I will admit to not catching much sleep - and of course, neither did Claire in her state of a barfing living dead.
I woke up at 6:30 as we were ushered out on our first pit stop of the morning. Got a loo visit in and returned immediately to the bus where Claire was still asleep.
I had a bit of breakfast in the form of a couple of bananas and a few chunks of bread roll and croissant that we had bought for the journey from the German bakery yesterday.
I didn't go back to sleep and instead simultaneously kept an eye on Claire and one on the scenery outside, while the bus was beeping away trying to get past the slow moving morning traffic.
Btw you got to love the recent Google Android phones and GPS, which has gotten a lot better from my Nexus One to the Galaxy Nexus - simply hold the phone up against the bus window for 5 secs to let it get a fix, then check Google maps navigation from My Location to eg. Bangalore to be told that we're 103km away still, much easier than getting up to talk to a driver with little-to-no English :-)
Another interesting fact of the day is that the bus journey is less than 600km from Chawdi to Bangalore, 11 hours driving. By train its nearly 1100km and takes 14 hours. Obviously there's no such thing as a straight line here when it comes to trains - it literally must be going in circles to cover rural towns along the way.
Anyway, we finally arrived in Bangalore at around 10:00 and then had our first haggle of the day with the auto-rickshaw driver - we ended at R.250,-. However, as we got in to the rickshaw it quickly became clear that he hadn't a clue where he was going, even before we left, as he went off with our hotel booking confirmation for the Laika Boutique Stay guest house that we had booked a room in. Things got progressively worse as he neared our destination because many/most of the streets in the area wereone-way. In the end - and after countless stops where he asked for directions and even after we called Laika on Claire's phone and handed it to him - I actually ended up guiding him using my phone for satnav with Google maps as thankfully it took into consideration what was one-way and what wasn't.
At our destination after an hour and 7.5km distance (but more like 15km in the rickshaw including a petrol station stop) he got his R.250,-. But I had notice in the beginning that the meter, which I spotted, was on and it showed around R.90,-. I gave him his money but took note.
We must say that the Laika Boutique Stay guest house is an absolute gem - from a location, facilities, room, cleanliness, noise etc perspective - it is a perfect choice for staying in Bangalore - if for nothing else than the fact that it is located on side streets away from the main streets and therefore relatively quiet at night.
And the hosts are sooo nice - they checked us in at 11:00 after quickly making our room ready on our arrival, while serving us coffee and talking to us. Laika (the wife) & Ajith (the husband) are a married couple who own and run the guest house, which appears to consist of 8 rooms in two levels. From the many reviews (and the 2012 award they earned) they have on Trip Adviser it seems to be a consistent view that many of their guests share. I'll come back to this point later.
After unpacking we went off to have a look around and buy some essentials in the shops - as well as go looking for an Amazon Kindle Reader (sadly can't be found anywhere in Bangalore) - and quickly realised that Bangalore is a very busy and noisy place. But the people here are relatively friendly, not unlike Goa.
We took the new Metro in to the centre of M.G. Road and after a few hours of walking the surrounding shopping streets - as well as having a lunch in some "posh" cafe in Church Street as well as a pint in The Pub World where we met a nice Scottish/Romanian couple and spoke to them about India - we returned to the guest house. There we met Laika for the first time (Ajith checked us in) and after sitting and talking to them for about an hour we were invited for horse racing on the Saturday and to see her race horses on the Sunday - it turns out she has a bunch of race horses, some of them "babies" that are currently being broken in. Claire of course, with her great interest in anything horsey, immediately said yes.
They then asked us if we'd like a beer with them but we politely declined - with Claire having been sick half the night and as a result of neither of us really sleeping much - and instead went into bed and watched a couple of episodes of Chuck. At 21:00 it was lights-out and off to sleep.
I woke up at 6:30 as we were ushered out on our first pit stop of the morning. Got a loo visit in and returned immediately to the bus where Claire was still asleep.
I had a bit of breakfast in the form of a couple of bananas and a few chunks of bread roll and croissant that we had bought for the journey from the German bakery yesterday.
I didn't go back to sleep and instead simultaneously kept an eye on Claire and one on the scenery outside, while the bus was beeping away trying to get past the slow moving morning traffic.
Btw you got to love the recent Google Android phones and GPS, which has gotten a lot better from my Nexus One to the Galaxy Nexus - simply hold the phone up against the bus window for 5 secs to let it get a fix, then check Google maps navigation from My Location to eg. Bangalore to be told that we're 103km away still, much easier than getting up to talk to a driver with little-to-no English :-)
Another interesting fact of the day is that the bus journey is less than 600km from Chawdi to Bangalore, 11 hours driving. By train its nearly 1100km and takes 14 hours. Obviously there's no such thing as a straight line here when it comes to trains - it literally must be going in circles to cover rural towns along the way.
Anyway, we finally arrived in Bangalore at around 10:00 and then had our first haggle of the day with the auto-rickshaw driver - we ended at R.250,-. However, as we got in to the rickshaw it quickly became clear that he hadn't a clue where he was going, even before we left, as he went off with our hotel booking confirmation for the Laika Boutique Stay guest house that we had booked a room in. Things got progressively worse as he neared our destination because many/most of the streets in the area wereone-way. In the end - and after countless stops where he asked for directions and even after we called Laika on Claire's phone and handed it to him - I actually ended up guiding him using my phone for satnav with Google maps as thankfully it took into consideration what was one-way and what wasn't.
At our destination after an hour and 7.5km distance (but more like 15km in the rickshaw including a petrol station stop) he got his R.250,-. But I had notice in the beginning that the meter, which I spotted, was on and it showed around R.90,-. I gave him his money but took note.
We must say that the Laika Boutique Stay guest house is an absolute gem - from a location, facilities, room, cleanliness, noise etc perspective - it is a perfect choice for staying in Bangalore - if for nothing else than the fact that it is located on side streets away from the main streets and therefore relatively quiet at night.
And the hosts are sooo nice - they checked us in at 11:00 after quickly making our room ready on our arrival, while serving us coffee and talking to us. Laika (the wife) & Ajith (the husband) are a married couple who own and run the guest house, which appears to consist of 8 rooms in two levels. From the many reviews (and the 2012 award they earned) they have on Trip Adviser it seems to be a consistent view that many of their guests share. I'll come back to this point later.
After unpacking we went off to have a look around and buy some essentials in the shops - as well as go looking for an Amazon Kindle Reader (sadly can't be found anywhere in Bangalore) - and quickly realised that Bangalore is a very busy and noisy place. But the people here are relatively friendly, not unlike Goa.
We took the new Metro in to the centre of M.G. Road and after a few hours of walking the surrounding shopping streets - as well as having a lunch in some "posh" cafe in Church Street as well as a pint in The Pub World where we met a nice Scottish/Romanian couple and spoke to them about India - we returned to the guest house. There we met Laika for the first time (Ajith checked us in) and after sitting and talking to them for about an hour we were invited for horse racing on the Saturday and to see her race horses on the Sunday - it turns out she has a bunch of race horses, some of them "babies" that are currently being broken in. Claire of course, with her great interest in anything horsey, immediately said yes.
They then asked us if we'd like a beer with them but we politely declined - with Claire having been sick half the night and as a result of neither of us really sleeping much - and instead went into bed and watched a couple of episodes of Chuck. At 21:00 it was lights-out and off to sleep.
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