First day in tropical Bangalore

I stepped out of Mélange Garden Apartments and turned left around the corner just as Ajay told me, the clerk at the front desk. He had drawn me a map himself with his name and apartment phone number, just in case and waved me off with a warm Indian smile.

I was sure I'd be able to handle it, walking on my own, just a few blocks, just me and my wits on my way to the supermarket, Gourmet Food World!

I walked out into pure mayhem! Can there exist busier streets than Bangalore? You just have to experience it to believe it. Take a look at these videos of Bangalore traffic on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjG_S8XJM4
& http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM&feature=related & this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7oBBBAAS9o&feature=related

This is not an exaggeration! Isn't that hilarious? Well, in real life, it's not so funny. Notice that that the cars don't stop for pedestrians.

It's like playing a game of dodge ball. On the one hand I was getting an adrenalin rush dashing through masses of speeding cars, trucks, rickshaws, bikes, scooters, even horse and buggy, but on the other hand, I was wondering if I would return to the apartment.

Another thing that I found 'concerning' was that the sidewalks were often made out of slabs of long stone about 2 meters long and about a meter wide.

They were often stretched across bottomless pits balancing on ledges at both ends. Sometimes they would have gaps between them 30 meters wide (a foot length).

I had to concentrate on not falling in the holes and at the same time pay attention to all the action and movement around me. I don't know how they do it! I saw groups of little children, old people, fast walking and talking business people all walking over the same stones as I was, but they weren't even looking down. Maybe it becomes a sort of 2nd sense?

Eventually I arrived at the super market. After figuring out how things worked I brought my groceries to the check in counter. It took 4 men about 20 minutes to check out my 15 pieces of grocery. When the whole procedure was over, I just smiled a big smile, said thank you very much and went on my way.

After all, it was quite an experience watching them trying to figure out how much the items were, how to get the scanner to work properly, when it wouldn't work, they needed to look up in their catalogue the prices and try to match the item number to the paper with the pictures of the items. It was fascinating!

If I were sensible, I would have taken a left and back tracked the way I came, but I was starting to get cockier and feeling like I had this India thing under control. I firmly grabbed the bags in both hands and I went right...

Well, it was pretty obvious, I would just go back down the hill and take a left at the first street and then I'd be back at the apartment. After all, it was only just a few blocks away.

I got to the first corner; up until now, everyone I passed on the streets were Indians. In this street there must have been some sort of tourist attraction around there. Because there were suddenly a lot of people around me that looked like tourists.

This was also the first time I was harassed by guys wanting to sell me ridiculous worthless junk. To be honest, I didn't really mind the stalkers. All I could do was smile and say no. I even found them interesting.

There was this guy who followed me 3 blocks trying to sell me some worthless 'fine crafted' wooden snake. I told him from the beginning that I did not want to buy his snake but he just kept on insisting that I take a better look at its amazing craftsmanship.

Actually, I didn't mind his company, but then I starting to get the feeling that I was loosing my way. I had passed a street on the right already, but was distracted by the snake sales man.

Instead of going back to the street salesmen area, I decided to just take the next right I come to. I came to major street and it seemed like the right one I needed. But then, it seemed to go on for quite a long time. There were several more streets that I came to and I kept on taking rights at every street. Then street I was on suddenly turned into a dirt road, then mud, then as it became more and more narrow, the housing kept closing in.

It was though a real interesting area with (gaudy) temples of all colours and denominations and all the houses were painted pastel colours. I realized that I was possibly a bit lost in a very old part of town. There I was, with the two big grocery bags in both hands trudging along, determined that the apartments were 'just a few blocks away'.

Suddenly I realized that 2 hours had passed. I had to admit that I was basically lost and the apartments were NOT just a few blocks away. I came out of the residential area and came found a major street. I found a traffic police station and asked for help. They told me that I was 3 kilometres from where I was supposed to be!

They flagged down a rickshaw for me, and made sure I had a decent price and the rickshaw scuttled me back to my apartment.