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Behind as ever in my blogging, my aim is to be up to date before I leave Malaysia for Hong Kong and China... We shall see. Ever the optimist I have my fingers crossed but we shall see1 :D
So many moons ago the Three Muskatiers were in Bangalore, around the 12th April, just for the night. But what an adventure it turned out to be...
Arriving in the morning on an over night train from Hampi which had turned out to be pretty plesent other than a little boy throwing up 5 minutes after leaving but I think I covered all that in my last update? First stop was food. We squeezed into a rickshaw and headed to a super traditional Indian coffee house. It was so popular that on arrival you had to add your names to a list and sit in a waiting room rather much like something that you'd find at a train station. Anyway we were eventually seated and didn't even have to bother choosing off a huge menu like many other places we had been. Chai or coffee and to eat Dosa _indian pancake) or idili (squished rice cake). I had dosa and chai-super tasty. We then went across town for some air-con and iced coffee. We also thought that there would be internet...there wasn't. Anyhoo after chilling in our favourite Indian coffees shop chain we went to find somewhere to stay. Mum I took a leaf out of your books... and fell down some stairs with my backpack on. Not to worry though, sore ankle for a few days and then all was well.
As we walked the streets to findsomewhere to stay it became obvious that we weren't going to find anywhere in our price range easily. Bangalore is the IT capital of India so it felt very westernised aka expensive!!! We met Nitin on the street, he was a nice enough lad how helped us the the hotel we were looking for. He was with us when we asked about price and it was too much for us but he offered to pay for the room for us-he was worried we wouldn't find anywhere else I think. Anyway it also meant that we had a tour guide for the day. After hopping in a rickshaw we visited the botanical gardens, a palace, some temples and some shops. Our rickshaw driver was a lovely man called Raj, he told us all about Bangalore and we his favourite place was the gardens because that's where he met his wife.
Nitin unfortuently although meant well was pretty boring. He worked on advertising for Facebook but we just had nothing in common so after dinner we left him and returned to an awesome second hand bookshop we had found.
It was so much fun. We spent hours roamed through stacks and stacks of books, some from the early 1900s. I came away with a fair few but had nothing on Elly and Liv. Liv I think had about 10 or 12 but Elly. Well...She is a big fan of the author Daniel Steel so when she found a huge section her she went for gold and came out with not 5, 10 or even 15 books but 28!!!! It was so funny but she was happy! It was then my silly suggestion that lead her to having to carry them around for the next few weeks.
Elly: "I think i'll go to the postoffice tomorrow"
Me:"No I wouldn't worry we won't be walking anywhere far with our bags-we can take rickshaws"
Elly: "Ok Charlotte, no postoffice then."
Poor Elly-she just shouldn't have listened!! So after a awesome night in our air-con room with super fancy shower and compfy bed with pillows AND a cover we woke up in the morning to Elly's screams. I was not awake a 6am so I litterally rolled out of bed to discover there was a super huge flying cockroch in the room! Who knew the could fly, let alone get that big!!! So in our India non-appropriate pjs-shorts and t-shirt! We called a cleaner so the poor guy had to come and get arid of it whilst we were in minor hysterics! After it was gone he appologiesed for the inconvience and disruption as though the whole thing was his fault!
The funniest part of this story came when we woke up later to find that Elly had been in such a state because the cockroch was down her top!!!! Ewwwwwwww!!! I wouldn't wish that on anyone!!
So after an Easter Sunday lunch at Nandos, where we spread one of Sangam's thinking day messages 'Boycott Straws' we had a quick catch up with home and then went for icecream on the way to catch our 18hr bus to Thrivandrum in Kerala.
Now I know my time keeping isn't perfect but between the 3 of us we could read a bus ticket to know when we had to be at the bus stop by. It's a shame the bus driver couldn't do the same!! We got there early-4.25pm for a 5pm bus. The bus had already left! We were not impressed. After a mimor shouting match where the ticket office tried to claim the time we were given was for a different stop-well then why not say that in the first place is my question! We made them call the driver and stop the bus. He told us to get in a rickshaw and go to the next station. Not good enough-in the end we got our way, the bus stopped a few streets away and our rickshaw driver was told where to met it. It was quite stressful at the time but I smile about it now...so India!
After a long bus journey on which we enjoyed our 'Easter Chocolate'-my final English chocolate bar which was melted and the packet ended up squitring everywhere. But at the back of a tolietless bus we enjoyed chocolate and banana smores and celebrated Easter in style! The next morning we arrived in Kerala.
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