Big Lights, Big City

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Hello everyone. We are in Bangalore, the IT capital of India. We arrived here around 1 p.m. local time on an Indian Airlines flight from New Delhi. It was about a 2 1/2 hour flight, and those of you like us who are used to the cattle-call service on U.S. airlines, would be similarly impressed. We were served a full hot lunch which included a cold veggie sandwich on a pita, a cheese sandwich on white bread, a hot toasted cheese sandwich with jalapenos, two mini egg rolls, and a small vegetable kofta (kind of like a hot-dog shaped veggie burger thing), plus two gulab jamuns (golf-ball sized sweet breads soaked in brown sugary syrup - one of my favorite Indian desserts) and your choice of tea or coffee. After the meal, the flight attendants (wearing neat gold sarees) brought us hot towels - real cloth ones, not the microwaved baby wipes we recently received on a U.S. airline.

Before we go any further... a moment of silence for the Terps. We finally are able to log onto WashingtonPost.com to check the news, and Sarat is beside himself with sadness over our boys' inability to make it into the NCAA tournament this year.



Thank you.

Now, back to India. Yesterday, we took a train ride from Jhansi to Delhi to catch our flight this morning. I really liked Jhansi, where Sarat's aunt and uncle live. We did a bunch of shopping there, and drove to Kujaraho (sp?) to visit the famous temples there. On the way back Sarat and I got to try our hand at real driving on real Indian roads! Sarat busted his way through a herd of buffalo and I got stuck behind a bus.

The train ride was ok until our cabin got crowded at the Agra (Taj Mahal) stop. It was an air conditioned train which made it fairly comfortable, but as more and more people squeezed on it got a little stuffy. There was a mouse running around on the floor looking for scraps of the dinner which was being served to passengers. It wasn't too scary (a little guy only about an inch and a half long at best) but still, I didn't want to bring him home with us. In all fairness, I've seen mice on Amtrak before. We passed on the dinner and on any other food product offered on the train.

Dad and Sarat's uncle are on their way to Kashmir for a pilgrimmage of sorts, involving a 4-hour walk up a steep mountainside to a temple. Dad says it may be cold there, in the 30s, and windy. Quite different from the 80s we've been experiencing so far on our trip. We will meet up with them again in Delhi in a couple of days, right before we get back on a plane to return to the U.S.

Sarat and I have now experienced almost every facet of life in India, from rural communities to this most modern of cities, Bangalore. We've been here less than 12 hours and already we've noticed many obvious signs of home: reasonably good pizza, a really good coffee shop, young couples holding hands in public (something not often seen on the streets of India, especially in smaller communities). We're staying in a really nice hotel and will be here for two nights, then we're off to Goa for a beach retreat. We'll do a little shopping in Delhi, say our good-byes to family there, then head back to the states.

See you all soon!

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