Monday, August 2nd
Hey y’all! Yesterday’s post was all about the plane ride to India and today’s will continue where I left off – which was when I stepped off the plane. Hopefully, even though it’s a day late, I’ll be able to recall my first impressions of the sights and sounds.
Hey y’all! Yesterday’s post was all about the plane ride to India and today’s will continue where I left off – which was when I stepped off the plane. Hopefully, even though it’s a day late, I’ll be able to recall my first impressions of the sights and sounds.
The Bangalore Airport
Stepping out of the airport, the group of us are greeted by Dr. Lawrence Mur’ray and our tour guide Sandhya. After making sure that we have gathered everyone, we board our luxurious chariot for the week: our !ncredible India bus (not a typo):
From there, we then take an hour bus ride to our hotel: the Ista hotel. Along the way we get to pass by many areas that are not, let’s say, the nicest and richest parts of India. However, I did not see anything that gave me the cultural shock that everyone told me to expect. Honestly, my first impression was that it looked a lot like Mexico, complete with the dirt sidewalks, brightly colored yet run down road stores, and the animals crossing in the streets. It actually looked a lot like South America, except with all the signs being written in Canadans (sp?) rather than Spanish.What I found the coolest, however, was seeing the random temples and shrines that we brightly colored and decorated with statues. As soon as I find some free time, I’m going to go find some and explore them.
The Ista Hotel
Arriving at the Ista Hotel, I am shocked by the beauty and excellence, even though we are surrounded on all four sides by completely run down areas. No sidewalk, potholes in the road, etc. etc. Yet, here in the middle of all of it was this beautiful hotel. Absolutely gorgeous. India really is a country of contrasts.
Exploring the hotel, we find one of its coolest features: the pool. Check it out. Pretty awesome stuff, right? One side is one of those rimless ones so the water overflows, making a waterfall:
Awesome, huh? The restaurant is nice, though expensive and its br was voted the best of 2010 by the Times in India. We had a brief debriefing (its about 9am by this point) and we were told that we had the rest of the afternoon free until 4 pm. Most people decided to nap. I decided to catch up on my blogposts, since I love you guys so much, You can thank me later. The only thing that stinks, is that not is the internet NOT free, but for the five days I'll be here, internet will cost an exorbitant $120. Yeahhhh, not much Facebooking for me this trip.
Oh and the funniest thing about our hotel is that our guide told us that the main reason she chose this hotel was because, nope you didn’t guess it, it was right next to a McDonald’s. Seriously. That was one of the main reasons. Normally I would be appalled at this, but after trying that airplane food, a McChicken ain’t sounding so bad.
Exploring the City
A few of us decide to meet around noon to go explore Bangalore some. Noon rolls around, some people are running late, others are eating lunch, and others just chatting. Before you know it, it is two o’clock and we have still not left the premises. Much to my grumbling annoyance.
But we finally manage to amass everyone. There are about ten of us (and you know how I feel about travelling in large, obviously American packs of tourists..shoot me now) and we just pick a direction and decide to go walking. First of all, there are no sidewalks. There is no walking around and sightseeing. It is a careful picking of your way around the many loose bricks, giant potholes, the open sewers covered in wooden planks and the whatnot. It was quite fun actually.
Crossing the street was another matter. There were no crosswalks and cars did not yield. Eventually, we decided to follow the advice of our tour guide, Sandhya and just “find and Indian and follow closely”. It was a but awkward duck-tailing this poor Indian man, especially when he noticed the gigantic group of Americans following directly upon his heels, but the important part is that we made it across alive. Keep your expectations low and you are forever crossing things off of your “to accomplish” list.
Stores along the MG
Mahatma Ghandi is the major road in this city (as it is in every other city in India – a bit like MLK is in the US), and we wander along it visiting some random shops. One guy started talking to Ben, our student leader, and eventually dragged us down some small alleyway where I began to moderately begin to be concerned about whether we would be mugged and have our blood drained or something.
Luckily, this was not the case, and we were instead lead to an interesting shop selling all sorts of Indian goodies. Typical. He’s probably working on commission. They did have some beautiful rugs, but I didn’t even bother inquiring of the price. (I did try and drop a few little tidbits I learned in Turkey to make it seem like I was moderately knowledgable about carpets…and I think it worked, tehehe).
We wandered around some more, visiting a few shops here and there. We came across one with two peopled dressed in Tiger costumes. One was tall and the other short so we assumed it was a man and his son. That is until we heard the small one speak. That was not a child.
We also saw a random small church (and lots more references to Christianity – like Bible World, etc., which surprised me a lot). We did go and check it out, got a small feel for it, but left soon after. I think the caretaker was surprised to see people come visit, but he responded well to my attempt to be respectful when I bowed slightly with my hands pressed together.
The Traditional South Indian cuisine
After our meeting at four, where we went over our itinerary, and a brief nap on my part (when I felt like the living dead upon awakening), we met up to take the bus to dinner. I can’t remember the name of the place we went, but it was very fancy, schmancy and we were the only ones there. I don’t know if its because it was expensive or if it was too early for most Indians to eat, but it was slightly weird to see no one else there.
The meal started off with some green soup. Like bright green soup. Apparently made from drumsticks – but the vegetable drumsticks (I don’t know what these are). But it actually was really good, so my confidence was improving a little bit by little bit.
Then came the starter round. Servers came around and served bit by bit and served us what appeared to be brightly colored glop. Oh I;m sure it had some real name, and I’m sure I knew what was in it. I was just impressed that my plate covered the entire color spectrum, just about. I was so excited by this, I took a picture:
So yes, all that I heard was true. South Indian food was spicy. Very spicy. Like I have permanent holes burned into my tongue spicy. God dammit, even the bread has spices. But my main problem was staying awake. I was having trouble dealing with the food, but my main problem was not collapsing my head into the food. I’m afraid I was very sociable that first night, but despite sleeping on the plane, I was ready to conk out.
We finaly make it back to the hotel, but likeI mentioned earlier, all I could think about was my nice cozy bed. So despite it being only about 9:15, I promptly surrendered to the subconscious world.
Well thus concluded my first day in India! Not too exciting, I kinda wish we did something to keep us busy, and thus awake, but it was a pretty relaxing day. Still waiting for that culture shock to hit, but when it does, there is always the McDonald’s next door!