Learning the ropes

Official day one in Bangalore. I'm calling it that because . . .

Wait for it . . .

I saw daylight today!

That's right, I managed to fall asleep at the right time and wake up just a little bit early, so may I introduce you to the actual, sun-(andpossiblysmog)-lit view from my balcony:















View to the left, view to the right, pretty self explanatory.

Today I went out! Left the hotel, did not go to the office, and went downtown. Well, there is some confusion there. There's what is commonly called 'downtown', which is a central hub of manic activity. Then there's Downtown on the maps, which is the palace. Today I chose Manic-Land, tomorrow maybe the palace and the gardens? We'll see.

It took me about an hour to do with a scarf what Indian women do in about five minutes. There's some complex drapery going on there. Ultimately I will need someone to show me how to do this - in the end I compromised by tucking the ends into my bra straps. Seems to work, appearance-wise. For all I know, that's how the other women are doing it, they're just much, much quicker!

My mission today was to buy a cheap cell phone that I can use while I'm here. The hotel phone, just like any hotel phone in the world that I've seen, makes you sign over a deed to your firstborn before you can pick up the receiver. So, after two hours of wandering around and half an hour of three women trying to convince me that I had to buy a plan for a year, I convinced them (Thank you, Telus, for giving me practice in this) that I could buy a one-month sim card only if I bought the phone outright. I think possibly you can rent cell phones here - ? There were many parts of that conversation that went sailing clear over my head.

So, I have a cell phone! Never mind that I cannot call other cell phones because the network is always busy, I can at least call the office and the hotel.

After that I wandered downtown for four hours. This place is really incredible. During rush hour, I wandered side streets (not the same as back alleys, for anyone who just 'tch'ed at me) because the thickness of the exhaust made me dizzy. But otherwise - well, watching everyone else, I started imitating them. Which looks a lot like ignoring the vehicles and walking wherever you want, except across major roads and intersections. Instructions that I might mail to the Lonely Planet people:
To cross a major road in Bangalore: Find a group of Indian women. Go when they go.
To cross a side road: Walk/duck/run in front of a car. They can't go very fast because of the bumper to bumper traffic, and the cows. Accept the risk that your toes may get run over.
To walk somewhere quickly: You can't. There are too many people. Give up and change your stride.

This last one was very hard for me, but admittedly, it made the scarf stay in it's carefully draped position a lot better than my normal walk did. And my normal walk really only made it five paces.

Some more photos - I can't tell you road names because these roads have no signs or names on my map. I believe one of them is Mahatma Gandhi Road (MG Road, popularily) so, pick your favourite and go with that:

This is not rush hour; as you can see there is a small space between the motorcycles and that car.


My ride home was in an auto-rickshaw. I guess that's pretty self explanatory? They're operated by motorcycle handlebars, instead of a steering wheel, and are mostly self-contained. No doors though. Here is my view from the backseat:

Back at the Taj now and I talked to my new favourite person, Ashish, who explained that my phone was not working for me because I had stubbornly not asked anyone for dialing instructions and apparently there are different codes you have to add, depending on whether you are calling a land line or a cell phone. Oops! When I got back to my room, this was waiting for me:

Impressive!! The wine is red and, well, wine, and I wasn't sure how that went with olives, so I just ate them. (Have I mentioned how terribly spoiled I'm going to be when I leave?)

You can't see the little card there, but it says: "Best Compliments! For assistance in opening the wine bottle, please contact in-room dining." The bottle is a screw-top.

I almost called them. I really did. Settled instead for giggling to myself and putting in some blog-writing time.

I think I've got the autorickshaw thing down, and my rusty haggling skills that took me so long to develop in Spain are starting to come back. I think I'm ready for this city, knock on wood! Tomorrow I will try to see some sights, etc., assuming I can get this 'sleep' thing working for me tonight.

Love to all!