Bangalore was really great. We made a video blog about it, but couldn't find a reliable connection to upload it.
We're leaving for Mysore in a few minutes, and from there heading to Coorge, which is known as the Scotland of India (though we have no idea what they mean by that).
We're in a rush now and we'll update later.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Bye Bye, Mumbai!
Left Mumbai this morning for Bangalore via Spicejet (yes, it's really called that). Very sleepy, so I'll get to explaining Bangalore tomorrow.
Our last day in Mumbai was a varied experience. I had a really hard time sleeping the night before and so our plan was to take it easy. We started out trying to go to the big museum in Colaba thinking it would be air conditioned, and it wasn't, so we didn't. Instead we spent the day wandering around south of Colaba, through some busy side streets. A few of you have requested more picture posts, so here is what the area we were in looks like:
and here is a man sharpening a knife using the power of a bicycle:
After hours of wandering we turned in to the hotel for our regular midday strip-down-and-hang-by-the-air-conditioner session. Since it was our last night, and Mumbai is one of the few cities we're going to that has a real night life, we decided to do our best to take advantage. It was, however, Sunday, so that made it fairly difficult.
Eventually we found some club through a website called burrp (Indian Yelp, basically) that was hosting a free show of a local band called Split Unplugged (or, the band was called just Split and this was their unplugged set --- we're still not quite clear about it). The bar, called the Bluefrog, seemed touristy from descriptions (and from the fact that it was listed in the Lonely Planet Guide) but we hadn't really met anyone at all in Mumbai and figured that if nothing else it would be nice to get some feeling of youth culture and the local music scene.
The Bluefrog is in an area called Lower Parel, about 20 minutes north of Fort. The journey there has been one of the most memorable so far. As always, getting into a cab in Mumbai is reliable brush with death (or, at least that's how it seems, though the drivers apparently all have fairly good track records). On the ride we passed through some of the slums of Mumbai, which are sprawling networks of shacks built from corrugated scrap metal and other reused materials. We also had some very intense encounters while stopped at intersections. One man, an older man, held a baby's gangrened arm into the cab, inches from Yotam's face. We had encountered begging people before, but this instance was particularly horrific. The situation of the poor in Mumbai is difficult to describe, especially when coming from our stance as tourists and I'm not sure that anything I could write here could convey the visceral reaction that interactions like this one produce. I think, after spending only four days in Mumbai, it would be irresponsible of me to give my uninformed explanation of the issue of the slums or the street people. Still, it's important to note poverty is an ever present and emotionally stirring aspect of India, and I'll leave it at that for now.
We got out of the cab to find ourselves in a somewhat seedy area, and we were both feeling pretty solemn, and the night was starting to look like a failure. But we had already gone all the way out there, and were starting to get hungry, so we decided we'd find the Bluefrog and stick it out.
After much searching we arrived. The place was an abandoned warehouse, converted to an ultramodern lounge with an enormous soundsystem, six projectors, and not a soul around. The menu was all American style food, and corny classic rock was being blasted at us. It looked like it could have been a bar in California-- a bar that we would be very unlikely to visit. To top it off, it was also expensive, and not just by Indian standards. But we were hungry, and held out hope that if we stayed we would at least meet the musicians, which would satisfy our thirst for some interaction.
The food, while presented beautifully, tasted really, really bad. We would have left, but other people-- young, Indian people--started to trickle in ,which renewed our hope and helped us ignore the strange discomfort caused by being Americans in an American-style bar. By the time the band came on, it was an impressive crowd for a Sunday night. And while Split (unplugged?) played a pretty offe set consisting of badly played Metal, a basically arhythmic cover of a Police song, and an endearingly delivered yet downright awful Pearl Jam song, the night didn't turn out to be a total failure: as we were leaving, we made friends with an Indian guy named Rahul, who, like me, had quit his job to travel around India. He has hopes of going to grad school at USC. He was friendly, and funny, and told us some stuff about India, and thanks to him our night turned out okay. So we stuck around for a bit longer, and drank a round of Tuborgs, because the Bluefrog most certainly does not sell Kingfisher.
All in all, an odd day, and when we woke up this morning, I think we were both ready for a change of scene. And Bangalore--wow--it's different.
Our last day in Mumbai was a varied experience. I had a really hard time sleeping the night before and so our plan was to take it easy. We started out trying to go to the big museum in Colaba thinking it would be air conditioned, and it wasn't, so we didn't. Instead we spent the day wandering around south of Colaba, through some busy side streets. A few of you have requested more picture posts, so here is what the area we were in looks like:
and here is a man sharpening a knife using the power of a bicycle:
After hours of wandering we turned in to the hotel for our regular midday strip-down-and-hang-by-the-air-conditioner session. Since it was our last night, and Mumbai is one of the few cities we're going to that has a real night life, we decided to do our best to take advantage. It was, however, Sunday, so that made it fairly difficult.
Eventually we found some club through a website called burrp (Indian Yelp, basically) that was hosting a free show of a local band called Split Unplugged (or, the band was called just Split and this was their unplugged set --- we're still not quite clear about it). The bar, called the Bluefrog, seemed touristy from descriptions (and from the fact that it was listed in the Lonely Planet Guide) but we hadn't really met anyone at all in Mumbai and figured that if nothing else it would be nice to get some feeling of youth culture and the local music scene.
The Bluefrog is in an area called Lower Parel, about 20 minutes north of Fort. The journey there has been one of the most memorable so far. As always, getting into a cab in Mumbai is reliable brush with death (or, at least that's how it seems, though the drivers apparently all have fairly good track records). On the ride we passed through some of the slums of Mumbai, which are sprawling networks of shacks built from corrugated scrap metal and other reused materials. We also had some very intense encounters while stopped at intersections. One man, an older man, held a baby's gangrened arm into the cab, inches from Yotam's face. We had encountered begging people before, but this instance was particularly horrific. The situation of the poor in Mumbai is difficult to describe, especially when coming from our stance as tourists and I'm not sure that anything I could write here could convey the visceral reaction that interactions like this one produce. I think, after spending only four days in Mumbai, it would be irresponsible of me to give my uninformed explanation of the issue of the slums or the street people. Still, it's important to note poverty is an ever present and emotionally stirring aspect of India, and I'll leave it at that for now.
We got out of the cab to find ourselves in a somewhat seedy area, and we were both feeling pretty solemn, and the night was starting to look like a failure. But we had already gone all the way out there, and were starting to get hungry, so we decided we'd find the Bluefrog and stick it out.
After much searching we arrived. The place was an abandoned warehouse, converted to an ultramodern lounge with an enormous soundsystem, six projectors, and not a soul around. The menu was all American style food, and corny classic rock was being blasted at us. It looked like it could have been a bar in California-- a bar that we would be very unlikely to visit. To top it off, it was also expensive, and not just by Indian standards. But we were hungry, and held out hope that if we stayed we would at least meet the musicians, which would satisfy our thirst for some interaction.
The food, while presented beautifully, tasted really, really bad. We would have left, but other people-- young, Indian people--started to trickle in ,which renewed our hope and helped us ignore the strange discomfort caused by being Americans in an American-style bar. By the time the band came on, it was an impressive crowd for a Sunday night. And while Split (unplugged?) played a pretty offe set consisting of badly played Metal, a basically arhythmic cover of a Police song, and an endearingly delivered yet downright awful Pearl Jam song, the night didn't turn out to be a total failure: as we were leaving, we made friends with an Indian guy named Rahul, who, like me, had quit his job to travel around India. He has hopes of going to grad school at USC. He was friendly, and funny, and told us some stuff about India, and thanks to him our night turned out okay. So we stuck around for a bit longer, and drank a round of Tuborgs, because the Bluefrog most certainly does not sell Kingfisher.
All in all, an odd day, and when we woke up this morning, I think we were both ready for a change of scene. And Bangalore--wow--it's different.
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