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Published: November 19th 2008
My first night in Bangalore was pretty much just spent sleeping in a hotel then returning to the airport in the morning to catch a flight to Nagpur. With the new airport in operation there's not really any hotels that near to it. You have to be a bit careful when booking a hotel in Bangalore as a lot of them still advertise that they are 7km away from the airport, which is the old airport. I booked into Shreyas Residency which is about the closest I could find to the airport, about 20km away, along the main highway. Not a bad hotel for 2000 Rupee a night as well.
Returning from Nagpur I caught the excellent Airport Shuttle Service to Kempegowda Bus Station. The ride took about 1 hour 15 minutes and cost 125 Rs. I had booked into the Bangalore Gate Hotel which is about a 10-15 minute walk from the station on Kempe Gowda (KG) Road. This was by far the most expensive hotel I stayed out while in India, which was about 3000 Rs a night.
As it was evening I went for a walk to find somewhere for dinner. I actually found a place
that served meat and had a very good Butter Chicken Masala.
The next day I decided to go for a walk around the area. The hotel advertised 24 hour checkout, which I took to mean that you can checkout at anytime of the day or night. What it meant though was that you could checkout 24 hours after you checked in. So I was able to checkout at 7pm that evening, instead of the usual midday checkout. This was pretty handy as my flight didn't leave until just before midnight.
Not far from the hotel was the colourful Krishnarajendra Market. A lot of spices, flowers, fruit and vegetables for sale here. Just down from the market is the Bangalore fort which you can enter for free. There are some areas which are off limits, but you can give the guide 50 rupees to take you into these areas.
From the fort I went for a walk towards the Mahatma Gandhi (MG) Road area. This I assumed was the more westernised part of Bangalore. Along the way I couldn't go 5 minutes without seeing some guy taking a leak on the side of the road. Even on busy
streets with traffic going by and people walking around, it didn't seem to matter. Hence there is the unmistakable smell of urine in the air which is not all that pleasant. After quite some time I was finally approaching MG Road. At this time the diarrhea I had suffered in Nagpur seemed to be making a comeback. I realised I had forgotten to take any tissues with me so my mission was not only to find a toilet in a hurry, I also needed to find one with toilet paper. This was no easy feat in India. The toilet in my 3000 Rs hotel room didn't even have toilet paper by default, so I was thinking my chances were slim at best. I was walking quite quickly when a taxi driver stopped me and started asking me where I was going. In a bid to escape from him I looked around and realised I was in front of a restaurant. I went in and with as much composure as someone about to soil himself can muster, I asked them if they had a toilet. They said yes and I walked over it trying to act all nonchalent. I opened the
door to the toilet and I almost started crying tears of joy, as I saw that they had toilet paper. I re-emerged 10 minutes later, a somewhat relieved man. I decided to have a meal there, it was the least I could do.
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