First Impressions - 16th of January 2005

Thought I send you a little sign of life after having been in India for about two weeks now. It has pretty much been an emotional rollercoaster. I was pretty shocked and literally speechless for the first two days, and it took me a while to leave the beautiful and save hotel compound. I have seen places like this before, the feeling is very different though when going somewhere on holiday compared to looking at flats on the second day of arrival and having your life being shipped over in a container at the same time.

Street life pretty much reminds me of that in Saigon /Vietnam. The red soil everything is covered in, the auto rickshaws, the constant honking, and the pollution levels on the street. I learned pretty quickly that you do not walk here, anywhere. Had a brave, or better stupid moment and gave walking a try anyways ... it was the worst day I had so far, not a pleasant experience. Walkways don't really exist, and if they do you will find a lot of obstacles in your way. And people do stare at you which makes it not exactly a relaxing stroll. Driving a car yourself is not an option either, there is no lines on the streets, and no rules at all. Its about pushing into every gap between cars. There are some traffic lights here and there, but usually traffic is managed by man in funny cowboy hats. If they are not there it turns into an absolute chaos within seconds. Cars [and cows, motorcycles, buses, massive trucks] drive with their side mirrors folded in, that's how close to each other they manoeuvre around.

At first everything looked the same here, as it is all foreign to your eye. Plus i started wondering after a while where all these 'westerners' are.
I had a big break through the other day, I found them! I became an official member of the OWC Bangalore, the Overseas Woman's Club. Got ready in the morning to go to their weekly 'get together' at the Leela palace hotel, for the first time. Had the worst thoughts of no-one being there, or just weird old ladies looking at me sceptically. Kind of felt like going to an interview, how ridiculous.

When entering the library cafe to see all these people from all over the world, dressing in familiar clothes and speaking familiar languages a lot of weight fell off my shoulders. Believe me, it was such a big relieve that I could have easily started crying [nooo, i didn't!]. I met woman from all over Europe, the US, Korea, Japan, China, Australia, Kenya, India, etc.
They even published a book on Bangalore for members only, the key to it all! All the information you need in the beginning, comfort. There is so much in this massive city, but you need to know where to go. There is even a little German cafe serving yummy cakes and salads.
Life happens behind doors, in weird side streets, in restaurants, hotels, spas, behind gates, at clubs and houses, hidden places and in cars. Things are not so obvious here.

We met a nice French couple, and were invited over for dinner the other day. It was like coming home. Helene cooked; we had champagne, French red wine, French food and homemade ice-cream. Helene&Pascal just moved here from China. Nothing foreign, just a European evening, with European conversations, what a relieve.

all the money from the membership fees of the OWC and from purchasing their book goes to well selected charities to help children, and other needy people in and around Bangalore.
You do see poverty here, even though Bangalore is probably one of the most developed and wealthiest place in India. The confrontation with this makes it a bit emotional. Giving money to organisations that will help is something you feel very strong about here.
For just 40 pounds you can feed about 100 children here for one month. A lot of them go to school in the mornings without having had breakfast, and at lunch time they will have no food either, no packed lunch, nothing. The thought alone makes me feel sick.
Giving these little bagging babies on the road money would sadly just make it worse, as they will not benefit from it themselves. But giving them fruits and other foods is ok, as they can eat it quickly and will not have to hand it in. Money will just go back to some corrupt organisation [they kidnap these little kids to put them onto the street to make money]. But believe me, you just want to take them with you, away from all that. They are born into an absolute nothing. To see this on a daily basis is so far the hardest bit of India for me. But I will go and stack up on crackers and bananas tomorrow!

You will on the other hand find lot of wealthy people here, people working in IT, all kinds of manufacturing, fabric/clothes design, etc.
Food is amazing here, you can find restaurants from different parts of India and also other cuisines such as vietnamese, italian, chinese, japanese, afghan, really everything... and everything very well prepared. I just love it.
Now that not everything looks the same anymore I realise that there are loads of coffee shops everywhere, selling good coffee. The biggest chains are called 'Coffee Day' and ‘Barista’.

I am surprised that nearly everyone speaks English here. Often I still don't understand a word, but I guess I will get used to the accent. Loving the head wobble though! Brilliant. Can still confuse us at times...
Even a lot of Bangalore an families speak English with each other. That I found very strange. All signs everywhere are in English and even the major newspapers are only published in English.

The weather is pretty much perfect in Bangalore [Bangalore being located on a over 1000m high plateau], it is winter right now... temperatures are around 26 - 27 degrees everyday, dry and sunny. In the evenings the temperatures drop down to about 19-20. Just perfect. i heard it will get warmer soon, and that it can be pretty hot in summer. I guess we will experience this soon…

The cost of living is generally low here. But housing prices [western standard, for western looking people], and hotel room prices are artificially high. Bangalore is growing at a fast paste and its infrastructure is struggeling to keep up, leading into a shortage of hotel rooms and housing.

We had a nice lunch the other day with some girls at a new and really modern and rather westernised place. We paid about 2 pounds per person. As we don't have a car and driver yet, and i got caught up in the rush hour, i could only find an auto rickshaw to take me back to the hotel [usually far too dangerous to drive around with I found], and i paid something like 20p [tip included] for a 15 minute ride.

I hope we will know more on the ,new home' front by next week. We can't wait to have a home again. Hopefully by February we will have settled in a bit more. Looked at lots of places and both fell in love with one, will see if it will work out.

We found a service apartment in the meantime, and will move in beginning of the week. It has its own kitchen/fridge so we don’t have to go out all the time. Most importantly you don’t constantly have about 5-10 hotel staff sneaking around you. It really gets to us. Giving people some 'space' is not exactly a known concept here. We are very happy to move into a service flat until we have sorted out our own place. Our belongings are anyways still at sea...

I start loving this place... there is something about it... and having gone past the first layer of dirt and madness, there is a lot of beauty hidden right behind it.

Nah mah ste for now