This is my first trip to India (albeit on a business trip). Managed to borrow a book from the library on it just before departure to find out more about Bangalore. It is located 900 metres above sea level and it is actually situated on a plateau. The weather is cooling and the people are fabulous. Bangalore is also known as the silicon valley of India. It is also known by its new name - Bangaluru
I departed on the evening of 19th Sept (Monday) from Singapore Changi airport. The aircraft seats are spacious. It is non-stop video on-demand thereafter and I managed to complete 2 movies (Airbender and X-Gen Cop) within the 4 hours flight time.
The hotel provided us with chauffeur service which brought us to the President Hotel at Bangalore. I heard it is within walking distance to our partner's office. We arrived at 11pm and checked in soon after. Here is how my room looks like.
The room from another perspective.
21st Sept (Tuesday)
My work table. India is 2.5 hours behind Singapore time, as such I was awake since 6am and started doing some work from my hotel room work table.
I received the morning India Times and was surprised to find an interesting gadget attached to the last page of the paper. The moment I flipped it open, it started talking. There is actually a device attached to the paper (as seen below - bottom left hand black box)
We proceeded to our hotel restaurant for breakfast.
Curry, lots of curry. It is a pleasant discovery that most Indians actually are vegetarian. I quite welcome vegetarianism.
When we arrived at our partner's office, we were presented with flowers. It's the first time I received flowers and it's quite an experience. In Buddhism, there were frequent references to the making of flowers offerings. Think it is an Indian culture to have flower gifts and I actually quite like to make flowers gifts. So far I have only given flower gifts to AJ and will continue to do so.
Here I am with the flowers.
It's time for lunch and our partners brought us to an exquisite Indian restaurant. The ambiance is great.
Curry and more curry.
At the entrance to the restaurant is a stoic looking valet guy. Actually I find the service in India to be fabulous. Starting with restaurants to our partners to hotels, we find all of them to be giving top notch service and great hospitality. From this trip, I realized that China and Singapore service actually is no good.
After having Indian cuisine for breakfast and lunch, we decided to go for more oriental chinese food in the evening. We stumbled upon Three-Quarter Chinese restaurant which is just a short walk from our hotel.
Here is our group photo.
22nd Sept (Wednesday)
We dropped by an interesting place for lunch today. There is a large garden in front of the restaurant and the dining area has a unique beautiful architecture to it.
This is how the interior looks like. It is around 12.30pm in the afternoon and surprisingly, it isn't hot at all considering there is no air-con.
This is what we had for lunch, tandoori chicken.
In the evening, we begin our search for a normal fast food restaurant. There are many stalls that line the roads.
One of the most unforgettable experience in Bangalore is the traffic. Signals and honks are a constant chorus of Bangalore narrow streets. It is said that anyone who can drive in Bangalore will have no problem driving anywhere else in the world. You will need great spatial analysis in squeezing narrow spaces and going against the flow of traffic.
