Finally Mysore

Last weekend we went to Mysore. After having heard from so many people we should go there, it was almost an obligation. The weather was not so good, but it did not stop us from enjoying the beautiful landmarks of the city.

We first visited the Mysore Palace. It was very nice from the outside, as well as the gardens in the front. In the inside cameras are not allowed, which is a shame, as the various decorated rooms can be very impressive with colorful stained glass and big paintings on their walls.

After that we went for something to eat to the Royal Orchid. The buffet there was very good and with a good variety. Most impressive was its price, only 250 Ruppies or 4 Euros!

In the afternoon we visited the musical fountains by the Brindavan Gardens. It was a very nice spectacle, and beautiful illuminated.

We stayed at the Ginger Mysore for the night. It was comfortable and it had all the necessary for sleeping for a night there. Some of us could not sleep too well because of all the noise in the halls, but for me it was not a problem. There is also a Cafe Coffee Day inside the hotel, and you can have breakfast for 100 Ruppies, which is mostly Indian.

The next day we visited the Chamundi Hills. There is a Temple and a statue of Nandi, the bull ridden by Shiva, which you can visit after walking the thousand steps up the hill. While walking there we saw many women walking up the stairs and applying colorful powder to each step of the way. Many Indians were also interested in taking pictures with us, specially with David. It was a nice place but we were not allowed to take pictures inside the temples, although you will probably take more pictures of the landscape than of the temples.

The rest of the day we visited the market in the middle of the city, where we bought some eatables and gifts, and then went to the Zoo of Mysore. It was very big and had some interesting animals, some of them in interesting situations. On the way to Bangalore we also stopped at the Summer Palace of Mysore.

All in all it was a very interesting experience, and a must for everyone coming to Bangalore for more than two weeks. The city is not as stressful as Bangalore and the food is good. The road Bangalore-Mysore is also in good conditions and you will probably take 3 hours from the center of Bangalore to the center of Mysore.

Hope you enjoy my trip report, until next time!

Temples of Southern Karnataka

Yesterday we did a small trip of 13 hours to three different temples west from Bangalore.

We first went to Shravanabelagola (yeah, try to say that three times fast) and visited a temple on one of the hills near the city. The walk to the top was very enjoyable, watching other tourists go by, running to the top or taking pictures of the beautiful landscape. On the top there is an at least 60 meters high Gomatheswar Statue, which has became the landmark of this city.

Then we headed north to the Hoysaleswara Temple. On the road we got the opportunity to enjoy the indian country side and shoot some pictures. The temple, even if not as big as the first one, was also very interesting. I liked the gardens in front of it, where many indians seem to enjoy a quiet afternoon, and the sculptures, done with amazing detail. The only downside to this temple was the many people waiting outside, trying to get you to buy anything, from a small sculpture made by themselves (or so they said, because there were more than three people selling exactly the same one) to postcards and Kamasutra books.

Finally we went to Chennakeshava Temple in Belur. The sculptures inside the temple were very special, illuminated by a big search light that only guides are allowed to use.

All in all it was a nice experience. The ride was stressful, because of all the lorries transporting goods in this region and the cars trying to overpass them. But I would recommend it to anyone coming to Bangalore to visit these places, specially Shravanabelagola.

Where is the energy?

The blasts in India are not the only topics written about in the newspapers these last days. There are other important things, like the death or a pop star or that last Bollywood movie. But just before the terrorist attacks began, and even if many have already forgotten about it, there was a power shortage problem.

Apparently the government did not make the predictions right and they now have less power than necessary. Everyday, and often more than 5 times a day, there is blackout. At our apartment, the green light near the door goes on and if you keep the AC or the water heater on, after 10 min the power will run out.

At the office half the lights go out, the AC stop buzzing and nobody could care less. Everyone keeps working, and using their computers, may it be desktops or laptops. Internet connection and servers continue to work. You can only hear the generators starting, and after less than a minute everything is back to normal.

Elevators are the only thing which are affected by it. They stop and go to the bottom floor. For somebody inexperienced like me, it can be quite a scary experience. For the Bangaloreans, nothing more than a reminder of why they cannot only rely on the generators.

This also influences the oil problem. People queuing at the petrol stations is the everyday scenario here. They are trying to get diesel for their cars or for the power generator at the office or home. Luckily enough, we have not yet had very hot days. The weather continues to be very comfortable, and even sometimes a bit chilly.

They are now saying we will experience more than 8 hours of power shortage daily in the cities, and even up to 18 hours in the country side. Time will tell how Bangalore manage the power supply for so many servers and people. Time and politics.

The Blasts

Today between 14 and 15 o’clock there were 7 bomb blasts in Bangalore. One of them was very near to the place where our apartments are. Two people died and more than 20 were injured. People at the office were not too worried about it, actually took it with a lot of humor.
We were all at the office during the attacks, and were not affected by it. Well we received and sent lots of emails and sms, and were maybe not as efficient as any other workday, but we survived and lived to blog about it. :-)

Expenses

I have received a comment asking about my expenses here in Bangalore in one of the other posts, and thought maybe I would just post which prices you would expect to find in bangalore when shopping, going to eat or going out. So here it is:

Food

McDonalds combo (don’t expect any beef, it’s all chicken at Mc D here)	115 INR	1.70 Euro
Pizza at dominos/pizza hut	100-220 INR	1.45 – 3.25 Euro
Eating at the company’s cafeteria (Indian food, meal with pharata or chapati bread, rice and 2-5 different sauces)	20 – 40 INR	0.30 – 0.60 Euro
Coffee at the cafeteria	4 INR	0.06 Euro
Coffee at something similar to Sturbucks	30-60 INR	0.45 – 0.90 Euro
Bottle of water 500 ml	10 INR	0.15 Euro

Supermarket

1 kg of Apples	120 INR	1.75 Euro
Toast bread	20 – 30 INR	0.30 – 0.45 Euro
4 frozen chicken burgers	100 INR	1.45 Euro
Jam or peanut butter	150 INR	2.21 Euro
50 gr Chocolate Bar	100 INR	1.45 Euro

Very Good Restaurant

Glass of Wine	400 – 600 INR	5.90 – 8.85 Euro
Entrée	250 INR	3.70 Euro
Main dish	400 – 750 INR	5.90 – 11.00 Euro
Hamburger at Hard Rock Café	350 – 400 INR	5.20 – 5.90 Euro
Dessert	250 INR	3.70 Euro

Hope this helps you get a good idea of what life costs here.

Of Indian Temples and Palaces

As our first week of work ended, we decided we should get to know a bit more of Bangalore. Romain organized a tour with the most important places, got it checked by some colleges at work, and we went out Saturday morning at 9:30.

We visited the Bangalore Palace. It was very nice, though nothing very especial if you have visited other places like Alhambra in Granada or the Windsor Castle, but in the same style as the latest. This Palace was constructed for the Maharaja of Mysore, in 1884. Every piece of glass has been imported from Belgium, and every painting on its walls has been painted by Raja Ravi Varma, a very well known Indian painter. The fotographs on the walls (which are hand painted and do not have any wallpaper) remind you of the different Maharajas (High Kings) of Mysore and their lifes.

After this, we visited the different goverment’s buildings in Cubbon Park. They were impressive, and even more impressive the security, which did not allow us to enter the gardens to take pictures. On another note, the sentences written on the facade of the buildings were all very peculiar.

We ate something for lunch at the Lido Restaurant, located at the Ista Hotel, which I found amazing and enjoyed very much.

And finally we visited the Bull Tempel, with its huge Bull sculpture, and got some pretty weird blessing :-)

We have arrived!

I am very happy to write to you from my apartment. Today very early, at one o’clock in the morning, we arrived to Bangalore International Airport. We had very nice flights, though the audio system was not working in my seat, nor in the free seat next to me, so you can imagine 10 hours of flight watching movies without audio was not the best flight ever. Lucky enough I had got a hilarious book from my girlfriend which allowed me to do something else but sleep and eat plane food.

Next phase was the airport. There we had to wait for at least 30 Min. for our luggage, and after that some of us decided to change money, all this being watched by 3 security guys from far away. Passport control and luggage control were not a problem, they just wanted the necessary papers and everything else was ok.

Last but not least we had a very special ride from the airport to our apartments, which as our first experience in the Indian traffic, was pretty shocking. Everything you could imagine happens in the Indian roads, from trucks going in opposite direction, to rickshaws in the fast lane without any light whatsoever. The most interesting thing though was the standing honking you hear. There is at least one for every overtake, and at least 4 in each cross, being one honk for advertising one is coming, one honk when you are on the cross, one for the car coming form the side, and one when you have left the cross.

Well, this is what most surprised me on the first night, I will write back when I have more information about Bangalore. In the meantime please watch the pictures on the right side of our apartment. It is very nice and spacious, everyone has one private bathroom and a TV, and there is a nice kitchen, even though you cannot cook there.

Hello everyone, still in Switzerland

Well, just next week, on Friday 19th we will be flying to Bangalore. Me and four other guys. We will be working at Accenture as part of our summer Internship. Three of us have just finished the second year of Computer Science at the ETH Zürich. We are all studying at the ETHZ, the others being master students. Mr. Kossmann is the professor who organized this internship. He contacted Accenture and convinced them to take us for an internship. We had the pleasure of having him as a professor in the lecture Introduction to Databases, and I know he would love to come with us and do the internship himself, so I just want to thank him for giving us the opportunity.

I will be keeping you updated on our experience about the internship and about the people and culture in India. I have never been to India before, not even Asia, so this is really going to be a first for me. I have been reading Kulturschok Indien this last week, which is a really nice lecture, but I have been warned to take everything in the book with a pinch of salt, as Bangalore is a very modern city, and the book is mostly based on the rural life.

I would like to write here some of the clichés I have read, just to make a comparison at the end of the internship and be able to see how much of what you normally read about a place is true.

• India is overpopulated, you will see children everywhere
• People are very outgoing, they speak a lot, and they will invite you to eat very often, even if they do not know you very well
• Bureaucracy. Everything takes longer than expected
• It is normally very filthy, on the streets and even in restaurants.
• You will surely have stomach trouble at some point.
• People prefer talking than answering emails.

The only experience I have had so far has been with the visa. I sent my visa application together with passport, copy of residence, payment receipt, pictures, letter of invitation and payed return envelope on Tuesday 3rd, and received my passport back on Friday 6th. In it I found the business visa for India. So that was my first very good impression of Indian bureaucracy. I just hope it stays that way for the whole summer, though something tells me I will have many more opportunities to prove my hypothesis.

I will be writing as often as possible, however if I do not have enough time I will try to write min twice a week.

Hope you stay tuned, see you in two weeks.