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.