First Impressions

Friday 3rd June 2011

Tomorrow we fly to Bangalore for the first time.  I'm not really sure what to expect, but am trying to be open minded.  This is supposed to be a pre-assignment trip for Jennifer, to see if she likes the country, the new office etc. etc.  However, she has already accepted the position, so too bad if we don't like it!  At the worst, it's a one week freebie at corporate expense for me.  We get the services of a relocation company for a day who will show us around the city, and expamples of properties which would be within our allocated rental budget, and the rest of the time we will be on our own, apart from the time that Jen will be visiting her new office.

Saturday 4th - Friday 10th June 2011

OK, well we had a good flight and arrived in Bangalore at around 5AM and the hotel had sent us a car to the airport.  This city is absolute chaos.  There is no traffic dicsipline whatsoever.  Obviously the most important item on any vehicle is its horn, which is used to mean "Look out I'm right behind you",  "You are in my way", or even "Can you hear what a great horn I've got - in fact it's SO good I'll just keep on sounding it for no reason whatsoever while I drive down this road. Can you hear it? Can you still hear it? "

The streets are full of people, wild dogs, cows, traffic, rubbish and general crap.  There is so much going on you would have to walk up and down the streets several times in order to see it all, and even then it is constantly changing.

As I walked through one of the more squalid parts of the town a young boy ran out from dark establishment and started jibbering on at me in Kannada.  He was pointing at my camera and trying to beckon me inside what looked like a dark workshop.  I thought "what the hell" and went in.  It was some ramshackle engineering type of shop; really dark, with tools and bits of metal lying all around.  In one corner was the above man.  The young boy jibbered on, pointing at the camera and at the man, obviously wanting me to take his photo.  The man was a bit embarassed and had this really serious Indian head wobble.  I managed to get him to keep his head still for a second while I took this pic.  I showed it to the boy who was delighted and then to the man.  His head started to wobble back and forward so much I thought it was going to actually fall off.  I had an overwhelming desire to clamp my hands on both sides of it to hold it still as some sort of bizarre new emergency medical intervention.

There are no public toilets so men just piss wherever they feel like it.  On the walls surrounding official government and military buildings there are signs to discourage this, but they are often ignored.

There are fruit sellers and stall holders everywhere.  They mostly seem to do good business, I suppose as there aren't too many Tescos here.  Produce to be washed well before consumption!

The ubiquitous two wheeled family vehicle.  It is not uncommon to see three, four or even 5 on one of these things.  Helmets are not so common.

The auto-rickshaws are everywhere, and can be seen packed with children when the schools get out.  It is difficult as a Westerner to the the rickshaw wallahs to turn their meters on.  They know they can get more money out of us, so you need to bargain hard.  Even with that you will get charged maybe three times what you should have paid.  Nevertheless,  for a journey that costs me £1.50, which in the UK would be £10-£15,  I don't argue too much.

At first glance you wouldn't be able to tell what this woman's occupation was.  She is actually a labourer on a building site.  She removes the soil that the builders have excavated and piles it up outside. 

Bangalore continues to develop its infrastructure in its own typical way.  This is the Central Metro Station at MG Road seen from across the military parade ground.  The Metro has not yet opened and is considerably behind time.  They did a test run and found out that the trains didn't go round the bends and so now they have to rebuild it.

This is UB City.  It is a designer shopping arcade with such shops as Dunhill, Tag Heuer, Diesel etc etc over three floors.  There are some nice cafe's and bars on the upper levels.  It is obviously only for the elite of Indian Society and Westerners.

This is Mahaboob Pasha, my Autowallah for quite a drunken ride back to the hotel one night.  He drove facing this direction for the entire journey.  He was great fun!