Appologies for the delay there were some technical issues that have now been resloved.
6/8/2008
Namaste from Jayanagar (suburb in Bangalore)!
Ben and I had a great flight it wasn’t too painful, all thanks to the commodities and comforts of Singapore Airlines J yay!
Ben and I having an awesome time and things are slowly falling into place. We’ve found accommodation, a place to call home at a place called ‘4Th Block Inn’, it’s well looked after, super clean (beyond my cleaning obsession), it’s close to yoga a 5min walk to Jayanagar’s shopping district which is complete madness!!! The owner and workers are so friendly that they’re helping us out with our first Kannada lessons (Kannada is the state language spoken in Bangalore which has English words randomly thrown into it).
It’s overwhelmingly polluted but there is plenty of greenery and many pockets of sanctuary getaways. Our place is in a quieter and richer (unbelievably rich) area and with less visual poverty. It’s a way different experience from last time. So far no monkeys, only a hand full of cows, one beggar and loads of noisy squirrels. The streets are cleaner and there’s heaps of café’s, bakeries (can you believe they have sourdough and spelt!) and jewellery shops. There’s a lot of money here that’s for sure. Another thing Ben and I came to realize it that Jayanagar is not a touristy area so it’s made it a lot more challenging (harder eh eh) for us to find things.
Yoga is going well, Ben, myself and a Colombian girl are the only westerners in the class along with lots of lovely Indian ladies in their traditional getup. The yoga teacher is the comedic type who bursts out in jokes at every chance he’s got. The classes are mostly in Kannada with about 10% of the class in English. He has a gentle touch (sarcasim intended) when adjusting people in their poses, like standing on them and pulling their arms and poor Ben experienced it!
The food is amazing, yummy South Indian cuisine… Tali, Dosa, Idli, roti and lots of sweets including Gulab Jamun… mmmmm but they don’t do latte’s very well eh eh who cares when there’s Chai!!
Anyway, it’s lunch time and I’m hanging for a Tali so I’ll pass you on to Ben.
Love you and miss you all.
Sil xox
p.s….. oh did I mention it’s monsoon season!!! It rains at least once a day around 4pm and it gets very steamy!!
So, the flight was good was it? Ahh but you didn’t have the flu did you.
It was a killer of flight for me and the first I’ve done without getting pissed which isn’t as interesting as it sounds. We arrived to news that 7 bombs had gone off in the city a few days earlier and a hotel room that smelt like a mix between mothballs and fresh turds. It was at this stage I was a little concerned about our stay in Bangalore and the whole yoga deal.
Thank Shiva we found the place we are in now as it pretty much saved this stage of the trip. We looked around for a new place to stay and as this is suburban India there is not much in the way of hotels, or restaurants, or internet cafes or any of the things that there are thousands of in tourist areas.
It has been a full on mission to explore our surroundings to find what is on offer, Lonely Planet never quite made it here, but its been fun. We now have our handful of food joints which aren’t really restaurants as its fast food Indian style and you eat standing, supermarkets, cafes but only one shitty internet that has about 5 serves of curry on every keyboards and goes back 3 pages (sometimes 2) when you click back. We found another one so if you are reading this we have had success! (ie technical difficulties!!!)
From a rocky start this place is starting to feel like home and I think we could easily stay here for a few months. The yoga is interesting the food is awesome and the people couldn’t give a shit about us (in a good way, 1 week here and no one has hassled us for anything!)
It’s kind of like an Indian themed amusement city. The craziness is there but cut back a few notches. Sure there are still people pissing in the street but it’s not like it’s on every street…….. photos to follow….
Ben
