Further impressions of Bangalore

Having enjoyed the last extended weekend only 2 weeks ago, I was astonished that we will again be off on Monday. And if I tell you that on next Friday we won't work either, you will certainly get even more jealous... The amount of Indian festivals and holidays is indeed impressive; but I cannot complain! As a consequence I get a lot of time to travel and visit places. But before leaving for a two day trip to western Karnataka, I should finish pending issues first and update you - for example with some pictures of Bangalore's city center.

The expression city center is very hard to define in this town as it has not grown harmonically compared to most European towns. Most of the people would cite Mahatma Gandhi road (MG road for short) as the center. There are tons of shopping malls, street vendors and good restaurants. The heavy traffic and the ugly overfly-highway unfortunately render this road not especially charming.

the crowded MG road

a side street of MG road; the number of parked motor cycles gives a slight idea of what to expect on the roads

Compared to other cities, tourist attractions and sights are relatively scarce in Bangalore. If looking hard enough, one can find some impressive temples, parks or buildings though:

the Vidhana Soudha, Bangalore's State Secretariat... 

... or another bombastic, Indian design building

The nearby Cubbon Park doesn't exactly match the previously presented Lalbagh Botanical Garden but it still represents a nice opportunity to retreat from the city. Unfortunately its maintenance is not good enough or people just don't respect the park and nature:

littering is a big problem in India; Cubbon park is unfortunately not spared from it either

House inauguration party

It is a while back when my housemate Palash and I attended a so called house inauguration party. A young lady - Sahanna - who works at Bühler and uses the same minibus has invited us. Her family's new house was just finished and for such occasions it is normal to do worshipping, give a party and invite a lot of people. A traditional South Indian lunch was served, we were showed around the house and we talked to some guests.

the newly built house, decorated with flowers and chains of lights 

a female guest in traditional sari

Sahanna, who invited us, posing together with Palash

The garage was converted to the caterer's kitchen; I'm still glad that my stomach didn't get upset after this meal as the hygienic standards obviously weren't high.

Dusshera festival

Dusshera - also known as Vijayadashami - is a 10 day ceremony of fast, rituals or celebrations to honor the victory of good over evil such as the victory of Lord Rama over Ravana. In Western calendar it falls in September or October and for this reason I had the pleasure to witness the celebrations.

Throughout the country, the festivities and rituals of Dusshera differ to a great extent. In Karnataka, where I am staying, the ninth day of Dusshera is the most important one: it is celebrated by worshipping of implements used in daily life. This includes tools and objects one uses in daily life such as cars, buses, trucks, computers, books, copier or even a paper binder. These items are decorated with flowers and worshipped. Furthermore households and objects must be cleaned for this day; for this reason we cleaned our lab on Friday morning! The doors of houses, offices or even of the Bühler shop floor were decorated with big banana-tree leaves which symbolize purity.

Unfortunately it is not allowed to take pictures in the Bühler factory premises. I can only offer you some impressions of the village Virajpet:

Judged by these pictures, Dusshera must be equal important for Indian flower sellers as the mother's day for Swiss florists. Flowers are mostly sold as garlands which are used to decorate pretty much every object.

I really wonder how the driver of this bus managed to get a view on the road through all the garlands and banana-leaves. The white signs on the carriage, windows and wheels are religious symbols painted by a priest.

Trekking in Coorg

Last week I was asked by on of my R&D colleagues to join him and his friends for a trekking in Coorg, an area in south western Karnataka close to the border to Kerala. I was glad to escape the megapolis Bangalore for a weekend, get to known the Indian countryside and do some sports. Hence it is again time to update you with some photos!

We left Bangalore on Friday at midnight and arrived in Coorg after a journey of six hours. Coorg is well known for its rugged mountain terrain, coffee plantations, dense forest or rice fields and is said to be one of the most beautiful areas in South India. In Virajpet we had some breakfast and I roamed here and there to take some snapshots.

Later, our driver bought us to the accommodation. His driving skills are quite remarkable as the paths were very steep, narrow and bumpy.

The cottage that we rented was extremely simple; shelter is probably a more appropriate expression. There were only two small rooms for 13 people, no toilet, no pillows, not much cleaning was done but there was running water at least. Having worked for 4 weeks in the laboratory - where the tap water is not working most of the time - I really appreciate running water! At nighttime temperatures significantly dropped. I didn't expect it to be that bad nor to sleep on the rough stone floor; as a consequence I was feeling cold for the first time in India.

The group I joined consisted of Indian bachelors whose first aim was to get drunk; this definition of trekking didn't suit my standards at all. Furthermore it was difficult to play a part in this group of people as they mostly talked in their mother tongue Kannada (the language of the state Karnataka). But fortunately I was there with my colleague Vadivelan with whom I work in the Bühler laboratory. We had a good time together and enjoyed a nice hiking tour to mount Tadiandamol, with an altitude of only 1748 m the highest peak in Karnataka. The weather in this area changes very fast: we witnessed sunshine, deep fog as well as heavy rain in less than five hours! The scenery looks stunning in all weather conditions, though. Leeches were the only problem we were facing on our trekking. These animals are very widespread in wet areas; they are masters in finding a way through trousers, socks or even shoes to penetrate your skin and soak blood. I fortunately got away with a single bite.

We got home and had dinner. It was the second or third time rice and sauces were eaten without spoon or fork; banana leaves were used instead of plates. The spicy rice which was served for breakfast was as well eaten by hands. Directly touching the food with the (right) hand is very common but still feels strange to me. But I am learning fast especially if I am hungry...

Before we left the place on Sunday morning I could take some pictures in perfect light conditions.

On our way back to Bangalore we endured bumpy roads, enjoyed the countryside, saw coffee plantations, large fields of paddy rice (which was especially interesting for me and my work at Bühler), listened to Hindi songs, slept etc.

Transportation in India 2

It took me 2 hours and 40 minutes to reach home tonight. It was raining like mad, the roads were floated and completely jammed. About four kilometers away from the guesthouse I was at my wit's end: I left the minibus and walked home trying to avoid puddles or mud and trying not get overrun. At least I arrived home about half an hour earlier than my housemate who stayed in the car...

Was this traffic jam the revenge for having made fun of Indian traffic in yesterday's post? I don't really care and will just go on. I would like to present you two excerpts from the book "Culture Shock! India" by Gitanjali Kolanad. Most probably these words will sound funny and over-exaggerated to you. Having witnessed the condition of vehicles and the Indian driving behaviour, I can assure you that there is a lot of truth in there!

"Driving at night is to be avoided if at all possible. Few roads are lit and few vehicles have working headlights. You can play a game:

■ one headlight coming towards you - a motorcycle, or a truck with one broken headlight

■ two headlights - two motorcycles, or a car passing a truck, each one with one headlight broken

■ three headlights - one truck, passing a car, or two trucks and one motorcycle

■ no headlights - any of the above

Get the picture?"

"Here are some quick tips for driving in India:

■ Be ready for anything: all road rules are considered to be guidelines only.

■ Use the horn.

■ The cow always has the right of way.

■ Don't expect warnings of roadwork, potholes, changes from four lanes to two lanes.

■ Beware of buses - might is right.

■ Traffic can include, but is not limited to, cars, buses, bicycles, autorickshaws, cycle rickshaws, bullock carts, hand carts, pedestrians, cows, goats, elephants, camels.

■ Roads are considered useful for getting from one place to another, drying wheat, millet and rice, taking a nap, enjoying a long conversation with someone travelling in the opposite direction, changing a flat tire."

Transportation in India

Stories about Indian vehicles, traffic and safety on the road could fill a whole book - I am not joking! The roads are the real places of action and allegory for the fast growing and developing country. Every day I witness funny as well as frightening scenes. In course of this post I will try to pick out some highlights.

Let's begin with a selection of the most important vehicles, listed according to the degree of dangerousness:

1. Autorichshaw (known as tuk-tuk): 

These yellow and black coloured three-wheelers are quite low in road-hierarchy but rule the traffic through their enormous number. They are noisy and polluting, still everyone is glad they exist as it is a very cheap way to get everywhere in town. Not caring about driving rules is very common (sometimes I wonder if such rules exist at all). The rickshaw-drivers are leaders in this discipline.

2. Two-wheelers: 

Only scooters and motorcycles equals the number of autorickshaws. The totally incalculable two-wheelers must be the horror for every car driver. They suddenly appear out of the nowhere, take over at distances of some 5 cm, or wriggle through traffic jams. Especially the load factor of the two-wheelers still impresses me: e.g. about 30 chicken, 5 gas cylinders, the whole inventory of a small shop or a whole family consisting of 4 people (of which only the father wears a safety helmet!).

An army of polluting motorcycles building the front of a traffic jam; no wonder that the traffic policeman is wearing a mask

The load factor of motorcycles or scooter can be very impressive

Safety helmets are very rare although they are said to be mandatory

3. Trucks:

Size definitely matters on the road! Paying special attention when a truck appears is really advisable.

India's favourite truck: an Ashok-Leyland model (I still can't believe that this old-fashioned model is still produced); there are even models where the driver sits open-air

4. Buses:

There are basically two kinds of buses: air-conditioned (A/C) and non-A/C. I can assure you that riding on a non-A/C bus is an thrilling experience. I will have to repeat that again! Driving in bus is quite safe as the same rule as for the trucks applies: big vehicles enjoy a lot of respect on the road.

A typical non-A/C bus which is normally totally overcrowded

5. Cars:

The famous Ambassador, a copy of the old British Morris Oxford is said to be the most common car on Indian's roads. This does not apply to Bangalore anymore. Brands like Tata, Hyundai, Maruti Suzuki and other Asian models are dominating the roads nowadays. Western style cars are rare; having learnt that the import taxes for these cars can reach 180%, this is not astonishing to me anymore.

    A classical Ambassador in a unexpectedly good state

Common to all sorts of vehicles is the knick-knack which decorates the inside and outside of any item with wheels: flower garlands, adhesive labels of all kind, hand-made paintings and garnishments (I fear that the vehicles would fall apart without the massive quantities of colour...) or all sorts of religious symbols and statues (judging by the driving style this is probably a good idea!). Gadgets such as a very loud hi-fi system, joss sticks in the whole car, curtains or carpets are likewise important. In contrast, safety measures are absent and it seems like no one is missing them! To give you an example: seat-belts are lacking in our company-minibus and in brand-new cars they just won't be used. The same applies for safety-helmets: if a motorcyclist is wearing one at all you can be sure that the helmet-belt is open... 

I would like to end this post with some funny inscription which are often painted on commercial vehicles:

"PLEASE SOUND HORN" or "SOUND HORN OK"

Most of the big trucks features this sign. It demands overtaking cars to sound the horn. This is probably a good idea as rear -view mirrors are often missing. But you can certainly imagine what the consequences in terms of nuisance are.

"A/C VEHICLE - NO HAND SIGNAL"

I needed some days to figure this one out! Instead of using the direction indicator (which is often defective or not even present) Indian driver use a repertoire of hand gestures! For a right turn this is no problem as the driver sits on the right hand side. For left turns it is getting much more difficult especially if there is no co-driver... Anyway, A/C buses often exhibit the mentioned inscription just to tell the driver behind that the windows in the A/C-bus are closed and that giving hand is not possible!

And sometimes I find some nice examples of Indian English such as:
"PLEASE KEEP DESTANCE ME".

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Museum

The Bühler Guesthouse is situated quite near to the old airport; "quite near"  equals to some 30 minutes in auto-rickshaw. The airport is not used anymore for commercial transportation but it is still the headquarters of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The latter also features a small historical museum. As my housemate Palash is interested in planes too, we spent our Sunday afternoon there.

The HAL museum can not be compared to the big aviation museums in the United States or to the museum of transportation in Lucerne. There is not much information and the exhibited planes are in a bad state. Nonetheless it was worth visiting it and we had fun taking snapshots, enjoyed a Coke in the museum park and chatted.

Palash in front of a licensed-built De Havilland Dove/Devon

Me in front of an Indian-built MIG-21

Apart from airplanes the park also features a huge crowd of squirrels...

Recommended literature "The White Tiger"

In case you are looking for an amusing book and at the same time are interested in gaining insight into modern India, you should not hesitate to read this book: "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga. 

Aspects such as the differences between poor and rich, society, politics, corruption, religion and many more are provided. Although the novel is written in a comical way things are totally true! A good summary can be found here. Thanks to Fabienne who offered me this book!

Interlude: Namibia summer 2010

Let's talk about Africa for a change - this post has nothing to do with my stay in India! As some of you may know, Fabienne and I spent our summer holiday in Namibia. It was a fantastic time and we would like to share some of our favourite photos under this link.

Garden City

Long before Bangalore's transformation into a business-hub, technology centre and trendy megapolis, it was known as the "Garden City". Nowadays the gardens are on the verge of being overlooked in the concrete jungle and they are becoming very scarce. But there are still some nice examples! One of the best is the Lalbagh Botanical Garden which was laid out in 1760 and still is going strong. It is a nice way to escape the daily routine and to breathe deeply (although the smog is still present). The symbolic admission fee of 10 Rupees (0.20 CHF) is definitely worth it!

As you can see in the last picture, the Lalbagh Botanical Garden is very popular among locals. Anyway, I haven't seen many tourists in this town yet and it is quite normal that people are staring at me.

Bangalore's centre in snapshots

Together with my housemate Palash I enjoyed the last two weekends in the city center. We rode on auto-rickshaws and buses, strolled through the streets and markets, visited temples, tasted tasty/spicy food and had a good time! Bangalore is not very popular among tourists; nonetheless I find it extremely interesting to do sightseeing and I enjoy the liveliness of this city (as long as it doesn't degenerate to chaos :-)). I would like to present you a first batch of pictures. I think they speak for themselves!

famous Bull-temple

famous Bull-temple

having fun while driving in an auto-rickshaw (also known as tuktuk)

a sculpture decorating a temple

cows on the street are very common

market scene 1

market scene 2

market scene 3 (production of sucre cane juice)

laborers working on iron girders

a young fellow posing in front of my camera

a poultry shop

contrasts: fly-over highway in front of a temple