027 Bangalore, city of traffic

For today only a short update about Bangalore, the IT capital of India.

All the big Indian IT companies (Infosys, Wipro) have their main offices here, and this made Bangalore a wealthy city. It also means that the city is growing at breakneck speed. People who live here told me that the city is changing so fast that often they get lost because the streets look so different now.

To accommodate all the people going around in the city, the decision was made to build a a metro system throughout the city. Unfortunately, at the moment the metro is far from finished, and all the building cites it requires make the traffic issue even more severe.

I stayed at a couch surfers place in the north of the city, and mainly moved around the city by rickshaw. In general quite a nice invention, because it's cheap and relatively fast. It is, however, also open on all sides, giving the passengers (and the driver, I imagine) the full advantage of a wonderful combination of air pollution and traffic congestion. One also gets to experience all the sounds and smells of the town.

I once read somewhere that everything before the 'but' doesn't count, so I will have to choose my words carefully.

Notwithstanding the fact that I really liked the people I met in Bangalore, I cannot say I liked the city very much. I know there are some big parks to get away from the traffic, but still it was a bit too hectic for my liking.

One thing I did like very much in a quirky way, though. On advice of the dad of the family I stayed with, I went to visit the big Hare Krishna temple. The monks open up their temple a couple of times per day to the general public, who come there in huge numbers. After waiting for a while i a long queue, you have to hand over your bag and your shoes (you get two separate tickets for them, don't loose them). Then the walking begins, on pathways and flyovers, towards the main temple. Once you reach the  big staircases, the groups splits up and walks under two archways with descriptions I couldn't read. I choose to go left (when in doubt, turn left). After some more waiting, I turned out to be in the line for the real devotees. their system to enter the temple is by stepping from square stepping stone to square stepping stone through a walled off section. The great thing about this, is that they repeat a chant, and when the a chant is fished, everyone steps one square ahead, slowly moving up towards the temple. I didn't feel this was for me, so I jumped the queue, climbed a small wall, and joined the not-so-devoted visitors. 

Once inside the temple, you see why people advice a visit here. A huge hall, on one side a huge golden altar with a monk and lots of sculptures of the important gods. Quite nice. The floor is covered with people praying, but the general public is not supposed to stand too long, and monks with sticks make sure the crowd moves along.

And then the part starts that was, at least to me, the most fascinating. After the main temple, everyone is led through a labyrinth of book stalls, food vendors and posters of commercial meditation courses. These people sure know how to make some money! At the end, they make it up to you by offering everyone a cup of free rice with vegetables. That made me wonder if there where many people that came to the temple for this last attraction. Wholeheartedly non-converted, I left the temple.

From Bangalore I made my way to Mysore, where I am right now. A much greener and quieter town, with a mountain of good tourist attractions, among which the Maharajahs Palace is certainly the apex. But now it is time for dinner, so more about that, some other time.