos, that way you won’t get ripped off. Once back at the hotel we dropped off our bags and went to a lounge. The lounges/bars/pubs are far and few between in India because the culture taboo on drinking. The lounge was ridicules. The music was playing louder then a concert. The locals would randomly get up and start dancing with each other. Mind you there is not one female in this lounge. It wasn’t a gay bar or anything, it’s just you don’t see a lot of women at bars, and men dancing/holding hands in public is actually normal. We didn’t stay long. Just one round of a pitcher and we left. Tired, exhausted and a little tipsy, we retreated back to our hotel room.

I was lucky enough to sleep on the padded bench, the three others shared two double beds stuck together. I was twisting and turning all night trying to find a way to place my arms on the bench in a way that they wouldn’t fall to the ground. Needless to say I was the first one up. I woke up at six. Whilst everyone else was still sleeping I took this time to review a little for our screening test tomorrow. This is the test that will decide if I am here a month less or not. Once Ted, Nick, and Jason woke up we walked to the corner restaurant and ordered some breakfast. We called the auto driver we had the day before, because today we were going to the Bull Temple and the Iskon Temple.

The Bull Temple is very old and the Iskon temple is very new. We went to the Bull temple first. We walked in the temple (took off our shoes first) around the bull, stopped to get a blessing ( a red dot placed on our forehead), then walked around the outside of the temple where we could see the original tower, which now is home to many pigeons.

The Iskon temple is huge. It sits on top of a hill and had a great photo point of Bangalore, however, we had to check our camera at the security, no photos allowed. We purchased the fast track ticket (150 NIR). This got us right up front on all of the shrines and we didn’t have to wait either. At the last shrine, a guy made us touch some flowers. He then asked us for our names, said a prayer and instructed us to meditate for two minutes before the last shrine. Whilst meditating, we saw the flowers we touched earlier being poured into a box in front of the shrine. I assumed it was an offering to the Gods. Listening to instructions from volunteers we were routed through what seemed to be a waiting line at Disney, but lined with vendors and quick moving. We bought nothing at this temple.

This marked the end of our journeys to Bangalore. We took the same auto to the bus station and got on the first bus back to Mysore. It actually felt good to be back in Mysore. The air is cleaner, there aren’t that many people in the city. The campus really does spoil us here. We felt glad to be back on campus. The first thing I did was shower. I wouldn’t have showered at that hotel in Bangalore if I had to stay there a week. Ughh.