Bangalore Day 7 – Sravana Belagola Temple
05:30am
Woke up early for the trip. Can’t believe I can wake up thus early, LOL. The driver for the trip came in 30mins later, and we all jumped in the car all looking miserable except for one shutterbug who was happily taking shots of everything on the road.
I want a D-SLR too. :( …
The ride was bumpy all way to the first temple. Anyway, I managed to sleep halfway through. Played Spore again last night, hehehe.
09:00am
Reached at the Sravana Belagola Temple. (I am too lazy to google everything on the temples, so please do so and leave a comment, heheh)
The stairs leading to the temple on the hill was killing me, literally. 120m’s of 45 degrees uphill climb, barefoot. Urgh. I wished I was in a better shape.
The view of the town, and another temple from here was breathtaking. India is big, man. There was a smaller temple and another big one which houses the big Sri Gomatheswar statue.
11:00am
Had lunch on a road-side shop. Our Indian colleague dared us, whether we can stand the outside food. But the place was actually more cleaner on some of our stalls in KL. Maybe not for those foreigners coming from the west. Hehehe. It was a good meal of chicken masala and naan. I love the naans over here in India, I can go on forever taking this for breakfast, dinner and lunch.
Bangalore Day 7 – Halebidu
13:00pm
Arrived at Halebidu. This was an ancient temple built in the 11th century, mostly in black stone (not the one by Swisher :D). We paid Rs150 for the guide to give a tour of the site.
The details on the carvings was very fine, statues carved out of solid stone, in full 360 degrees. The ornaments on the statues, like bracelets and earrings were carved in, with the holes and all. Each statues tells a different story, and they were thousands of them.
There was depictions on how the gods killed the demons, pulling out of the intestines of the demons (they like this a lot, maybe to portray suffering done to the demon).
And part of the Kamasutra was also carved in parts of the temple. Very educational. I like.
A replay on how the girls danced on the temple’s dance floor in the ancient times. LOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halebidu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoysaleswara_temple
Bangalore Day 4
08:30am
My favorites for breakfast. Vaday and idly.
And a shot of the hotel’s car that’s been sending us to and fro the office. お世話になります. ww
19:00pm
Me trying to cross the fast and busy street. Jaywalking is a required skill over here.
Had dinner at “The Village” near the Marthahalli Multiplex. Had naan with mutton keema and butter chicken. The butter chicken was an instant favorite of us foreigners. Sweet and creamy, and lightly spicy. Anyway, anything goes with me if I have the naan, wwww.
We also had the kebab, which was too spicy for our mid-east friend. Still, it’s a good meal well spent.
Bangalore Day 3
12:30pm
Lunch at the food court. Chinese, Szechuan chicken and fried rice.
17:30pm
Spotted this on the road.
“Beware of kids running across the street”
LOL
18:30pm
Went to MG Road, and my virgin ride on an auto rickshaw. The driver was zig-zagging through traffic, I can actually touch the other cars driving beside us. Dust and dust again. Passed through the air force base, aeronautical departments. Come to think of it, they are sending someone to the moon, but the majority lot of the people are still beating their bones to barely make a living.
19:00pm
Arrived at M.G. Road. First impression was that it’s the Bukit Bintang for Bangalore. Sports boutiques, fast food, and specialty stores. There was a lot of hawkers, selling things from cheap books, accessories (bracelets, sunglasses), to souvenirs and peanuts. We didn’t really go anywhere, was just window shopping at random stores.
Settled at Pizza Hut (of all the places! LOL). Didn’t remember what I took, but it was spicy. Really spicy. Good thing I didn’t get the pasta.
Spotted a Fiat Palio and a retro-looking HM.
Bangalore Day 2
08:00am
Breakfast at the hotel. Idly, vaday, baked beans, and some potato dish. Was pleasant and not too spicy, just nice for a morning filler. Roti paratha aka our infamous roti canai is there, but no kuah dhal and sambal, and they won’t cut it out for you. Missed my favorite “roti 2 potong banjir dhal dengan sambal”.
08:40am
Gathered the bunch and we’re off to the office.
09:00am
Arrived at the office. Quite early actually. Err, really early. OK, it’s a Monday. Finally we are briefed on our stay at around 10:30am.
(company secret from hereon. heheheh)
12:30am
Free lunch at the office. (We should do this in KL office). Only vegetarian food is served. I took the briyani, kacang putih gravy, and potatoes (something I would take by instinct, dunno why).
17:30pm
Called the hotel for a pickup back to the hotel. 15 minutes they say. 20 minutes later it’s still not there. Called them back. “On the way sir”, they say. 15 minutes later it’s still not there. Called them back. “On the way sir”, they say. No, they are not … oh, here it is.
Lesson learnt, expect others to be late. Very late.
19:30pm
The bunch gathered again. The eat-inside-the-hotel gang wins 3 to 1. We were just tired. Tomorrow might be a better time to eat outside ya.
Had something like chicken kebab and rice. And was hurling jokes at each other, testing patience limits, LOL. Retired an hour later and I continued playing Spore until xx:xx pm.
Bangalore Day 1 – Vanekkam
Vanekkam.
Writing in after a long hiatus called Eid-ul-Fitr. I am currently in Bangalore aka Bengaluru of Karnataka, India for training for the month.
Yesterday, 22:20 GMT+8
Departed from KLIA.
Boarding gate was changed (C15 to G6) after we checked in. To the non-frequent flyers (that’s me), the difference is that the former was on the ‘other’ terminal connected using the commuting train. We were not informed of the change which probably took place after we checked in, so after seeing the notice on the original gate, we had to walk and get back on the train to get to the new gate.
I didn’t ask, but I think they mixed up the initial gate information, because during boarding, they announced some seat changes, because some of the seat number given to the passengers were non-existent. This is not something to happen in the centralized airport management system. Seeing the national airline staff being scolded in public hits back at the local’s heart.
00:15 GMT+5.5
Arrived at Bengaluru International Airport.
Actually we should have landed 45 minutes earlier, but the plane circled twice, did a misapproach on the second, and did another turn afterwards. I pity the guy who’s waiting for us, in the cold. Yes, it was cool. Was shocked by the low temperature of around 20-22C. I was especting Malaysia-like temperature, because I have pre-checked it, and it should be around 27C. Maybe that’s the daytime average.
Quite a new airport, very smooth (or should I say loose) immigration and luggage check.
And then, there’s the driving style of the local people. Wow. High speed breaking at close range with other cars, sweeping through lanes, through small gaps between trucks, and the terrible road conditions. I have to say my respect to the driver, say my prayers to Allah, hoping for longer life :).
01:00 GMT+5.5
Arrived at the hotel
Was too tired, so after unpacking some stuffs, I was on the bed, channel browsing (I didn’t know HBO movies sucks this much) until I was asleep.
12:00 GMT+5.5
Went out for lunch, after missing the breakfast. Went to the town of Maruthi, 1+km from the hotel. We thought of hitching in the tuktuk, but there was none available and so we were walking to the town. The weather was fine, and slightly warm. A lot of furnitures, hardware stores, but less sundry and restaurants. I guess eating home is the norm over here. We surveyed some eating joints and settled on one indoor restaurant, Barathi’s.
Menu (for two persons):
3 naans x 2
Tandoori (Half)
Mutton Masala
Price:
Rs.262
It was a very filling lunch, and was glad of eating outside, rather than the overpriced hotel restaurant. It was a clean and healthy joint. Will be back here again since the food is really good. The tandoori is mildly hot, and actually hotter than the masala.
As adviced my more than just a few, drinking the tapwater was a definite no-no over here, at least for foreigners. So after finishing off lunch we got the supermarket nearby and got our supply of bottled drinking water for the week. And since it was not that far from the hotel, we decided to just walk.
The heavy lunch will probably means that I’ll skip dinner and manage with some Digestives biscuits.
I took some pictures but since the my Fujifilm camera was resetted, it needed a “Save” confirmation for each shot by default, which I would usually disable. I lost some pictures because of this :(
