MB & J

April 5, 2007

Spring Break 2007!

The week of March 25 through March 31, 2007, was like spring break for pseudo-adults. Meg, Andy and Jason all came to visit us in Bangalore. They arrove early Sunday morning March 25 on the 2 AM Luftansa flight. After just a little sleep, we all went to the best brunch in town, Olive Beach and had a great time eating and drinking. Monday began our two days of sightseeing in Bangalore. We first went to City Market, which is a huge market area of town that can freak anyone out after just arriving in Bangalore. There's nothing really like it in the US, that I've seen. Lots of commerce and people bustling around handling business. We walked around for a couple hours looking for a music shop that I had been to before. I was hoping to show everyone what a Sitar looked like, but the shop is small and he was out of stock. Not that this is the only place to get a Sitar, but its a cool experience walking around in City Market. I think everyone bought a small instrument or something from the shop. After a stop in The Cauvery Store on MG (Mahatma Gandhi) Road for some more souvenirs, Andy, Meg and Jason got to experience their first Indian meal at a nice vegetarian Indian restaurant called Emgees. We ate channa masala, veg. handi, jeera rice, roti, butter naan and had a delicious glass of fresh lime soda. I think everyone enjoyed their first Indian meal. After that we stopped in a rug store. We didn't buy anything here, but its fun to watch the presentation of rugs by this unique type of store. Next stop was the opposite end of shopping from city market in Bangalore, the beautiful Leela Palace. By this time, we were all pretty tired of shopping and just hit one store in Leela Mall before we headed to Citrus for a cocktail. We ate dinner at Sahib Sindh Sultan, which is a nice restaurant close to home in the Forum Mall. This is a fun restaurant because its made up like train car with great service and a distinctly Indian atmosphere. On Tuesday we started out by going to Lalbaugh Botanical Gardens. We walked around for a couple of hours enjoying the scenery and looking for monkeys. We found a big family of monkeys and took a lot of pictures. For lunch on Tuesday we visited Bang 3, MB's office, to eat at the cafeteria. We had an inexpensive South Indian Meal for 25 rupees each, then got the full office tour from MB until we were chased out of the basement by security...as unofficial visits are not allowed in the basement for some reason. The rest of our week was to be spent in Kerala.

Trains, Buses, Cars, Boats and Planes

If you read MB's blog you know the crazy time we had of it getting to Kocki,Kerala. I misread the initial train ticket timing and we missed our overnight A/C sleeper class train. I have to say that I am very proud of our group. Everyone handled the second class train and the non-AC bus with a superior attitude. It wasn't until about 20 minutes before we got off the bus that we all got on edge. Fortunately, we made it! And what an experience, I would say that if we can handle travelling as we did on March 28th (MB's birthday) in India, we can all handle travelling anywhere in the world on any mode of transportation. Experiences like that make you feel both empowered and belittled. Empowered in that you are independent enough to manage getting from point A to point B regardless of your surroundings. Belittled in that you are just one of millions of different people travelling all over the place in this crazy world. Our hotel accommodations were satisfactory and after we had showered, pizza and beer were certainly in order.

It took a couple hours to get to the boat launch in Kumarokom from Cochin (or Kochi), but once we made it things were smooth sailing from there on. The 3 person boat staff were attentive and easy to work with. The boat had a large open area at the front for eating and socializing, 2 large air conditioned bedrooms and a kitchen in the back. After they loaded our bags on board we were off down the canal and out into the bay. The scenery was fabulous; a true image of rural Indian coastal life. Lunch and dinner were really good and consisted of seafood, rice, a couple of vegetarian gravies, chicken, and different Indian breads. We had our fill of Royal Challenge beer as well.

We departed the boat launch at about 10:30 AM the next morning. Since MB and Jason had booked us on a Kingfisher flight to return to Banaglore, we had plenty of time to sightsee the Kochi area. There used to be a large Jewish community in Cochin, and our first stop in Fort Kochi was an area of town called Jew Town. It is right on the water with narrow roads and 2 or 3 story buildings on either side, many of which used to be warehouses. Now the area is a tourist destination for the Dutch Palace Museum, Jewish Synagogue and tons of shopping. Neither of the landmarks were open, but the shopping was surprisingly fun. There are a lot of shops that sell Indian antiques, which proved to be some of the most unique and beautiful things that I've seen in India. After Jew Town, we went to see the Chinese fishing nets. Maybe you noticed from the names, since Cochin is a large coastal port town the area has had a long history of international trade and foreign influence. We were all pretty beat from the heat and needed a respite, so we headed to the 5 star Taj Residency Hotel for some good food and cocktails before our flight home to Bangalore. Fortunately, the flight was uneventful and we made it back with nothing but praise for Kingfisher airlines.

Saturday March 31st was our last day with Jason, Meg and Andy. Fortunately their flight didn't depart until late that night, so we had a full day to hang out together. We went to the Bangalore horse track to play the ponies. We had a great time trying to figure out what to do and how to bet. Once we got it figured out and got to see a couple of races, we started making friends and finding out who we should bet on. Andy was the big winner of the day! After the races, we walked to the Taj West End, which is across the street, for some food and drinks. We had a full day of fun, but sadly the time came for us to go back to St. John's Wood to pack and prepare for them to leave. It was great having Andy, Jason and Meg visit us and I personally had a really fun time, regardless of the travel debacle on MB's birthday. After they left, MB and I have been really missing the USA, our families, friends, and home. I'm excited to be moving back in a mere 6 weeks! However, there are a couple of really special trips between now and then so look for more from mbandj.com prior to our arrival in America.