One of the great things about being in India is that we’re only a short flight away from Pune and Prachee’s grandparents. This year we decided to again visit Aai & Papa for Gudi Padwa – before Pune gets too hot! A few pics from the weekend.
Archive for the 'India' Category
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Since Claire & Jackie were leaving back to the US from Delhi we took the opportunity to see the capital city and the famed Taj Mahal in the nearby city of Agra. Craig & Grace were starting their trip in India and joined us for the weekend as well!
I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but there are a couple of things I would like to mention. First, I’d like to give out our hotel info because it was incredibly hard to find a decently priced room in Delhi – it might be worse than Bangalore! We stayed at the Hotel Express 66, which was basic, but clean and comfortable and came in on budget at ~U$100. I’d recommend it for what it is, a basic hotel in a very central location (near Delhi Railway station). However, be advised that the area that surrounds the hotel is rather dodgy – just consider it a cultural experience!
Secondly, I would like others not to make the same mistake we did and book train tickets to Agra (Taj Mahal) on Fridays – the one day the “monument to love” is closed! Yes, I should have read the guide book and should have been even more suspicious when train tickets were available, but that is life! So in the end we saw the Taj Mahal on Saturday after a 5 hour grueling car ride (each way) with “Mr. Honk Happy” our driver. All I have to say is, learn from our mistakes, book the train (Shatabdi Express) 90 days in advance – any day but Friday.
Enjoy the pictures – the Taj Mahal must be the most photographed building in the world, and we added to the cause. I’ll also include the direct link to the sub-album “People of Chandni Chowk”. I had my camera out while the girls were shopping and got some pictures of people going about their daily lives in Old Delhi’s unique shopping district. It is a warren of streets teeming with people, livestock, motorcycles and cycle rickshaws.
The official visitors season for 2008 opened up in early February with the arrival of our friends Sara, Ale & Steffi. A few days after they left my sister Claire and her boyfriend Jackie arrived in Bangalore, followed by Craig and Grace, friends from our days at Toyota a week later.
We’ve been telling friends and family to come for a visit since we arrived a little over a year ago, but I guess it took some time to put plans into action – you can’t travel half way across the world on a whim! For those of you still thinking about coming over for a visit, book those tickets… while I can’t say how much longer we’ll be here, our time in Bangalore is finite.
Sara, Prachee’s roommate from college, was coming to spend a month in Delhi and decided to start off her trip to India with a brief visit to Bangalore. We took it easy as she was acclimating to India and she joined our weekday routine during her 3 day stay.
Ale & Steffi spent their first few days exploring Bangalore. Unfortunately, during the week, Prachee and I were busy with work so we’d meet up in the evenings to sample some great Indian food as well as some of our favorite restaurants in Bangalore. On the weekend, Steffi was on a shopping mission so we hit some of Prachee’s favorite stores like Anokhi and Soma. We also went to Russel Market and Richards Square, Bangalore’s traditional shopping areas. Ale & Steffi capped off their India trip with a few days in Kerala – check out their photos
Claire & Jackie arrived after an epic 42 hour (incl layovers) journey through Hong Kong and Delhi. Our first stop on the way home from the airport was the Sukh Sagar, one of my favorite local restaurants for a traditional South Indian breakfast of Idli Sambar and Dosas. Wanting to make the most of their trip, they took off for a 2 day trip to Mysore… seeing even more than we did on our recent weekend trip. Back in Bangalore it was another shopping bonanza on Commercial Street and the perennially favorite Anokhi (we’ve noticed that this whole shopping thing is a common theme amongst our visitors). Claire and Jackie were off to Varanasi for a few days before we would meet up with them again in Delhi.
Craig and Grace arrived a day after Claire and Jackie, so the vacancy sign at the Vignoles Inn wasn’t up for long. We didn’t get to do much in Bangalore as a day later we all took a flight to Delhi where we met up with Claire and Jackie. Check out the Delhi Weekend post for pictures and more details. Claire and Jackie headed back home on Sunday and Craig and Grace returned with us to Bangalore. They went off to see Mysore and Ooty (a hill station with tea estates) for 3 days. Then back to explore Bangalore for a couple of days before we all head off to the Philippines for a week. Check for the Philippines post soon!
So we are not expecting any visitors right now… at least that we know of! The summer hot season is on its way followed by the monsoon. While those might not be the best times of year to visit India, there are some upsides: mango season plus cheap airfare and hotels (for your side trips). The bonus is that Bangalore doesn’t get that hot, we only get a few days of 35C plus weather and the monsoon only affects us in evenings for a couple of hours. Hope all is well and hope to see you in Bangalore soon!
Hard to believe a whole year has passed already – since our arrival last year on February 14, Valentine’s day is also our “India anniversary!” The weather is already starting to warm up, and if we needed any more excuses to have a party, I recently finished building my outdoor “Tiki” bar! Anyway, the beautiful sunshine meant a Sunday BBQ was in order.
The tile “roof” our landlord had installed and the Tiki Bar now complete our terrace and we hope to have many outdoor BBQs and at least a couple more India Anniversaries! Check out the pictures.
IBLR’s kickoff 2008 party was at “Ivy, the Unwind Island” and it made me realize just how big the team has gotten! I have trouble remembering all the names. Nawaf, Anna, Jon & Kim were also in town for business, so it was great to get to catch up with them as their last trip was over 5 months ago. With the team growing in size, they have plenty of local interviewers, therefore we don’t see the San Bruno folks as often anymore.
Pete took some great pictures and posted them on his Mac Picture Album, check them out: IBLR Kickoff 2008 Party.
We’d been planning to go to Hampi this past weekend, but due to the incompetency of Indian Railways (I am not even going to get started), it didn’t work out. With travel on the mind, somehow the idea to go to Mysore came up. Bob & Heather were game as was Erin, a San Bruno IronPorter in Bangalore to train the QA engineers. Mysore is a short drive (~2.5 hours) from Bangalore on a “good” road and we left around 7 am Saturday morning to beat the city traffic (Saturday is a working day for many in India). For a one night trip, we actually got quite a lot accomplished. On the way to Mysore, we stopped at the Somanathpur temple – a beautiful example of Hoysala art & architecture similar to the Halebid temple we saw on our Chikmaglur trip. It was then off to the hotel to check in and for lunch – we stayed at a great place called “The Green Hotel.” The accomodations are basic, but very clean, the restaurant served great food and the staff was very attentive – highly recommend it if you are going to Mysore. The rest of the afternoon was shopping and people watching at the Devaraj Marketplace and we went to have tea at the Lalit Mahal Palace Hotel (sounds impressive, but it isn’t!). A light dinner and drinks was in order as everyone was tired from the early start and long day of sightseeing.
On Sunday we started our sightseeing at the Mysore Palace (no pics because they won’t let you take your camera inside). We then started heading back to Bangalore, but with a few more stops on the way. First was Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace followed by his Mausoleum. We then stopped for lunch at this great roadside restaurant called Kamath. The guys I work with had highly recommended it as the “best south indian thali around” – it was packed at around 2 pm, but the wait was well worth it! Our final stop was at a Go-Kart track called Grips for some hot laps. Venu joined Bob & I on the track, but I think it wasn’t as exciting as his day job dodging cows, buses and people while getting us to work on time! All in all, a great weekend. Check out some of Bob’s pro pictures on his blog.
Shane and Liz hosted a New Years 2008 party at their house. Fabulous food, drink and company – as you see from the photos an inebriated good time was had by all! No fireworks pictures this time, but I can assure you, they were plentiful. Someone had bought these bombs wrapped in green string that were just ridiculous – I hope everyone left with 10 fingers. BTW, I don’t remember, but who’s brilliant idea was it to play “flip the cup”?
Check out some of Bob’s pictures from the evening. I am sure Liz & Shane will also have pictures – you can click on the link or go to their site via the “Links” section in the navigation bar to the right.
We took advantage that Vivek & Shobha were flying back through Bombay, to spend a few days in the city catching up with friends and family. It’s sad to say, but we’ve been in Bangalore for 10 months and had not gone back to Bombay. All I can say is that this trip, everything just makes more sense… funny how it works that way! It was great to be back as the city has great energy and it’s always a lot of fun to hang out with Prachee’s “local” friends!
One commentary on the state of Bangalore is that my recent travels to Bombay and Delhi make me realize how far this city has to go. Neither Bombay or Delhi are perfect, but they are light years ahead in infrastructure and most importantly in imposing the social norms that make these massive metropolises “livable.” Of course Bangalore is no where near the scale of the behemoths Bombay or Delhi, but I’ve seen proof that India can have infrastructure, can implement traffic discipline and can curb public urination – to name just a few. Bangalore, you have no excuses!
We spent Christmas in India this year and Shobha & Vivek joined us for a few days in Bangalore. It was a lot of fun to show them Bangalore, a city they had not been to in many years. Vivek was impressed by how much things have changed in India since his last trip in 2004.
It was a relaxed week filled with going to our favorite restaurants and seeing friends & family. We had Christmas dinner at Via Milano, a new restaurant in Koramangala which had a great Prix Fixe menu including Turkey with all the trimmings. Ruby and Ari from our IESE days were also in town for a wedding, so we got to see them and meet their son Max. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
In India, I find myself continuously wishing I had a camera. There is always something interesting going on or something that makes you laugh and wished you had the “good” camera. Unfortunately, even a small pocket size point and shoot is too bulky to carry around on a daily basis (I already carry a phone and a Blackberry!). So after a small fender bender in the Innova this morning (it was bound to happen), I needed to send the Leasing company a picture of the damage and got inspired to download all the pics that had been stuck in my mobile phone. They actually came out better than I thought! Maybe I’ll take more camera phone pictures and keep updating this album… check back often, you never know what you’ll see in India!
