December Address

I couldn't be bothered with google maps pointers so I just drew an arrow.

My suitcase

I knew I was a little too relaxed packing this time.

Things I brought:
2 sets of nail clippers (accident)
1/2 kilo of museli bars (vital)
twice as many sox as underwear (pointless)
car keys (forgot to give them to Wendy so she can drive my car)
a hat (it is cool and overcast most of the time)

Things I forgot to bring:
cable to connect camera to laptop (therefore I can't upload any photos until I return)
big tripod (damm there is some good night scenes here!)

McDonalds Menu

Chicken Maharaja Mac Burger. Dont know much but I'm staying away from it. See McChicken burger.
Chicken McGrill Burger. Horrific. It contains not chicken meat as we get but a pattie that one assumes contains some chicken plus other unknown ingredients. Did I say it tastes horrible? Quite a trap for the first time McDonalds buyer.
Paneer Salsa Wrap. Not very nice. Paneer (fried cottage cheese I think) can be quite nice in some authentic dishes but in this wrap: not.
Mexican Chicken Wrap. OK. Strange sauce that is not mexican in the slightest but at least you get real chicken.
Veggie Burger. Fantastic. An excellent tonic for the stomach when you haven't been feeling well.
McAloo Burger. Cost rs20!! (A$0.50) Not bad at all. Unknown pattie that I assume contains potato.
Filet o fish. Standard. Very good.

The cramps

I'm getting expert now at managing the little bouts of sickness that inevitably comes with travelling in this country especially. Last night I went home not feeling too hungry. As I went to walk out to a restaurant it was raining heavily so I turned and went home. I ate a few biscuits but never felt hungry! Should have seen it as a warning sign. During the night I had stomach cramps but without the diarreah (cant be bothered looking up how to spell that). Not hungry for breakfast, I'm only just recovering my appetite despite not eating for about 22 hours. Other than that I feel fine however. Go figure.

Thank You Jesus

Such was splashed right across the back windscreen in giant letters of the car that was driving like a lunatic. He must just press the accelerator and pray.

What the?

From the supermarket shelf label, I chose to buy a "Swiss Fruit Cake". On the package label apparently I bought a "Switz Party Keyk". Atrocious. The spelling I mean. Was very nice. Its ingredients start with:
Flour, Sugar, Vegetable Fat, Egg, Oil, Tutti Fruity, .....

ps - I just entered the last ingredient into Google and was surprised to see it exists!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutti_frutti

Back in Bang. The good the bad and the ugly.

So I've returned for two weeks. This time its in on sunday night and out on the friday night. This time I am no longer in Kadabisanhalli but in Indirinagar. This area is much closer to the city, a maze of streets of residential housing. I'm on 19th Main street near 2nd Cross street. Very simple.

The bad news is my apartment sux (except the bed which wouldnt be out of place in a 4 star hotel). I have a kitchen which sports a sink and a fridge. NOTHING ELSE. I have to share the apartment with someone else!! (You lock your bedroom door). The shower is in the middle of the bathroom, pointing at the door. After having a shower, any attempt to get to the sink or toilet means wet feet. I am right near two of the busiest roads in Bangalore, airport road and 100ft road so the traffic noise is high. The supervisors speak practically no english.

The good news is that 100ft road is the best shopping and restaurant strip outside of the city centre! I have food! First stop TGI fridays.

100ft refers to the supposed width of the road. Parallel to it is 80ft rd. Not a good naming scheme when you start making roads of equal widths.

finally

Ok. So I never got around to finishing. Here is famed monkey pic. It won an honourable mention in my companies monthly photo comp.

Yes I'm back

Been back in Oz for one week now. While I thought I might get an adjustment period, I have been thrown back into my insanely busy life with no mercy. Factors outside of work including a certain big birthday are giving me daily headaches.

When everyone asks me "How was India?", I struggle to answer without a big explanation. In short:
Good to experience another culture in any kind of way.
5 weeks was too long.

Upcoming posts will be:
Trip to Nandi hills including my kick-ass monkey photo.
Leaving from Bangalore Airport on the night of the 20-20 semi final.

Indian news #5

This is possibly the most disturbing. Not only did a witch doctor decide who was guilty, but the lynched dude wasn't even him.

Feeling poorly?

Tents like this crop up on the side of the road here and there. Must be holy-men or something. The sign text is copied here:
Ideal treatment is given for both gents and ladies. Good treatment is given to infertile couple with sexual problems suffering from 10-20 years. Permanent relief for the patient suffering from renal disease, gastric, paralysis, jaundice and ulcer etc. Patients are successfully treated asthma, hernia, appenditis, hypertension, neurological & gynaeclogical without any side effects. [checking of pulses rs20 only]

There is a possibility he is saying that being together for 10-20 years is the cause of couples sexual problems.

A dingo stole my baby!

Keep the children away from the street dogs. Thanx to Tom.

What to do when you have a puncher

There is a little blue shack on the side of the ring road that has fascinated me for 4 weeks. Hand-painted on the wall are the words "Puncher Shop". I wondered what they punched? 4 weeks of daily travel later I finally saw a new addition to the shack - a big tyre balanced on its edge out the front with the same words painted on it. AHH A PUNCTURE SHOP. Vehicles and bikes go there to get their punctures repaired. Makes perfect sense.

There are many hilarious english spelling errors here that I have failed to record. At our previous-favourite restaurant, there is a (quite good) drink called a 'throat buster'. One assumes it is meant to mean 'thirst buster'. Otherwise it could have been a form of masala-cola. Yes such a thing exists. You can get spice-flavoured apple juice etc and the packaging is similar to the real stuff. Very horrible, very traumatising to drink if you accidentally buy it.

Indian news #4

Yes, I always wear pants.

More news (thanks George)

Monday September 10, 2007
Ravi Shankar Singh, 46, of Hasanpur, India, has launched a campaign to stop people answering the call of nature outdoors and start using toilets. He goes out on patrol each night searching for people squatting in fields or by roadsides. When he catches someone, he shines his torch at them and lets loose with a blast on his whistle.

Indian news #3

And now for the video

Marathalli Goes Off

People everywhere, music, dancing, yada yada yada. Awesome. We were the only white people there. The locals were fascinated by our camera's and our interest in the event. The children on the balconies kept motioning for us to come up but there is no way we could get there even if we wanted to.

The search for Ganesh pt2

So then we walked back the the theatre complex (15 mins) to find our target restaurant was not open for another 30 mins. Not trusting the post-mix at the theatre, the only place for a drink was at the Marathalli food world shop (15 mins walk). After that, it was back (15 mins) to the restaurant. After dinner it was dark so we headed back to Marathalli (15 mins). Fuck. I estimate we walked 15 kms that day. Here is a neon Ganesh over the ring road from the Innovative Multiplex.

Evidence!

Walking down a side street we found the coolest light-tunnel display I've ever seen. Watch the video. Plus a huge Ganesh. Bingo. But nothing was happening yet...

The search for Ganesh pt 1

We went for a walk on Saturday afternoon looking for evidence of Ganesh festival festivities. We started walking south along the ring road onto Sanjapur road, looking for a temple complex we knew was about 5kms down the road. Nothing happening there, we got the bus back to Marathalli.

Human conditioning

The power goes off here quite regularly some days but people don't even seem to notice. The computers at work run off a UPS consisting off a gigantic bank of lead acid batteries in a back room. I won't even go in there. No-one comments or looks up from their work when the lights and AC switch on and off.
At lunch with 4-500 other complex employees in the food court, when the power goes off, there is absolutely NO change in the noise levels or people's behaviour. NO-ONE looks up from their conversations or even stirs. Except us white guys who can't help it EVERY time.
Amazing how our cultural conditioning is at complete opposites.

All this food for only $A8

If I hadn't bought western sweets and meals-ready-to-eat the price would have been even lower.

Home map

Map where we are living.

Indian news #2

Just amusing this time. And cute.

Indian news #1

Click on image to enlarge. Hopefully it is readable. Horrible and amusing.

Restaurants

Notes on restaurants.
Asking for water gets you the bottle presented to you like wine, where you can approve the bottle before it is opened and poured for you.
Every restaurant gives you feedback forms after dinner. Obviously all their owners have done MBAs.
They are big on mocktails here coz so many people dont drink. Some aren't very good.
The ratio of staff to customers is usually 3 or 4 to 1.
As you leave about 20 waiters ask say 'good bye sir' and ask you how the food was.

Busy Marathalli

Waiting for a bus to the city saturday morning. A little taste of the chaos that is Marathalli. (Mara village?) Despite all the poverty nearby, this area is full of brand-name shops that aren't particularly cheap.

A lesson in politeness

I find everyone is so dam polite. Especially when confronted with people doing things for you you don't expect. (see gajin factor). I've kinda learned how to be polite all over again. I feel like I have to acknowledge every little thing with a thankyou. Asking nicely with a smile gets you far here, especially when you approach people whose command of english you don't yet know.

The white-man factor #2 (gajin factor)

The security guard saluted Tom today as we walked into our apartment complex. It kinda mentally knocked him sideways and the word "jesus fucking christ" came out of his mouth quietly amongst others. That kinda thing doesn't really happen often but it is quite confronting to us Aussies. I'm still not totally comfortable getting in the back of the car for each trip. I don't want to be different (not that different - I like being driven).
When you enter shops with security guards, they often open the door for you and I'm not totally sure in all instances if they do that for locals. I don't get it. Does the guy think I expect it? Does he think something bad will happen to him if he doesn't? Does he think its his duty? I really hate it.

I hope they home-deliver

Just the thing to pick up with your weekly vegtables.

So many flowers

With the wedding season coming up and also the Ganesh festival, it is flower garland season. Whole floors of the market were taken up with people selling flowers and threading them onto threads to make long garlands.

Inside City Market

Inside was a warren of dark alleys and shops that ranged from flowers to mechanical parts, to picture framers to coffin makers. I loved these cones of powder - I think they are spices - that many of the sellers had. Very hard to get photos coz of the light level inside and we were a bit cautious of taking photos too openly unless we got chased for payment. This was probably an unwarranted fear though.

City Market

Tom and I took the bus from Marathalli into town. The first time we'd done so. You just hail every bus that comes past and ask if it goes to the the central bus stand. We got off somewhere in the city and walked to the city market following the signs and our noses. Pictures follow.
We didn't see any other westerners all day but strangely the people in the market either 1. ignored us and did not stare as I expected, 2. were very friendly and just asked "hello, where you from". Tom's standard response was "Australia, you know 'MCG!'". While the scene was confronting and crowded, it was actually more pleasant then being in MG Road or the tourist areas.
Here are the vegetable sellers outside the market building.

The white-man factor

Being a foreigner seems to get you a fair bit of status here. By definition, they know you are much much richer than they are. Even if you don't flaunt your wealth like the rich Indians do, the colour of your skin is all thats required. Probably hollywood imagary of Americans also goes a long way to forming their opinions. I'm also not sure how much of it is a hangover from colonial rule. The more educated ones aren't as succeptable to white-man worship but you still get a huge amount of respect.
We are meant to show ID at our work vehicle entrance and I dont have a photo ID but when we drive in: white-man with a laptop sitting in the backseat, they don't challenge you. They *WILL* do so however for any Indian, even if he is being driven in like us. In stores where they ask bags to be checked in before entering, they never challenge white folk either. You can walk pretty much wherever you want and there is a reluctance to apply the rules to you. The poor ones sometimes call you 'boss' too. I wont get used to that.

Video trial

This is a first attempt at uploading a video. Actually this is from our city explorer afternoon that I've yet to write about. We were god-knows where in the quiet backstreets and came across this cow? and cart.

When Rome burns

When our 8 story tower at work catches fire, this is the firefighting equipment on hand. Don't panic though, they are kept pre-filled! That means its quicker to throw your four buckets of water on the fire and put it out. If thats not enough to put out a burning office block..I guess its a run off to find the nearest river...
BTW our office has no fire escape and only one entrance. :) Looks nice though.

Brigade road

This is the tourist 'centre' of Bangalore. It's absolutely horrible. Crowded, narrow, full of pushy street salesman, beggers, full of all the tourists and non-Indians of the city. Postings about our trip to find the 'real' Bangalore sometime soon.

Little temple thing

These are all over the place.

Funny traffic #3

Like sands through the hour-glass. When the traffic stops, the cars fill in all the voids between the trucks, the auto-rickshaws move to fill in all the voids between the cars and the motorbikes make their way through any gap they can find.

Auto-rickshaws (tuk tuks)

These a pretty identical to Thai tuktuks, they variably run on 2 stroke, diesel, and some lpg apparently. They are either metered or priced by negotiation. These guys will turn their engines off in stopped traffic or at traffic lights to save gas and restart them via a crank handle down on the floor on the left hand side.
When the traffic starts moving or the lights go green you get a symphony of all the auto-rickshaw driver furiously cranking their handles to get started before the traffic gets moving. The motor bikes and some vehicles do the same.

The head-wobble

Move your chin to the right, and the top of your head to the left. Now reverse and repeat quickly.
In India this interchangably means:
Yes,
Maybe,
Sorry,
Thanks,
I don't know what you are talking about.
Also used as a conversation ender. Its kinda infectious though. I caught myself doing it at McDonalds the other day. Rather embarrassing. A smile also goes a long way here and can get you out of most situations.

Funny Traffic #2

Oh the laughter. I wonder what they get taught? There are NO road rules here. At one narrow railway bridge near work, one direction of traffic regularly muscles the other direction out and fills the entire road space. I also see cars with stickers that say "How do you rate my driving? Call xxx to report bad driving" ??

Funny traffic #1

There appears to be only ONE road rule enforced by the police here - that motorcycle drivers must wear helmets. Of course that doesn't mean this applies to passengers or that there is any restriction on the number of family members you can take for a ride. Four seems achievable when you squish smaller ones in between larger ones.

Speaking of which...

If one is on the treadmill in the gym and the power suddenly goes out, things could get quite messy. (think about it).
..so the treadmills are all hooked up to huge UPS devices. I assume this gives you the chance to jump off in the dark before the motor stops. I don't want to test it.

Marat Hali street view

This is the view from the grocery store we went to on the way home. I think we were somewhere near Marat Hali which is the closest village to where we live on the ring road near where the airport road intersects. Notice the building under construction - there are buildings going up everywhere here and they are ALL concrete. Nothing is built of wood here coz termites will destroy a building in a year.
Underneath the sign advertising personal satellite TV you will find squatters and poor roadside stall men.
Notice also the great wiring on the the power pole. Electrical safety is not one of their strong points. There is a metal lamp post in our apartment grounds that issues strong arcing sounds from it, you see guys joining 220kv lines in the street mud and melting electrical conduit together with fires. No-wonder the power goes out regularly.

View from the apartment

The nice building across the way is actually Cisco I just realised. Doesn't mean we are any nearer to civilisation. The hidden road that runs across the picture in front of Cisco is the outer ring road. This location doesn't even appear on the comprehensive "Bangalore Road Map" I purchased, or any map for that matter.

Difficulties

The apartments are in the middle of nowhere .
There are no stores of any kind within reach without using our driver on the way to-from work. I just found a good store "big-bazaar" down the road from work that thankfully I can get what I want at lunch time but struggle to find good food.
It is extremely hard to find: safe vegetables, there is no milk (only UHT), no frozen foods or fresh meat, no eggs.
I have to live off: cereal, bread (not very fresh), yoghurt, meals-ready-to-eat, pasta and sauce, two minute noodles and juice. Thankfully it is all cheap, a shop-load normally costs me about $5-6
The road out of our complex is intraversable by foot within 48 hours of rain and its been raining lately. Public transport is difficult to take from the city and cabs dont like coming out this far. Auto-rikshas will refuse to come here as well.
BTW the big-bazaar has a sub-store called "Loot Mart". Strange invitation if you ask me.

Some kind of record?

So I got sick in a little under three days. It was probably the indian breakfast I had on the second work morning and the worst thing was I didn't even need it. Due to jetlag I was still hungry after the first breakfast early in the morning (cereal), so I tried the Indian one under peer pressure at work. I've been sicker and the main symptoms only lasted 24 hours, but it took the rest of the week to recover my energy and appetite. Found the "vegie" burger at McDonalds to be quite good and worth having when your stomach is a little fragile.
I knew it was something I'd have to go through eventually, I guess the sooner the better if it leaves me stronger.

I suspect

This could be why the internet and phone don't work.

Apartment Pics

I'm on the third floor of block 'G'. About dead centre of the third image. The pool is almost visible in the foreground of the third image.

Peer pressure

I'm on MSN now as well as Skype. Email me for contact details.

Just the way I like it

The Bangalore apartments are nice but on arrival,
The following doesn't work:
* the complex internal 'telnet' phone
* the ADSL in my apartment
* the so called wireless networks available in the complex
The following has had parts drop off/break.
* Fridge,
* Toilet,
* Toilet roll holder
* Tap
* Orange juice container when I tried to open it.
Also
* My company calling card cannot possibly work because the only access number is on another (inaccessible) phone network. Two hours of calling help on VSNL and Airtel and Telstra confirms this problem is impossible to solve. Go Telstra. If I still had my Sprint card it would work fine.
* It took 45 minutes to work out how to turn on the hot water. This involved five taps, two electricity switches. There are about 20 unlabelled switches in the apartment - some turn on lights in other rooms, some turn on appliances/outlets in other rooms, some do nothing (as far as I can tell), some turn on lights. Its kinda like breaking a safe combination to work them out.
* A few TINY cornflakes crumbs left on the bench for 20 minutes called in an army of black ants all over the kitchen.
The only contact I have with the outside world is through my colleague Pavan's apartment.
I'm used to this sort of thing...

Internet performance anxiety?

You'd think when you get free internet to pass the time (4 hours worth)at Singapore airport it would be a godsend but I just find I can't think of anthing to DO on the internet. I sent one email, did one skype chat, and one google search (and one pointless blog entry). I'm bored shitless! Never thought I'd say it but I might go back to watching FA cup highlights on 4m HD screen.

Coming Soon - Subcontinental Adventures

After an extended extended break, house of mash returns with impending quality* posts on adventures in Bangalore. First posts in August (sometime). Actual travel date depends on budget, other people's travel plans, re-organised training schedule, budget, weather, budget, alignment of jupiter. As you can see, things are very certain.


* not guaranteed.