Blogs from Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Asia - page 12

Our wake-up call was at 5:30 this morning, departure at 6:30 to allow enough time to get to Bangalore(now Bengaluru) in three hours, and through the city in two hours, to arrive at the airport for our 13:05 flight. Just after dawn was an interesting time to see rural India, albeit on a Sunday (no school, most businesses closed).Many bullock carts were being taken “where?” for the day.These have hardly changed in history, except now they use pneumatic tires.The cart is wooden, perhaps 4 feet square, a few a bit longer.Each is pulled by two thin bullocks, some still with decorated horns following the spring festival and Republic Day.The sun rose very orange in the sky, a sign of the terrible air pollution.(I have been wearing my cotton handkerchief over my nose and mouth in the ... read more

Tuesday 29th November – Sunday 4th December We left Goa for Bangalore on an afternoon flight, however that morning I started to feel ill. I hoped it was just tiredness, however by the time we arrived at our hotel in the city center I was feeling very sick and weak and couldn’t even eat dinner. From the taxi I could see it was immediately clear that Bangalore was a much bigger and more commercial city than any other we had been in in India. There were streets lined with shops, bill boards and fast food restaurants! It was a comforting sight, but the India we’d come to know was still also very much present – manic roads, people and tuk-tuks everywhere and a massive amount of noise! After a very sleepless night it was very clear ... read more

“Would you come in and have a cup of coffee with my husband and me?” This question was spoken with a warm smile, a red tika marking her forehead, and the gentle left-to-right shaking of the head characteristic of people from the Indian subcontinent. As with many of our most vivid travel memories, this one came about as we positioned ourselves to observe a small event in the everyday life of local people. This particular morning, we had risen early to go watch milk being delivered to the residents of a neighborhood in Bangalore, India. By ‘delivered’, I actually mean that the owner of some milk cows (cows that roamed throughout the neighborhood during the rest of the day) separated one cow from a small herd, tied her to a sign on a sidewalk, extracted the ... read more

Die Nacht war viel zu kurz, nach 3h Schlaf wurde ich von merkwürdig vertrauten Geräuschen geweckt. Wimbledon? Nein, Badminton-Courts im Innenhof, um halb 7 trafen sich die ersten Spieler und untermalten ihre sportlichen Ambitionen lautstark. Zum Frühstück Fladenbrot und Gemuese. Das Klima ist angnehm: Warm aber nicht heiß, mäßiger bis frischer Wind, nur einmal ein kurzer Regenschauer. Zuerst lernten wir den YMCA Bangalore kennen. Das erste Projekt beschäftigt sich mit Kindern aus problematischen Verhältnissen. Sie leben im Haus des YMCA, je nach Alter lehrt man sie Lesen und Schreiben oder handwerkliche Tätigkeiten: Holz- und Metallarbeiten die Jungen, Nähen die Mädchen. Mit diesen Grundfähigkeiten haben sie Chancen, in Industrie oder Kleinbetrieben Jobs zu finden. Danach Straßenkinder-Projekt. Man holt sie von der Straße und beschäftigt sie, damit sie nicht kriminell oder drog... read more

Some where in Bangalore... Well for my first blog entry out here I would want to share a little bit on this place I visited the other day; For the time being maybe I would want to keep this place a secret, not that no one has ever been to this place, but it just makes me feel so damn excited to know that very few people know about this area and calling it "My Secret Place" makes it more or less secret I suppose. I'm sure any of you readers who have been to this place would recognized this immediately..but please "ssshhhh" don't shout, keep it a secret between you and me. The moment I saw this area I was like man, this place is where you would want to get your girlfriend for a ... read more