24-02-2006
At 2 o’clock in the morning we land at Bangalore airport. We still have to wait for about half an hour, as the (single?) terminal fitting large planes is taken for the time being. That’s not a problem, it still feels like evening time for me anyway (as time is ahead of me here
). I’d already discovered that *everyone* sitting close to me in the plane works in IT, so I’m able to intertwine random chitchat about Oracle, outsourcing and technology with enquiries about the country: they’ve all been here before many times. This will be my first-time India experience though 
During my talks with my direct neighbour (working for a US-India-based medical-focussed IT company) I’ve decided not to take the train to mysore and continue from there, but to first take a plane to Trivandrum (of which the real Indian name sounds too complex to me) and travel upwards from there. This advice was based on time as opposed to money being my most valuable resource during my short holiday. I’d only had in mind to visit Kerala and Mysore, the travel details were (still being) composed on board.
During the current small delay on the airport, it would’ve been hard not to notice the smell creeping in, a smell which for me is associated with big Asian cities. I could try to describe it with the smell of an open sewer muffled away with incense and spice, covered in a cloud that comes out of car exhaust pipes.
Once out of the plain, in the country, passed the hassling taxi drivers, I managed to get to my pre-reseved Royal Lodge, nicely clean but really nothing special. Time to sleep anyway.
25-02-2006
I slept well and planned on getting my ticket to Trivandrum as soon as possible. The nearest travel agency is willing to assist me in my quest, and I booked a flight with the very cheap Air Deccan. It wasn’t possible anymore to catch the single flight of today, so I guess I’ll spent today in Bangalore, which is fine.
As booking the ticket took quite a while (with a dozen interrupting phone calls and clients passing by; seems like the common way people deal with each other here), the travel agent had time to advice me on where to get my breakfast…
In the restaurant just across the street, everybody seems to be looking at what I’m ordering, and how I will eat it. Without cutlery that is, although I didn’t knew this when I ordered. Not that I understood what it is I ordered, but anyway… My random pick from the menu turns out to be some pancake-thing, so I have to manage with my hands. I’m not using the single right hand they’re using: they wipe their behind with the left hand, but I don’t . Meanwhile, the restaurant is filling up and I get a small girl and some friends joining me at my table, which seems a normal habit around here.
A second one joins, and instead of a plate, they get a banana leaf, on which a miox of rice and sauce is server. Or rather, they mix the rice and sauce themselves (single handed) and start eating with their bare fingers, covered in rice. We have a nice chitchat (all of her friend join in): age, name, marital status, they just keep asking, and for asking me these simple things, their English really is quite well. It’s funny, because for a moment I suspect her being a scout; like she’s asking these things for her (still single) sisters, which are smiling and laughing at the table a little further on. Well, not for me.
I shared my Bollywood experience on the plane. An indian-made move, with a worse then B-movie story, but with nice modern traditional Indian music, dresses and beautiful girls in conservative filming. Half the plane had to laugh very loud, but I felt like if Laurel & Hardy were given money and a color film camera, this would’ve been the result. I told my table-mates in a little different words though. Their side of the story was the Bollywood movies are about simple and real things in life (like love), and that the American movies are filled with heroes accomplishing impossible things. This might be true, but this argument doesn’t make me toss away science fiction for nurse-loves-doctor novels, and neither does it make me want to watch this Bollywood stuff…
As soon as I’d stepped outside my hostel, I felt like I’d met life in the country. The quietness on the street during my nightly arrival has been replaced by life like you wouldn’t believe it until you saw it. So many people on the street, cars and riksha’s flying by, and not any western tourist in sight (not in the hostel either). I guarantee, my appearance is noted, though in a nice and friendly way.
Not only the hotels around here are not solely targeted at tourists, neither are the riksha’s passing by. Even the little shop owners leave me alone, so I can actually enjoy the street life here.
After my breakfast, I strolled around the city, along the colorful but poor city market, around MG Road area
(1) (shopping area for the more wealthy I guess), and across Kovum Park, unavoidably guided by a not too healthy looking man (2), explaining interesting things at first (nature, building, etc) and ending up with a sad story for which he required money (going back to his children). Well, at least he didn’t try a time-sharing Shiva statue on me
At evening I had dinner on the street from a clean-looking gas stove, surrounded by chairs and tables (could qualify for a restaurant), bought some stuff in a local shopping mall, and had a beer in a bar. With all these drunk Indians staring at me, I felt quite uncomfortable. When two drunk guys tried to provoke (or so I think), I wished I’d picked an open place instead of a basement. I can imagine the lonely planet strongly recommends women not to go into a bar. Local women don’t, and I don’t expect they’d get any worthwhile the attention.