A bazaar day

Hello again from India! Sudesh took me out on the town today and we had a good time. We first went to make my reservation for tomorrow's guided tour of Bangalore. It's an all day tour and should hit the major sites in Bangalore, so rather than seeing those, we went to Commercial and Brigade Streets to do some shopping. To get there, we went through what Sudesh said is called a "Gulley" which is basically an alley. He said these where "real Indian roads".

On the main streets, the traffic was horrendous yet again - even Sudesh said that it was strange for a Saturday. I also learned that "auto-rickshaw" is Hindi for "fume spewing suicide go kart with 3 wheels". OK, I made that up, but that is what it should mean. You can barely breathe riding behind them, and they are everywhere, passing you on both sides of the car and merging in front of you. Driving hear is like an arcade game - it really is.

Once we made it to the tour place, I bought my ticket and then we were off to do some shopping. Commercial St is like Time Square in NYC - packed with people and shops.

I bought some pants at a men's store (I could not get to the dry cleaners before I left because of the snow) and Sudesh and I then took an auto-rickshaw to a nice restaurant, Eden Park, for lunch. This was a welcome break from the noise and chaos of the shopping areas - it was very quiet and lots of trees and plants.

Lunch was a 4 course meal - french fries as an appetizer, then Chicken Manchuri (a little spicy, like buffalo wings) and Hariyali Kabob (not spicy) then a bread and sauce dish. Add in a few Kingfisher beers (a local Bangalore beer and very good) and it was a meal. Total price came out to 22.00 USD - quite a bargain.

After lunch we went to Brigade St. and walked around the shops and so forth. It was very much like commercial street. BTW, even in down town bangalore, there are still cows wandering about.

Here is a tip on shopping in India - the brand names there cost as much as they do in the US. I went to a Levi's store looking for a pair of jeans and they were $110 USD. If you are looking for bargains, stay away from the name brands.

By this time I was pretty touristed out for the day, so Sudesh kindly drove me back to the hotel where I decided to lay down for a few minutes and woke up three hours later. I am freshly showered, called home, and now blogging. And now... bed. I have to get up early to take a car into town to meet my tour tomorrow at 7:15. BTW, did I mention how much this all day tour costs? It's $7.00. Gotta love that.

Stay tuned - tomorrow I am taking my good camera (the previous photos are from my iPhone) so I hope to have some more "scenic" shots for you tomorrow.