Sunday was my day of rest. In the morning, I slept late which was a nice treat after a long day of site seeing on Saturday. I wanted to take it easy today, but I also wanted to see a couple of things in Bangalore I had not yet seen, including the botanical gardens and Bull temple.
But first, Rajiv from work had told me about FabIndia, a local store where he shops and is not a tourist trap place. If you are in Bangalore, I highly recommend that you check it out. It is a nice boutique that sells clothes and home goods and is very low key, friendly, and upscale. Sales people are not pushy at all and did not treat me like a foreigner. I was just another customer, which was a very nice break from the people falling all over themselves to sell you things. It had the feel and quality of a boutique Crate and Barrel, but the prices were still more than reasonable by US standards. I picked up a few things and then headed back to the car.
After FabIndia, we went to the Lal Bagh Botanical Garden which is a large (240 acre) park with a lot of different plants and gorgeous, quiet grounds. I was approached by a "guide" again and this time I decided to use one as the place was so big. It was not at all worth it - it was a waste of 750 rupees for a 1/2 hour. I could have found my way around myself (though it would have taken longer to do) but he did point out some interesting things I probably would have missed. I did get a chance to take some photos of course.
Strolling down one of the walkways, I realized it was actually... quiet. It's the first time I have heard quiet in quite a while (without the use of earphones). I took some photos and strolled around for a while. The weather was fantastic as usual - another warm spring day with no humidity.
After this, I was getting hungry and upon seeing a McDonald's, I asked the driver to pull over so I could get some lunch. I figured McDonald's is going to have hamburgers, no matter what. It is, after all, a hamburger joint. Silly American thinking again. No hamburgers. Amazingly, in a country who's main meat dish seems to be chicken, they did not even have chicken nuggets. They did, however, have a Big Mac. Only here, it is called...
That's right - the Chicken Maharaja Mac. Mmmm.... I went with the Filet-o-fish meal (the only item I recognized) and bought my driver a chicken sandwich meal as well. So much for McD's. After this, we headed to Bull Temple, which has the second biggest bull statue in all of India. That's a lot of bull.
It is also the only temple I have been too where I was allowed to take pictures inside. Below are shrines (I think they are called) in the temple.
After walking around the temple, the priest gave me a flower string of lilac and put a red dot on my head. Then he asked for a donation. I gave him 100 rupees and he took my picture (sorry it is blurry).
After that, I headed back to the hotel to enjoy the rest of my day in my room, blogging and relaxing. All in all, a very nice day.
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