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I’m back in Delhi. I initially arrived here and found that outside of the marked decrease in air pollution, not much has changed. Traffic is still killer, the old ‘hood is still the same, dogs and cattle still roam freely in the street.

Auto-rickshaws have changed the black portion of their colour to green – presumably to show that they’re a bit greener now that they use natural gas. I find that in my travels outside of Delhi, they’re all still black and yellow – except for the government rickshaws which are all painted white.

One thing I love to do in Delhi is shop – there’s so much to shop for – the ladies can shop till they drop for fabrics to make their Indian suits and sarees, I can shop till I drop for fabrics to make shirts and business suits. On this trip, I picked up about seven suits and I look forward to seeing the results. I’ll be picking them up during the next couple days and given that I’ve purchased made-to-measure suits from India before with great success, I can’t wait to sport some of the new stuff when I’m back home.

Every time I come to India, I also get inspired to try out the women’s fabrics to make a bitchin’ new shirt for myself. When in Bangalore, I thought of purchasing some Mysore Silk (Mysore in the South of India is quite famous for their silks) with some gold embroidery but firstly, they want to sell 6 feet of fabric and secondly, I didn’t find a set of colours to work with.

Back to Delhi, during my last trip here, I visited a couple of monuments – the Ba’hai Lotus Temple and the India Gate monument.

The Lotus Temple (pictured above) is quite a monument. Tonight over dinner, I spoke with a Canadian from Ottawa who is volunteering there. He said the accomodations are quite nice. I found out that they have running water and electicity there 24 hours a day. I found out today, the hard way, that I have no such luck at the place I’m staying at in Delhi – electricity, yes – running water, no. I recall a time, though, that electricity was scheduled to be shut off during the day in the area, tho.

The India Gate was erected as a war monument. I recall seeing a similar structure in Mumbai (Bombay) but perhaps I’m mistaken. Last time I was in India, the monument was not accessible by foot as it was consistently surrounded by moving traffic. A couple years ago, they decided that it made sense to have this tourist attraction actually become accessible to tourists.

One thing I get a kick out of is how much pride people have in their vehicles. People put the silliest things on their vehicles from “War Car” to “Pawar Break” (Pawar is a common Indian surname), etc.. I also get a kick out of the funny signs, Metrosexy, Firearms not allowed in restaurant, etc.

So, after spending a couple days (mostly non-stop shopping) in Delhi, I went to Hyderabad. Nice place – nicer than Delhi. The traffic is still a bit nuts there comparatively, though but then again, the best way to avoid traffic here, as stated before, is to travel by helicopter. Below, traffic when coming in to Hyderabad, traffic from some high-up vantage points in the old city (the new city is actually referred to as Secunderabad).

You’ll have to forgive me from here on in – the connectivity is so poor today that I’m having a hard time opening up web pages. You can always hit my photo archives under 200412 (December 2004) to see the images in fullsize.

During my time in Hyderabad, I got to see some great places – Golkunda Fort which used to be the main place of rule for South India, The Buddha Statue which was erected in 1992 after numerous attempts and deaths in trying to do so in the 80’s, the main drag which features statues of the various philosophers and saints of the region), and a Rajasthan theme park (don’t ask – I’ve been to Rajasthan before, I didn’t really feel the need to go to a theme park related to the state but…).

Seeing livestock in the middle of the street, watching how the drivers so skillfully dodge the animals on the road is always a blast. Sometimes dogs get cocky enough to chase cars but mostly they’re scared of people – unless you happen to wind up with a pack of 20 – 30 dogs in the middle of the night and nobody else in sight as I had the chance to do when I was in India last in Mumbai. North of Delhi, in the smaller towns, I’ve had a chance to glimpse pigs (really big guys) roaming the streets. You can also catch the occasional rooster, monkeys, goats, etc. roaming the streets in different parts of India. On this trip, I’ve had the chance to see monkeys near the parliament offices in Delhi (go figure), cows, goats and dogs.

One thing about the South of India. I find my Hindi to be ineffective. It seems that southerners who speak languages such as Telugu or Tamil, hate light-skinned northerners. I found that even though in some cases, people could understand what I said, they’d pretend like they didn’t. Kinda reminiscent of Japan where the locals play this sort of game too.

Bangalore

Bangalore is an anomaly. In central Bangalore, the streets are paved (properly), the air is clean, there is access to Internet services almost everywhere, water is available in both cold and hot forms (no more cold showers or bucket baths – yay!) and there is actually some night life going on. One thing I find consistent in Bangalore is that the Kerala and South Indian foods are served on a banana leaf. Presentation is always good, food is always delicious. The first row of images is lunch at Bheemas on Church Street (Bangalore Central) and the bottom row is from another restaurant, Karavalli, at the Gateway Hotel accross from the Galaxy Theatre on Brigade Road (Bangalore Central). In the central area you also have a number of pubs which is really anomalous for India.

On my last night in Bangalore, we went out to a cabaret. A fun place to be if you’re a money lender or CEO, apparently. The cover was 300 rupees to get in and funnily, this actually paid for 300 rupees worth of drinks. This night, the place was full of money lenders and the whole scene was a bunch of girls dancing in the middle of the club while the men gawked. No nudity, guys, this wasn’t one of those types of places. We stayed for a drink but I was exhausted and looking forward to 1.5 hours of sleep before having to return to Delhi by plane.

Speaking of which, almost midnight now, here in Delhi. Time to pack up and return home before it becomes impossible to transportation back.