Day 6: Lost in Bangalore

Tess Raley


Our trip into Bangalore began with our wonderful driver, Albert, having to bribe traffic police to let our bus drive on the road. Then we got lost. Vidya and her husband were arguing because she wanted to ask for directions and he did not. Maybe the U.S. and India aren't so different after all...

We then got to meet Vidya's cousin and his daughter and see their home. This was a great experience to actually visualize the everyday lifestyle of the people living in Bangalore. This city is much more westernized than Chennai is. In Chennai only the men wear western clothes, in Bangalore we were the most traditionally dressed people there!

After we went sightseeing through a few parks, we decided to go eat and then shop. So Miles called over four rickshaws, threw us in them, and we took off. Mikela and I had the honor of riding with Vidya who was so overwhelmingly angry at her husband's lack of organization that she was trying to communicate with (and scream at) him through the rickshaws. At a stop, a begger girl in crutches came up to each of us asking for money. When she approached our vehicle, Vidya just told her to go to school, and they would feed her there. Eventually we all arrived at the coconut grove and relaxed for lunch.

The rickshaws had waited for us, and when Vidya told them where to go, she was very displeased when they started driving us all around the city, nowhere near where we wanted to go. Apparently store owners will pay for the gas in these vehicles if they bring in customers. So we went to a silk store, and a rug store, and a store full of porcelain elephants. Eventually we decided to walk.

We reached commercial street and bartered and shopped for a good two hours. Yet, after all the bug bites we recieved on our feet at the temple combined with this being the first day of a lot of walking, we were soon exhausted. Unfortunately, poor Albert was not allowed to bring our bus on many of the streets, leaving us and him constantly wandering through the city for about 2 hours.

At one point we decided to sit and rest outside of the police station. And an officer came out and told us that we were not allowed to sit on the station lawn (which was about 2 feet of unkempt grass). Vidya snapped. She started screaming at this man that she would listen to him once the street was cleaned and how dare he ask her to move. It was awesome.

Eventually we found Albert, got to our hotel, and had a very good nights sleep.