After sometime at last I get some time and mood to continue chronicling my journey in India. After falling sick in the first week in India, I recovered to continue exploring this land. Most of my travelling has been in and around Bangalore and boy, this city is huge. There are 6 million people who call this city home and that is more than the population of Singapore!!! Add to that the huge land area and this city easily dwarfs Singapore and Kuala Lumpur combined. The end of the first week saw Zali leaving for Singapore. Since we came together, me and Montjoy thought it would be good to see him off. He was staying at the Ista while the two of us were at the Mercure. We were at Koramangallam and he was at Ulsoor. It was a 30 minute journey from our place and since I was game to travel on an auto-rickshaw, we took one to meet up with him.
View of the driver seat inside an auto-rickshaw
The recovering me and Mon at the back
One thing about travelling in an auto is that you see another side to this city that is known as the Silicone Valley of Asia, those of the common man. The IT-based workforce in this city display the vibrant, modern and developing India but then there is also the people who live as time has not moved on post-colonial era. I took more shots to display the Indian common man and their lives. People who have never been here will never know that life can be this colourful.
Auto-rickshaws converged on the roadside
A slum area
A cyclist on a busy road - He pays road-tax by the way ;-)
Selling fruits when the lights are red
We reached Zali's hotel and went to the Coffee Day that was nearby. I forgot to mention that there is no Starbucks here. You can find Gloria Jean's but the most popular are home-grown brands; Coffee Day and Barista.
One for the album - Mon, Zali and Me at Coffee Day
We left after having dinner together. Since I was working the next day, I had to forgo the idea of seeing him off at the airport. The next day, I finally got the chance the Hyderabadi Biryani that everyone has been raving about. I have to say that it easily the most popular food item in Bangalore and anyone you know off who's from or have been to Bangalore will stand by it's taste. Since I've been hearing a lot and with a peaking curiosity, I tried it and boy I was, to use a cricket term, bowled over by the taste and quantity of this superb biryani. It costs only Rs. 120 or roughly about SGD$ 4. Imagine that, for 4 bucks you get a helping fit for 2 and with 2 pieces of chicken to boot!!! This is indeed food heaven.
Lunch time crowd building up. You have to wait to be seated
The shop was super crowded, had to wait 10 minutes for a table by the way
The famed Hyderabadi Biryani
Look at the quantity remaining after half was on my plate
The Muslims have Mecca and Medina as their holy land whilst for the Christians and Jews it's Jerusalem. For a Hindu like me, my holy land is India the land that gave birth to Hinduism. One of the reasons for my coming to India was to visit and marvel at the spleandour of the ancient temples that are here. I am not a devout Hindu but I appreciate ancient architecture and the brilliance of Dravidian temple building. Bangalore has it's fair share of amazing temples. On my off day, I managed to get a reasonably prices package that took me to 5 different temples. All had it's own story to tell and magnificent to be in. It was a very humbling experience and one that I would cherish.
The Dodda Ganesha Temple
The entrance of Bangalore's most famous Bull Temple
The main entrance of Bull Temple
The eponymous and huge bull which gives the temple it's name
The Jnanakshi Rajeswary Temple
Skilled artisans busy at work at the Jnanakshi Rajeswary Temple
The ISKCON Temple
The magnificent Shiva at Old Airport Road Shiva Temple
Before I sign off, take a look at the 3 pictures below and think what is common in all 3.
If you didn't notice the similarity, it's the message to "Sound Horn". One thing about the road users here are that they are honk happy bunch. It looks evident that everyone likes to honk when they drive and this habit seems prevalent in South Asian nations. A friend who recently visited Sri Lanka spoke of the same phenomenon and to quote him "If there was no horn in the vehicles, these people couldn't drive!!!" If people in Singapore or Malaysia were to sound their horns indiscriminately, it was inviting trouble but here you're encouraged to horn. Unique ain't it?
No comments:
Post a Comment