Good Day Sunshine

So anyway, to start on a good point, I passed my exams! No more written exams for the whole of medical school. It was an ugly pass but as said in ER, "what do you call the guy who graduates last in his class at medical school?....Doctor!"

The weekend trip was to Bangalore:
Left on Friday evening around 6pm (was meant to be a good half an hour earlier) and found my confirmed seat on the train. It was a bench seat which I shared with 2 other commuters whilst my new room mate Christian and 2 English girls Clare and Ali sat on the seat over the aisle; the rest of our group were in the same carriage but further down. It soon became duller and the train lurched into the night. Apart from the less than smooth running of the train we were also fairly constantly interrupted by all manner of people carrying different items for sale or begging for money. Some of the beggars could be very persistent, tapping me or the others on the leg or hand for up to 5 minutes. It was difficult for me. Perhaps in larger cities like London or Glasgow these kinds of thing are more common but in Dundee it is fairly rare to see someone on a street corner and I can count the number of times on one hand that I've been approached to be asked for money. It is difficult to refuse to give money to the polio crippled man who crawls down the train with a rag to clean the floor in return for a few rupees or the child who looks like he hasn't eaten a proper meal in a good few days.

Anyway arriving in Bangalore without somewhere to stay was, in hindsight, a bad idea. We tried phoning ahead once we had got into the train station but most places were already booked up. Having a large group of people (13 or something) was difficult and we were willing to split up but we eventually found a place not to far from the main commercial centre of Bangalore, MG Road. This "hotel" was called the New Central Lodge Hotel. I thought my room in the Annexe here at CMC was spartan, but at least it is fairly respectibly spartan. This hotel, even at 11.30 at night, looked grimy. I had a more comfortable bed on the floor of the train last weekend; fortunately I was exhausted and slept pretty well despite the chill that was in the air.

Saturday
Got up relatively early, in glad expectation of the warm shower I was promised. Bangalore wasn't particularly warm (probably still 23 or something), especially at 8 o'clock in the morning and having slept on a rather rigid bed my bruised shoulders could have done with a nice bit of massaging heat, but as you have guessed the shower was lukewarm at best. At least it wasn't freezing as it was on Sunday. The unhelpful taps didn't make my life any easier either, as I attempted every combination to make the thing heat up. I also have to blame the 10 girls with whom we were sharing the hotel and managed to get up earlier and probably use up all the hot water. Anyway headed off to Mathma Ghandi (MG) Road, the main road in Bangalore for breakfast at a local Barista place...think I had cake or something for breakfast as they didn't offer anything more savoury than this. Mmm, cake for breakfast. MG road was unlike anything I had experienced in India before - it could almost have been in London or Glasgow with its tall buildings and impressive shop fronts (and paved footpaths). Spent quite a while in the very western shops and ended up having pasta for lunch at a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant (average at best, pretty bland. Reminder: stick to Indian food).

After lunch the other side of Bangalore when we headed to the City Market. This was a pretty dingy place at first sight, worsened by the heavy rain (pseudo-monsoon), but the colours and smells of the market were very impressive, especially in the covered part of the market. There were many stalls selling strong-smelling flowers and many others selling strong-smelling brightly coloured spices. Definitely "An Exerience". After this we were a bit more touristy and headed to the Palace of Tipu Sultan, which was interesting building of tall columns and dark coloured wood, with a good guided tour by a friendly local.

Back to the hotel before dinner at an atmospheric restaurant before rounding off the evening with a few drinks at a packed 70s style pub, Pecos.

Sunday
After the frenetic activity of Saturday I had a much more leisurely Sunday, despite the coldness of the shower. Good coffee and chocolate cake for breakfast (at least it wasn't spicy) before we headed off to the Botannical gardens in the city. It was relatively busy (cost me the princely sum of 5 rupees (about 7p) to get in) but still quite quiet and away from the traffic. The gardens themselves weren't particularly beautiful with some low scrubby bushes dominating the flora, but there was some interesting Gneiss formations for all you Geology fans out there. Apparently they were some of the oldest rocks in the world but I don't trust signs.


The train back was at 2.30 so steadily we made our way towards the train station getting good views of the grand City Court and Parliament buildings on the journey as well as helpful advice from the autorickshaw driver regarding possible sleep-inducing drugs being hidden inside sweets offered by fellow passengers; urban legend if you ask me. The train journey itself was much less interrupted and managed to get a good bit of Sufjan-listening sleep. So I arrived back without major illness or even the minor illness that plagued the return journey from Ooty.

Overall it was a good trip, interesting to see the progressive, modern India coupled with areas of the worst poverty I've seen in India. Bangalore has about 5 million people and about 8% of these live in slums. Although this is less than some other places I've been (Kibera in Nairobi being a prime example), the contrast between the flashy banking and IT sectors and these slums is so sharp here, but still there weren't huge numbers of orphaned children or beggars as in Kenya; perhaps the relatively heavy police presence kept them out of sight.

Post-script
Heard about this when I got back, but didn't see any sign of it whilst we were there:
India’s IT capital wakes up to terror threat

Until next time.