Lal Bagh Garden

Bangalore is called the Garden City because of the ubiquitous trees (the majority seem to be Rain Trees, chosen for their immense size and the amount of shade they can provide) planted all over the city as well as the many public parks and gardens, great and small. The greatest among them is Lal Bagh Garden, a 240 acre space commissioned by King Hyder Ali in 1760. He favored trees with red blossoms and that is what "Lal Bagh" translates to: red flower.

I went there with the same driver who took me to Bull Temple. I paid 20 rupees for my entrance fee and 10 for the car, so my entrance costs were about $0.75. This driver was yet again concerned that I would be fleeced into an over priced tour and he instructed me to take the 1-hour tram ride around the gardens for 100 rupees ($2). Of course, much like in the Bull Temple, the minute I stepped out of the car I was approached by a man offering a tour. This man, however seemed to speak very good English, he had an official looking badge, and he told me up front that the tour would cost 450 rupees per 30 minutes and would probably last 90 minutes. This would mean paying about $30 for a private tour of the gardens and this time I was very happy to pay. My driver was very disappointed in me but, you can't please everyone!

The guide was wonderful! Either that, or a very convincing liar who could make up a lot of plausible, Latin-sounding names for plants. But actually, everything he said that wasn't completely new to me squared with what I'd already read, except for one thing. He told me that one of the reasons Hyder Ali built the garden was that he wanted a beautiful place to go jogging. Jogging!! Never, have I ever heard of royalty jogging before 1970! Anyway, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. It is only because of him that I have anything to say about the pictures I took.

There is a Watchtower on top of a rock near the entrance to the garden. It sits on top of a large rock which is one of oldest rocks on earth: 3000 million years old.


Here's a view of the city from the top of the rock:


35 meter pine tree:



My guide called this a "No-Monkey" tree. He gave me a twig that had fallen on the ground to touch, and it was very, very, sharp. Monkey's can't climb these trees because of the shape and arrangement of the needles:


A mango tree!! I still haven't had a fresh mango here...


Not a great picture, but I wanted to include it because it's called an "Elephant Apple" tree. The fruit is larger than any apple and elephants like to eat them:


This cotton tree is 800 years old:


This is a tamarind tree. Tamarind trees are the coolest to sit beneath:


The lotus flower is India's national flower:


This is called a "People" tree. It is common to find one outside of a temple:


Plumeria trees. I think these flowers are what leis are typically made of in Hawaii.


Some school children on a field trip. Kids have a half-day on Saturday in India.




The lake:


Some gates:




Statues of some traditional Indian dancers:


Statue of a scary dinosaur about to eat 2 cute little bunnies:


http://www.horticulture.kar.nic.in/lalbagh.htm

Bull Temple

I'm not a religious person but I absolutely love religious art. I love the sincerity of it. Usually, there's a clear and inspirational message - love your neighbor, love God (or maybe nature if you're not a believer), etc. It often makes me feel more connected to the world around me, and to myself. So first on my list of sight seeing in Bangalore was a temple.

Bull Temple is a shrine for Nandi, Lord Shiva's mount. Nandi (which means "joyful" in Sanskrit) frequently serves as a guard to Shiva, and indeed, there is a much smaller shrine for Shiva behind Nandi in this temple.

The temple houses a 15' by 20' sculpture of a bull, carved from 1 block of granite. But "sculpture" really isn't the right word for it, because it was never meant to be art. In a Hindu context, this would be called a murti, which literally means "embodiment" and is a representation of divinity. The murti was carved in 1537 under the rule of Kempe Gowda, who also founded the city of Bangalore. The entrances leading up to the murti are all quite new, maybe even as recent as the 1990's.

There are 2 competing legends surrounding this Nandi murti. The first legend has it that an area bull was constantly grazing on local farmers' groundnut fields, much to their consternation. They got together and built this temple and from then on, the bull left their crops alone. The 2nd legend is a bit more fantastic. It starts much in the same way as the first, with an area bull destroying a groundnut field. This particular field's farmer was so enraged that he struck the bull on the head with the club. The bull was so shocked and injured that he turned to stone on the spot! The local farmers all felt terrible about the fate of this poor bull so they built it a temple. But then, the stone began to grow and the worried farmers prayed to Lord Shiva to help them. He told them to retrieve a trident buried near the stone and place it on the bull's forehead. When this was done, the stone stopped growing and the farmers could all get on with the groundnut business.

Since then, and even today, the first groundnut harvest of the year is offered to this Nandi murti.

Before dropping me off at the temple, my driver admonished me not to give any money to anyone. He said if I did he would have to start going with me everywhere, and he really seemed unhappy about the idea of having to be both my driver and my babysitter, so I promised him I would not let anyone separate me from my money. Of course, the minute I stepped into the temple a young man started to give me a "tour". It lasted about 3 minutes and I couldn't understand much of what he said, except at the end when he took me off to the side, out of view of the priests, and asked me for $20. That's about 1000 rupees, which is what you'd pay for dinner at an up-scale restaurant here (alcohol, tax, and tip included). I gave him 100 rupees and hoped my driver wouldn't find out.

The entrance:



The outer gate:



The inner gate:



Nandi:



A priest:



The Shiva shrine:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Temple
http://www.indiasite.com/karnataka/bangalore/bulltemple.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandi_bull
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murthi

Life in a Hotel

Ever since I was a little girl and read the Eloise books I had always wondered about the strange people who lived in Hotels. I'd always assumed they were mainly rich dilettantes or deposed royalty but now I will be living at The Mercure for the next three months at the expense (about $110/night, I think) of my American multinational corporation.

So far, I love it! Someone makes my bed and arranges the bathroom. I never have to buy toilet paper, nor do I ever run out. There is no early morning walk in the dark to the gym because it's right downstairs. If there is any problem I simply call guest services and someone comes to fix it immediately. There are cars with drivers waiting downstairs that I can hire for about $7/hour, tax and tip included. I can order room service (most entrées are about $12) or eat in one of the two restaurants here, or I can use the kitchenette to make something for myself. More on food and eating in a later post.

Here's the lobby:



The ladies lounge in the lobby:



The pool:



The cabanas:



The gym:



A man cutting coconuts out of a palm tree in the parking lot:



Here they are after they've been harvested:



The restaurant where I eat breakfast (included) every morning:



The elevator bank on my floor:



A close-up of what I've come to think of as my fish:



My living room as it looks when walking through the door:



My living room as viewed from the balcony, facing the door:



My kitchenette:



View from living room into bedroom:



Another shot of the bedroom:



My shower:



My sink:



My commode:

Note the little hose next to the porcelain base. Every bathroom I've been in so far has one.

My balcony:




Some views from my balcony:

Welcome!

Welcome to my inaugural post. Here I am, in Bangalore (Bengaluru before the Brits renamed it):



The first things I saw when leaving the airport were:

1) My driver - A Catholic Indian man who spoke a little English and handed me his card and 2 reference letters from former passengers regarding his excellent driving and tour guiding skills.
2) Stray dogs - There will be a longer post about the strays later.
3) A goat herder wearing a turban and sarong, carrying an actual staff.
4) Women walking around in beautiful saris - There will be a longer post about this later as well.
5) A gigantic "Yahoo" (as in the internet company) sign.

I'll start with the Yahoo sign because the presence of Corporate America here is so striking to me. On the ride from the airport to my hotel we passed offices for IBM, Dell, Yahoo, Amazon, and Microsoft. Bangalore is like the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney Land, but for American companies. In the US, these companies are spread out from coast to coast with thousands of miles separating them. Here, they are all a short car ride apart at most.

And that's why I'm here. To take my place in the tide of globalization that I hope will improve the lives of India's and America's citizens in the long run. To help a team of Indians build software that will eliminate the rote tasks and tedium in other people's jobs, making them more efficient and giving them back some of their time. I'm here to work.

But I do have some free time, and that's what I'll mainly post about in this blog, since blogging about one's job is one of the surest ways to get fired!