Exploring Bangalore - June 28th and 29th

Waking up early in Saturday morning, we began our day of touring Bangalore. The first location was St. Mary’s Catholic Church, an architecturally British building in the center of town. As we entered the building we observed the Indian version of a Christian service, complete with Indian prayer music and depictions on Mary with the typical vivid Indian colors. As we left, we passed by a car that was being blessed by the priest at the church, as it was a used car and they wished to ensure it was fully protected from above as well. With my current exposure to Indian traffic, I can definitely understand why it would be reassuring to have any extra protection. Cars and buses charge through the street while tuk tuks and motorcycles weave at high speed through small gaps in between the crowds. Lanes, stop signs, and sometimes even traffic lights are simply ignored and replaced with a chaotic but effective traffic system that allows for everyone to move around fairly rapidly across the city.

As we left the church, we walked into a local market. While supermarkets are slowly creeping into local life, the majority of people still rely on fresh produce and meat from these marketplaces. Stalls were filled with different goods including fish that had been shipped from the coast, local fruits and vegetables, freshly butchered lamb and beef, and a flower market, all of which were accompanied by aromas that announced which area of the market you were in. Along with the typical produce you could find at any American supermarket, there were many different and often colorful foods, such as chicu, a potato like fruit which taste like a sweet pear, and litchi fruit, a fruit enclosed in a reddish-brown outer layer with a juicy white fruit inside.

Leaving the aromatic fresh market behind, we stopped for a local breakfast. This included dosa, a crepe like bread filled with potatoes and onions, idli, a tightly packed disc of rice, and sambal, a spicy vegetable broth that the idli and dosa could be soaked in before eating. Finished with breakfast, we took the above ground metro from the center of the city towards the outskirts. The landscape changed within minutes from the densely packed city streets to slums near the edge of the city. While the central part of the city had colorfully painted buildings and taller buildings, the slums became low lying blocks of greys and browns, blending in with their dirty surroundings.

Returning back to the center, we continued on to visit a Sikh temple. Moving from the extravagant design and colors or the church, we visited a much more modest temple, painted in all white colors. Before we entered we removed our shoes, washed our feet, and covered our heads in the provided bandanas. We were shown the entire complex, which not only included a worship area, but also rooms for guests of any religion to stay and a large food hall where every Sunday massive amounts of food are prepared and served to all those come by. 

We ended the day by visiting Commercial street, a mass gathering of vendors from all across the city selling clothing and other goods for low costs. Even the alleyways were claustrophobically packed with people looking for bargains. Taking a tuk tuk back, we saw our first rain in India. Water pelted the small tuk tuks, pouring in from the sides. We all arrived back drenched in water, but having had an amazing journey.

On Sunday, we ventured out from the city for the day to visit a national wildlife park. Starting off near campus, we took a local air conditioned bus for 40 minutes only costing us $1.40. We arrived and lined up to pay for entry into the park. As I approached, I asked for a ticket and instead of the foreigner fee that all the others payed, the clerk charged me the local rate, almost half of the regular price. We boarded a bus covered in thick metal wiring and entered the park. As we drove through the nature reserve we saw elephants, spotted deer, lions, and both white and orange tigers. Attached was a zoo area with smaller creatures, including snakes, macaws, peafowl, and monkeys. It felt strange to see the animals like this, when on my last visit to India, we were able to enter a much larger area where the animals were free to roam. In this reserve, however, all the animals were kept in small sections of land and blocked off by fences. It felt more like a tourist location than a chance to experience the local wildlife.

Arriving back, I was finally able to meet up with the rest of my group from the University of Arkansas. After overnight delays in Chicago and Qatar, as well as being rerouted through Manchester, they finally arrived after 4 and a half days of travel. Excited but exhausted, they managed to get a chance to briefly explore Bangalore, grab some food, and buy some things before class starts on Monday.

Arrival and Orientation - June 27th

After arriving late last night, I awoke with a couple hours of sleep to get my first experience with Bangalore. Walking down to the main road, I jumped aboard a tuk tuk, a three wheeled Indian taxi, and made my way through the city to Christ University. On my way, I passed by people commuting to work crossing the busy highway, people with food stands lining the streets selling pedestrians breakfast, and hundreds of tuk tuks and motorcycles weaving in between the cars in a hurry to reach their destinations. Upon arriving at Christ University, the clutter and chaos of the street died down and I entered a crowd of students dressed in both European-style and traditional Indian business attire. Stopping by the cafeteria to pick up some freshly cooked chicken puffs, I made my way to class held in the adjacent building. 

I arrived to faces from across the US, ranging from other southern states like Florida and South Carolina to California, Maryland, Ohio, and Nevada. After spending the morning familiarizing ourselves with the University rules and expectations, we walked to a nearby hotel for a lunch buffet to celebrate our arrival. Everyone was eager to try the various different curries, filling their plates to the brim with the biryanis, tandooris, and various spinach, chicken, lentil, and chickpea curries. After stuffing ourselves with every dish possible, we walked back to Christ University and toured the campus. Across the multiple building complexes we saw a large auditorium used for student produced plays and dances, conference rooms used by the priests that run the University to host guests and discuss business affairs, and multiple sporting fields used by many students to play tennis, basketball, football, hockey, and volleyball after their classes. The most intriguing part of the tour, however, was the horticultural department, which runs a green initiative on campus. This included turning biowaste from the school’s bathrooms into fuel, enough to run a house for 3 to 5 people and a full paper recycling system which turned used exam booklets and answer sheets into pulp which was then pressed and dried into sheets that could be dyed and crafted into folders, bags, notebooks that could be bought by students.

Finished for the day, a group of the students made a trip to a local mall to both browse and pick up items they had forgot to pack. As we entered, we heard a crowd cheer ahead of us, all gathered around a central area. A new Bollywood action movie was being promoted and in this central area was dancers, singers, and some of the stars greeting fans and building excitement for their upcoming flick. We watched entertained by the spectacle of the whole event. Getting back with travel adaptors, water, and various other purchases, we all went back to our room exhausted both from jet lag and the overwhelming experience of Bangalore.

Departure - June 26th

After weeks of preparation, I have finally reached the first step of my experience in India. I currently sit in terminal one of Hong Kong International Airport relieved to be merely half an hour removed from boarding my flight. Despite meticulous preparation, the past few hours have added complications and changes to my well made plans. My backpack had to be replaced last minute due to an unfortunate zipper malfunction, my camera was missing the cables necessary to upload photos to my laptop, forcing me to replace it, and my itinerary has changed just two hours before my flight. No matter how prepared one may be, chaos can strike at any moment, especially when dealing with air travel. As I sit here outside my gate, I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that in just a few minutes I can sit down in my assigned seat and just relax.