Bangalore

Liz has been pestering me to visit Bangalore with her for quite some time now, so last weekend we made what I'm sure will be our first of many trips there. :) Bangalore is in the next state over, Karnatika, about a 7 hour drive from Chennai (I think). We ended up taking the bus both there and back. On the trip up, we took a bus run by a private company and on the way back we took one run by the state government of Karnatika. We left at 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday and arrived in Bangalore around 9:30. On the way up, we were treated to a Tamil movie for entertainment. Even though there were no subtitles, I had little trouble following the plot since it was almost an exact copy of the English movie "What about Bob?"

After getting there, we took an auto to Liz' friend's flat, where we were staying. It was quite a treat to find that the auto drivers actually use the meter if you ask them to. We ended up staying up for a while even though we didn't go out because the people on her street were still celebrating Ganesh's birthday by blaring loud music.

Even though they were up late the night before, her neighbors still managed to get up early and again start blasting loud music Saturday morning. We got up too and headed out to Martahalle (I have no idea how to spell that) where all of the outlet stores are. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to spend there as we had dinner plans with Liz' friends from Microsoft. We hoped to go out afterwards (all I've heard is how Bangalore has so much better night life than Chennai) but apparently there is a new police commissioner who has restricted dancing as well as the closing time for the clubs, so we were unable to go anywhere. We ended up hanging out in the room they had booked in the Leela Palace (a luxury hotel there.)

The next morning, we got up and had a fantastic brunch at the Leela Palace. Then, we were off to shop til we dropped in The Forum-the American-style mall there. I loved shopping there! But, after a while, the sheer number of people there got to us a bit. We stopped off to eat and have a drink at the 13th Floor. We stopped and visited another of Liz' friends who recently had a baby and then headed back.

The next morning we woke up and headed back to Chennai. The government-run bus was much nicer than the privately-owned one and a much better value. Unfortunately, they played two Hindi movies that I was not able to follow-one with Salman Khan (not that I minded missing THAT one) and one with a young Amitabh Bachan.

All in all I had a blast! Bangalore is such a nice city to visit-the climate is much more temperate than Chennai; the shopping was great (tho I've heard that I still need to go to Commercial Street!); and it was so relaxing to get away from the stress at work! I wasn't ready to come back!