Kostadis and Natasha's Guide to Bangalore

Natasha Gelfand and Kostadis Roussos

Introduction

Why
This page is aimed at people who are planning to travel to Bangalore for a reasonably long (at least one month) period of time, and are going to be spending most of their time working. In the last few years, there has been a growing number of IT professionals traveling to India for business, who will hopefully find this page useful.

Why not just use a guidebook?
Lonely Planet (LP) is a fairly good guidebook to India. However, it is written for those visitors who travel to India mainly to sightsee. If you are in India to work, you have a different set of constraints than the travel crowd, most notably time. Most people in the IT industry end up in places that are not quite on the regular tourist circuit (unless you end up in Delhi, in which case we extend you our sympathies). For example, LP has two pages about what to do in Bangalore and says that most people stop in on-route somewhere else (it has good transport connections) and because there are lots of places to check your email. Not very encouraging if you have to spend two months there...

Also, if you are working, most of your trips are going to be weekend trips. Lonely Planet is not all that useful for that, because no matter how interesting a place is, if it takes a train, two busses, and a rickshaw to get there, you cannot travel there in just a weekend.

About us
We spent two months in Bangalore, where Kostadis was working at NetApp. We mostly did two or three day weekend trips, with one werk-long trip to the north (Delhi, Agra, and Mussoorie). As a result, the material you are going to find here will be mostly Bangalore-based.

Miscellaneous advice

First, here's what we feel is the most important piece of advice we can give. Get a car and a driver. If you have a job, you probably can afford it. You can get a driver for the whole time you are here (especially if you live far from the office) or just arrange for one for your trips. Do not bother with the trains and buses. No matter how charming LP, other people, the Internet etc. claim Indian trains are, if you have limited time to spend on your travels, driving is more efficient.

If you are staying somewhere overnight, it's a good idea to bring your own sheets, even if the hotel provides bedding. Unless you are staying in a five-star hotel, it's a hit or miss whether the hotel's sheets will be clean enough by our snobby Westerner standards. This is true for all hotels that are classified as mid-range by Lonely Planet, and even for some of the top-end ones. Also bring a towel.

Bring mosquito coils with you. Most hotels in mosquito-heavy areas have screens on the windows, but if the screens are broken you are
going to have a very miserable time.

Carry earplugs everywhere when you travel. India is noisy.

For the rest of the general advice about India, read the introduction chapers in the LP book. Preferably before you get to India, so that you have an idea of how things work before you get there.

Health stuff

Everything Lonely Planet says is correct, so do that. Here are several additional points. Disclaimer: we take no responsibility about whether this is medically sound, if you get sick it's not our fault. This is the Internet, don't believe anything you read.

Brush your teeth with bottled or boiled water. When buying bottled water, check that the seal is intact. In restaurants, do not let the waiters open the bottle before you had a chance to examine the seal.

Wear open shoes (Chaco sandals are my preference). It's probably hot where you are (unless you end up in Delhi in the winter, in which case we offer our sympathies), and wearing closed shoes for a long time will give you foot fungus. Your feet will get pretty dirty every day, but that's what showers are for.

We did not take any malaria medication while we were in Bangalore itself. We took pills (Malarone) when we went to the Arabian seacoast, and to the jungle. If you are somewhere else, or it's the monsoon, you may want to take your pills. Warning, this is specific to Bangalore in the winter, and is probably contrary to what your doctor will say, and you could get sick.

Bring vitamin pills and take them every day. You will probably not be getting enough of some kind of vitamins.

Places to eat

Here are some places in Bangalore we particularly liked.

Coconut Grove, Church Street, has very good Keralan food.
Angeeti (above Museum Inn), Museum Rd, has good tandoori and gravies. You have to try the tandoori pomfret there.
Noble house, Infantry Rd, has excellent Thai food (last few pages of the menu).
Biryani Merchant, 32 Castle Street
Queens, on Church Street has good gravies.
We found the Pizza Hut pizza quite good (better than it is the US). In the first weeks it can also be used as a good break from spicy food (chicken supreme is a good choice). As you spend more time in India, you may find their food too bland, though.

You're in South India, so you will eat lots of South Indian food. Here are some places we liked for that.

Addigas, Dickenson Rd. Good dosas/idlis and meals.
Hotel Airlines, good for breakfast.
Nagarjuna (Andhra Pradesh food), Residency Rd. Good all you can eat meals. Also order chicken sholay kebab.
Nandini (Andhra Pradesh food) is a good place to order dinner (they deliver). However, one meal from there is enough to feed four very hungry people, so find some friends.

If you decide that you miss Western food, the Polo Club at the Oberoi Hotel has reasonable sandwiches.

How to eat a South Indian meal
A South Indial meals works as follows. You sit at a table and are presented with a banana leaf. Take some water and rinse the leaf. A guy comes by and plops some food on your leaf. The food is some kind of vegetable stews. Wait. Another guy will come by and plop some rice on your leaf. You will also be given several containers with rasam, sambar, and yogurt and various chutneys and pickled things.

The process goes as follows. Mix one of the stews or sambar with a bit of the rice. Cup the fingers on your right hand, and using them as a scoop eat the rice mixture. Continue with the other ingredients, always mixing them with a bit of rice. Do the same with the various chutneys and pickles that are on the table (careful, some are very hot).

There will be people wandering around offering you more rice or more vegetables. Once you are full (or usually stuffed to the point of
bursting), pour the yogurt into your leftover rice and eat it. This helps to temper the spiciness of the food. To indicate that you are done, fold the leaf in half (remember to fold it towards you, folding it away from you means you didn't like the food). In more fancy places, you will get a bowl of hot water to wash your hands. Otherwise, just pour some water from your glass on your fingers.

Things to do

If you are from the Bay Area, you probably will want to find someplace to go jogging or walking. It is, in fact, possible to do that here. Go to Cubbon Park early in the morning, the air is quite acceptable, the paths do not have deathtrap holes (you'll know what that means), and there will be other people walking and jogging, so you won't feel like an idiot.

Lal Bagh gardens is a nice place to walk.

Bull Temple is well worth a visit. If you want to go inside, come after 3 pm. Bring small change to tip the shoe minder, and some small bills for an offering.

If you miss Starbucks, go to Coffee Day. You won't know the difference, at least not immediately (warning though, the croissants are stuffed with spicy paneer, not chocolate)

Around Bangalore

The following table (courtesy Senthil Ponnappan) has a list of interesting places around Bangalore, with driving distance to each. Plan around 50 km/hour on average when figuring driving time.

Here are some notes on places we visited. If you are driving through Mysore, you should leave before 7 am to avoid the traffic on the Bangalore-Mysore road.

Hogennakel Falls

The main attraction here is to take the coracle ride in the river. Coracle is a circular boat made from bamboo. It looks like it will sink the moment you get into it, but they are actually quite sturdy. There are also some fairly impressive waterfalls.

Renting a boat should cost you no more than 400 rupees for 2-3 hours time. The boatman will paddle you around the waterfalls, and then take you to a little beach where you can wade in the river (we didn't swim) and get some fried fish (spicy). Wear clothes that dry quickly, since you will get wet in the coracle.

Prepare to be stared at (and asked to pose for group pictures), this place does not have many Western visitors.

Driving time is 4 hours.

Pictures Trip report

Mysore

LP has lots of good information. If you are driving, you can also easily cover all the sites around Mysore, such as Tipu's summer palace, Gumbaz and the bird sanctuary (well worth it, there are crocs sunning themselves on the rocks).

Driving time 3 hours if you leave at 6 am and come back at 10 pm, otherwise 4-4.5 hours.

Pictures Trip report

Ooty

The town itself is not very interesting. It used to be a small hill station, but now has about 100,000 people, as lots of Sri Lankans immigrated there to work the tea plantations. The area around the town (Nilgiri Hills) is beautiful, so take a guided hike (the one organized by the Reflections Guest House is good, it's in the LP book).

Do not stay in the main town (we did, but it was New Year's eve and we could not find any other accomodations). Regency Villas (in LP) looked very nice. Ooty is a good place to buy chocolate.

Driving time 8 hours. Make a stop at the Mudumalai elephant sanctuary (right after you cross into Tamil Nadu, after Bandipur National Park), and watch elepants getting washed in the river.

Pictures Trip report

Mangalore

Mangalore it not all that interesting as a town, but the beaches around it are nice, and we went on this trip with a bunch of friends so it was fun.

The beach at Bekal Fort (just across the border in Kerala) is very nice. Taking a ferry to St. Mary's island is pretty interesting also, although the island has a bit of development on it (a few shacks and a kids playground), so it's not as charming as it can be.

Driving time 8-9 hours, going there we drove overnight.

Pictures

Kabini

This was the best weekend trip we've taken. We booked the one day safari package through Jungle Lodges and Resorts, which includes accomodations in a nice bungalow (you don't need to bring your own sheets here), decent meals, a jeep safari, boat ride, and elephant ride. The location is beautiful and very peaceful, and the jungle trips are quite interesting. You should book at least several weeks in advance, because it fills up. It's a good idea to bring binoculars.

Driving time 5 and a half hours. There is plenty of time to stop in Mysore on the way back.

Pictures Trip report

Coorg

Coorg (or Kodagu) is hilly region in the Western Ghats, near the Karnataka-Kerala border. We stayed at Orange County Resort, which was very nice. It's situated in the middle of a coffee plantation, and the room tariff includes a guided plantation and jungle walk. You can also go on a coracle ride on the Cauvery River, visit a Tibetan Settlement, and Dubare Elephant Camp.

Driving time 5-6 hours.

Pictures

Short trips

Nandi Hills: This is the first place we went to, suggested by Lonely Planet (Pictures). The location is not all that interesting, especially for those of us who are from the Bay Area and have seen large rocks before. However, it makes a good first outing to get used to traveling on Indian roads, and you'll get to see lots of monkeys. Also will provide an introduction to getting stared at and talked to all the time. Driving time 2 hours.

Bannerghatta Biological Park: Do the safari, you will get to see some lions and tigers wandering outside your bus. The zoo is not very interesting, but you can get thwacked on the head by an elephant (Pictures). Driving time about 45 minutes.

Questions?

Email Kostadis (kostadis at yahoo dot com) or Natasha (ngelfand at graphics dot stanford dot edu) if you have any questions, comments, or stories to share.