Taken September 5, 2013 in Bangalore.
This summer palace in Bangalore is held up by 160 columns, each of which is a single teak tree trunk. This section is what remains and is where the Sultan held audience with citizens. It’s located just south of the City Market (KR Market.)
Taken Sept 5, 2013 in Bangalore, India
Tuk-tuks or Autorickshaws are the ubiquitous three-wheeled vehicles-for-hire seen throughout South and Southeast Asia. (Note: Owing to their evolution from walking or pedal rickshaws, they’re sometimes just called “rickshaw” for short, or even “pedicab” or “petty cab”–the latter likely a corruption of the former.) They’re an essential way to get around in the big cities of Mega-Asia, but almost everyone has a bad experience with one at some point.
Let me point out that I’m not suggesting that most tuk-tuk drivers are amoral liars, but as a tourist (or someone who looks like one) the drivers that approach you probably will be. The vast majority of drivers are honest, hard-working men (and the elusive woman) just trying to put food on the table. That’s why my key advice to people on the subject is, “Pick your driver, and don’t ride with the ones who pick you. Then always negotiate your fare–or make sure they will use the meter– before you get in.” The drivers who pick you often have rationalized that it’s alright to treat foreigners like crap. And I’m not so much talking about charging you a little more money (which I personally don’t mind), but more that it’s alright to waste your time or take you places you didn’t ask to go [and potentially much worse.]
Well, without further ado, I’ll share some of my interactions with drivers. This is inspired by a whooper I was told yesterday.
1.) Driver: “The Temple is closed.”
Me: “But there’s a line of Caucasians and Japanese people with cameras going into the place right this moment. I can see them as we speak.”
Driver: “Uhh, monks and nuns.”
2.) Driver: “That road closed. Big protests. Throwing stones. Very dangerous!”
Me: “But I can see all the way to the corner where we need to turn, there’s nobody there.”
Driver: “They hide. [Pantomiming popping up over a wall] Throw rocks.”
3.) Driver: “Meter[ed fare is] 200 Rupee, but I’ll take– only 150 Rupee.”
Me: “I just took a trip yesterday that was 50% farther and took twice as long, and the metered fare was 50 Rupee.”
4.) Driver: “But traffic very bad, VERY BAD. Premium rate time.”
Me: “But it’s Sunday morning at 8:00am. I haven’t heard a horn for half an hour, and I happen to know that there’s no such thing as ‘premium rate time.'”
Driver: “It’s new.”
5.) Driver: “You can’t get from here to there, except go past travel office.”
Me: “Sure you can. It’s one block over and then a straight shot of five kilometers. The travel office is four kilometers out-of-the-way.”
Driver: See lie #2
Taken September 8, 2013 in Lal Bagh Gardens, Bangalore.
Taken Sept 7, 2013 at Gandhi Bazaar
Taken on September 3, 2013 in Cubbon Park
Bangalore has many buildings that look dull red in the midday light but become a vivid orange when exposed to the long, low light of dawn and dusk. This is but one. Others include the Karnataka High Court and the State Museum.
The background in this photo is the Hindu temple that is on the site of Tipu Sultan’s Palace, but which predates the Sultan’s Indo-Islamic teak structure. There is a simple but beautiful garden in between the palace and the temple that displays various flowering plants.
Taken September 3, 2013 in Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens
When I was learning to drive, one piece of advice I still remember was:
Never blow your horn because whatever damn fool thing the other driver is doing to get you in an accident is predictable. They will continue to do the same damn fool thing. Therefore, focus on avoiding the collision, and not venting your anger. Honking the horn can only cause the other driver’s panicked reaction to be unpredictable, thus making the situation more dire. The horn can cause inopportune slamming of the brakes, gunning the accelerator, or swerving sharply (invariably in the direction one was hoping to avoid them.)
This isn’t advice practiced in India. Rather the horn seems to be used to say, “One of us should be paying attention right now, and I kind of need a break.”
I suspect one reason why Indians don’t follow the above advice is because there is no erratic response to horn blowing here–there is no response whatsoever. The locals don’t even hear the horns anymore. I’ve only been here three days and I’m already becoming desensitized to them. (Although I took an early morning walk this morning and everything was perfect in the world because the horn blowers had not yet awoken.) No doubt, many literally cannot hear the horns after a lifetime subjected to the blare,
I wonder whether the blowing of the horn isn’t just an attempt to assert one’s existence among the whirring throngs of motorists.
Bangalore suffers from regular, albeit ephemeral, power outages. Sometimes the sewer drains don’t work as intended. Sometimes, cars come to a gliding halt; hoods popping up. But one thing works with the certainty of death and taxes. and that’s the horn on every single motorized vehicle in the country. One would think the horns would wear out, that they would choke and sputter, but there seems no sign of that.
Only 1 in 3 drivers are looking at the road at any given moment (but the one not looking slams on his horn to alert others to keep an eye on him.)
Taken September 2, 2013
Once and a while stumbling through the back streets pays off, and rewards one with an unexpected treasure.
Taken September 1, 2013 in Bangalore, India.
This is my first post from my home for the next two years–Bangalore, India. I arrived in the wee hours of the morning, and–owing to fuzzy-headedness that I’ll blame on jet lag–I forgot to put a memory card in my computer. Thus, I haven’t had a chance to take many pictures yet. More to come.
