So we headed by an evening bus from Ernakaulum on a non airconditioned semi sleeper to Bangalore for twelve hours overnight. A bit uncomfortable but decent enough! Experienced some initial problems with a rickshaw driver and it's amazing the wisdom you build along the way. Davey and I have learnt never to accept the rickshaw drivers that hover like vultures at drop off points... they're usually the worst pick of the bunch ready to fleece you of your rupees at the first opportunity. So we've learnt to pick up your luggage and walk in any direction and hail your own cab down.
When we picked our painting up the next day we saw the rickshaw drivers run up to the entrance of the bus where people were trying to get off... made me feel really angry in the pit of my stomach. But such is life here, and you have to learn to accept and have a healthy amount of paranoia! We loved our accommodation at Casa Piccolo and rested up for the day, in the evening we went major sari shopping and had some great chats (indian snacks) at Konarcks, the owner was extremely affable and ordered all of our dishes for us (oh! the pani puri and onion rava dosas! How I will miss you!) and was great to hobnob with the local families who eat there.
The whole purpose for us visiting Bangalore was to visit India's bethel branch of Jehovah's Witnesses... we wouldn't have included it as a destination otherwise, but so glad we did! Bangalore is a huge city that is world known for it's call centres and it's IT industry, known as the silicone valley of India. But it is so friendly and cleaner than other cities we have visited. We went to Bethel and met up with our brothers and sisters there... was like a spiritual oasis where we could fully relax. It's amazing being in the organisation and seeing it worldwide as one united family. We enjoyed lunch there and met up with Andrew and Gabrielle Struyf from Australia who are International Construction servants in Korea. It was great talking with them and their expreiences on the construction work have really given Davey and I alot to think about.
We then headed to Mysore for a daytrip with Nathan a brother from the Tamil congregation... we had a great time getting to know him and how the work is going in India as well. Mysore has the best palace I have ever seen! Part of the palace was burned down in the 19th century and an english architect designed the new part of the palace which opened in 1912. Looked fantastic with the mesh of indian and english influences.
We on our final day in Bangalore we headed back into the city for more shopping and boraded our bus for Mumbai at 7.30 in the evening. We had a 22 hour bus trip to Mumbai! Didn't know how we would fair but thinking we did pretty well! The sleeper buses are definately the way to go. We had penty of warnings about Mumbai and were unsure of venturing out of our hotel at night to see the sights, but seeing as it was our final night we decided to get a private car to take us around.
It was amazing! We got just the right taste for it! Especially foodwise eating roasted peanuts and sizzling kebabs on the streets teamed with paper thin, ever so soft roti's. The indians in Mumbai must never sleep as they were relaxing at all the spots til late at night. We were taken to Juhu Chowpatty beach which had a fantastic vibe right on til 3 or 4 in the morning (and this is on a school night too :P). We were shown where the famous Bollywood actors live in Juhu, Sunny Deol, Amitabh Bachchan, Aiswarya & Abishekh as well as others.
We then headed to our hotel, close to the airport called Hotel Columbus, crashed and burned and after five hours sleep got up for a flight home. All in all, India has been such a wonderful trip, an adventure that we feel like we have conquered! I miss everyone at home but not really wanting to return! There's so much more to see and do so hopefully one day we will return again. I'm typing all this from Singapore airport at the moment and getting ready to get some Singapore Laksa from the restaurant upstairs :P
