After more than 4 months of my stay in India, I was finally able to visit famous Indian Silicon Valley - Bangalore. The distance between this Karnataka capital and Chennai is about 330 km and our group of three girls (French Melanie and English Anna) and 4 guys (all Indians) had decided to overcome it by car and bike, which lately turned out to be not the best idea ;-)
We left Chennai on Friday evening and were supposed to reach Bangalore in 5-6 hours. How naive we were!!! It took us two hours just to get out of Chennai!!! As soon as we got on a highway the ride was quite fast and OK but still we had kind of underestimate the distance and it was raining which was quite uncomfortable for the guys riding a bike so we were ready to spend a night in a small town 90km before Bangalore. We finally reached the town (it was already quite late and whole town was dark and sleeping) and were looking for a place to stay at when a real adventure started. When reversing, Guthi (our driver) didn't see a metal construction behind us, the car hit it and the back glass shattered. We were already tired and kind of mentally down so this really didn't cheer us up. First, Guthi was really upset and I expected him to say "We go back to Chennai!" But he was brave and didn't do that. However, when we were standing in front of a lodge and checking rooms availability, a police officer came. We (European girls ;-)) didn't understand much but guys looked really scared. Then I understood: "No, Sir, please, Sir, don't take us to police station! We can pay a fine." A FINE!!! Bullshit!!! This stupid asshole was just threatening us (although we didn't do anything but had damaged our car) to get his bribe! First he asked for 4000 and I thought I would jump on him and strangle him! Finally guys were able to cut the "price" to 1000 and eventually we were free again. It was already very tard (I think 2 am or so) but we decided to continue to Bangalore. We were damn tired and half sleeping when we finally reached Bangalore and found a hostel with free rooms. Good job given the fact that it was 4 am!!!
After this stressful and tiring journey we slept till noon when we set out for lunch and Bangalore sightseeing! Well, Bangalore is not a tourist place at all. It's a huge modern city well-known for its IT industry. But still we enjoyed it a lot. It's much cleaner, greener and less chaotic than Chennai. Moreover, given its inland location and elevation of 920 m, the climate is much European-friendlier: not humid at all and quite fresh between 4 pm and 10 am. And most of auto-rickshaws use meter so you don't have to argue about the price and be ripped off all the time.
We girls (guys were dealing with the car and doing we-have-no-idea-what) went for a walk to Cubbon park which is a huge park in the middle of Bangalore with flower beds and cultivated lawns (something that you can't see in Chennai that often). We went to a catholic church where we sneaked in to see a mass but ran away as soon as we realized it was a funeral...stupid white gals ;-)
After this stressful and tiring journey we slept till noon when we set out for lunch and Bangalore sightseeing! Well, Bangalore is not a tourist place at all. It's a huge modern city well-known for its IT industry. But still we enjoyed it a lot. It's much cleaner, greener and less chaotic than Chennai. Moreover, given its inland location and elevation of 920 m, the climate is much European-friendlier: not humid at all and quite fresh between 4 pm and 10 am. And most of auto-rickshaws use meter so you don't have to argue about the price and be ripped off all the time.
We girls (guys were dealing with the car and doing we-have-no-idea-what) went for a walk to Cubbon park which is a huge park in the middle of Bangalore with flower beds and cultivated lawns (something that you can't see in Chennai that often). We went to a catholic church where we sneaked in to see a mass but ran away as soon as we realized it was a funeral...stupid white gals ;-)
Cubbon ParkThen we went to one of Bangalore's tourist attractions: Bangalore Palace. It's a smaller replica of the Windsdor Castle in England. Since the entrance fee was quite high we decided not to get inside (which later proved to be a good decision - one Indian guy told us there was not much inside and it was definitely not worth the money ;-)) and just wander around. We thought we would just take few pictures and walk in the gardens...how naive!!! Guards armed with a huge gun and a whistle kept whistling at us and making these "Get lost!" gestures whenever we touched our camera or approached the garden gate. They wanted us to pay 500 to get a permission for taking pictures. Now it was our turn for "Get lost!" gesture (at least in our minds ;-)) and we walked off. And then, sitting on a rock in a reasonable distance from the palace I was finally able to take some pictures of this nice building. Guards were vehemently whistling (which made us ask ourselves whether they were going to shoot us or not) and making their favorite gestures but we just ignored them...untill they started to move in our direction. So we finally made them happy and got lost ;-)
Bangalore PalaceWe spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and wandering in Bangalore city center. I felt almost like in Prague with all the modern buildings and fancy shops around (later we found out that just two main roads looked like this). And when it got dark, it was quite a cultural shock to see Indian girls wearing miniskirts, shorts and sexy tops, walking hand-in-hand with guys, smoking and drinking in bars. OH MY GOOD!!! Shame on you! You call yourselves good Indian girls?! Yeah, only now I realized how different and conservative city I had chosen for my internship. It has not much to do with the rest of India anymore. But let's see whether this is really true in the future when I'll be traveling in north and will thus be able to compare Chennai to more places, not just Bangalore.
After a dinner on a rooftop of a posh restaurant we went to a rock club where our guys were already practicing their drinking skills. They were already quite high, we were tired and the place was terribly expensive, so I decided not to drink (in fact none of us girls was drinking) and just have fun watching them becoming more and more drunk and thus more and more crazy ;-)
Next day morning, Anna was sick and guys were sleeping. So we went for another sightseeing just with Melanie. We went to a Botanic garden...another huge park with a lake in the middle. We were just chating, walking and enjoying the climate. Then we went to the last tourist attraction: Tipu Sultan's Palace (a small wooden summer palace) and got back to lodge to pick up sick Anna and meet guys.
After a dinner on a rooftop of a posh restaurant we went to a rock club where our guys were already practicing their drinking skills. They were already quite high, we were tired and the place was terribly expensive, so I decided not to drink (in fact none of us girls was drinking) and just have fun watching them becoming more and more drunk and thus more and more crazy ;-)
Next day morning, Anna was sick and guys were sleeping. So we went for another sightseeing just with Melanie. We went to a Botanic garden...another huge park with a lake in the middle. We were just chating, walking and enjoying the climate. Then we went to the last tourist attraction: Tipu Sultan's Palace (a small wooden summer palace) and got back to lodge to pick up sick Anna and meet guys.
Chinese gate in Botanic gardenAnd that was it. We set out back to Chennai at 1 pm and after a very long and tiring ride we finally reached home at 10 pm. Although the trip was not as nice as we expected, I was really happy to see this famous city and enjoy its wonderful climate. And what is a lesson from this trip? NEVER EVER ROAD TRIP IN INDIA!!! Let's stick to dirty trains and buses ;-)
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