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Other entries in Bangalore

"No need for belt!"

Ok, here goes...

Me and Chris said farewell to our parents at Manchester airport on Friday. We flew straight to Heathrow and got a shuttle bus to our hotel. After checking in we...went straight to the bar for a few beverages, followed by a nice steak meal (thanks Mum & Dad!), and then we...went to the bar again. Several pints later we (meaning i) ordered a curry on room service, just to, you know...get into the feel of things. The next day we were flying from Heathrow to Bangalore. We got on the plane, and then had to sit on the runway for two and a half hours because there was a problem with the baggage-loading machine. It felt like we'd been in the air for ages, and we hadn't even taken off. When we were about to land in Bangalore, it was soooo smoggy out the window. We were sat next to a guy who has lived here all his life, so we asked whether that was the smog/fog that we've read so much about. "No no, not smog", he said, "just cloud". Hmmm :)

When we arrived we had a bit of a panic because our bags weren't on the arrivals carousel, but then some guy working at the airport came over to us, took the reference code, went round the corner, and hey presto, there they were...for a small (or not so small, by their standards) fee/tip. We walked into the arrival lounge and met Babi, the husband of Asha Dey, who is the i-to-i co-ordinator for our project. He took us outside to his car...we walked out of the airport straight into a storm of rickshaw horns beeping wildly - a storm that has not stopped for a minute, and probably never will! It was mental, but he looked after us so we didn't have to worry about being driven to the wrong place or anything like that. He drove us to our guesthouse, Katary Villa, which is just East of the city centre. It seems to be a pretty upmarket part of town, some nice houses...

Mrs Katary welcomed us and showed us to our rooms. We lay down and slept until 6pm. We then walked down into town to find a shop to get some snacks, and ended up getting a Rawa Masala Dosa in a little place just off the main road. When we walked in there was no free tables but the guy who seemed to be running the place directed us to sit on a table that was already occupied by another bloke, but had two spare seats. I think he was a bit shocked to see us sit down in front of him! He left after a while and two other guys sat down opposite us, smiling and nodding at us enthusiastically! Then came the momentous occasion - eating our first meal out in public using just our right hand. I think the locals were expecting us to be a source of amusement, but i have to say, we managed with exceptional skill - must've been all that practice at home! Our only problem up to this point had been the fact that the smallest denomination we had was 50 rupees, and then 100, and then 500. Miles too much to be using to pay rickshaws/small meals...

We got back to the guesthouse and met the guy who is staying in the room next door to us - Ajay. He's from England - Leicester, i think he said. He's really cool and has been here since November. He knows his way around and has been letting us know some places to go, as well as helping us get rickshaws etc. We also met Deepal (from New Zealand), who is staying in the third room of the guesthouse - she'd just got into Bangalore that morning as well, but she's been in India for a while with family. We hung about on the terrace for a while and then went to try and get some shut-eye. Unfortunately i couldn't sleep at all because we'd already slept for most of the day. Managed to get a couple of hours...

On Monday we got up and were taken to Asha's house, where we met a couple of other people who are doing different i-to-i projects but are based at different guesthouses - an American girl (Barbie, i think) and an Irish girl (Liz). Asha's house is amazing. The drive to her house was...an experience...not least for the way that as i was putting on my seatbelt, the driver insisted that there was "no need for belt!" as we were going "less than 40 kilometres". Intriguing. Once we'd met Asha and her colleague Meena, we had a bit of an 'induction', given basic advice on how to handle ourselves without causing offence to people by accident etc etc. We were all then taken by a mini-bus to a fancy restaurant where we had a lunch buffet, which was really nice. Then we got dropped off in the city centre on M.G. Road and given an hour or so to have a wander round, before being picked up again and taken back to the guesthouse, where we had dinner. Also met the two other girls in our guesthouse - Louise from Scotland and Tess from America, they both seem nice but they're off travelling the rest of the country on Sunday, so we'll get two new people in. Before we know it, we'll be the veterans of the guesthouse - God help the newcomers!

There's some decent bars around town, one called 13th Floor is my favourite so far, not least because it shows live premiership football as well as having a great view over the city (including the cricket ground). It's about 30 minutes in a rikshaw from our guesthouse though, which is a bit of a bummer, but there we go.

The placement is going pretty well - the magazine seems to be in a bit of a crisis at the moment as the editor was apparently sacked just before we got here, which prompted the three sub-editors to quit in protest, or something. We're holding the fort, though :O) Ajay and Louise are both on the same placement so that's good.

Speaking of which, i'm writing this from work, so i best stop and, you know, do some work.

Ajay and Tess are both fans of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's films (safe!), so we're hoping to find a cinema that's showing his new one (Babel) tonight, although it remains to be seen whether it's even out over here yet...

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