Bangalore excursion

On Saturday 8th of July, my supposed lat day in Bangalore, I had lunch at Dominos Pizza with Rojan and two of his friends, then back to my hotel, packed and left with my 5 new friends to one of their;'s friend cottage just outside Madiker. They had decided to leave the city for a small break with fresh rural air and because their friend's house there was a huge TV projector to watch the world cup finals, and lucky me they invited me along.
We left in tour cars, the first was carrying two couples and the second was all the bags Ullas and me. We had a good time talking about all and nothing at the time, struggling to find a wine shop along the road.
About half way through our trip we had arrived in Mysore and they decided to stop for a break and a couple drinks in a club called Hookah in Planet X.
In that club I waited for last songs to finally go and dance with a stranger. Luckily I was not to drunk and I manged to find a group of beautiful girls studying dentistry in Mysore. I picked a cute Tibetan girl and danced with her one song in half before the music stopped. I then went at this girl's table for a little chat and pick up phone numbers of her and her friends but we soon all had to empty the club.
The friends with whom I came had organized with some friends they had met in the club to go after party on Chamundi hill where we had a beautiful landscape of the city. I met a lot of cool people and had a great chat with many people.
We must of been altogether 15 people but we were making enough noise for a reve party.
After that, we drove to the cottage house near Madiker anoyher 3h drive. In the cars most people sleped, I think I was the only one who was not a driver and still boosted up. But by the time we got to Madiker, we all were definitely happy to hit the sack. The next day, we decided to for some white water rafting, so we drove in a Jeep to the departure of our rafting journey, and there I got explained that I was no more in civilized India, but I was from now on in the jungle India. In the river, there were signs all over to be aware of crocodiles, and on the other side of the river, there was all kind of animals living, from elephants to monkeys. Dangerous adventure to go out there on your own, because in the wild life humans are not the king of animals anymore.
The elephants are the most dangerous I have been told because they move in large groups and ravage anything standing thing on there way. This frightens a lot of agriculturers who see they crops ravaged by the elephant march.
Anyway we went down the river for a trip of 20km through some waterfalls of up to 4 feet high, so not much but a great adrenaline shot.
After the 4h of rafting through the jungle, my friends were to tyred to stay up for the Federer vs Nadal final of Wimbledon. Anyway I watched it with the gardeners of the cottage as they served me several glasses of whisky.
Of course on grass Federer still has the lead and won the match in 4 sets.
So this was a promising start of the evening, I then have been taught how to play a new card game because I was quite curious to understand how they can all stay and play cards together for 24h in a row. Anyway, at 11:30pm the World Cup final was starting and this did not give much time to en joy the game.
So I sat down in front of the huge projection they had of the ESPN channel.
I listened to both the national anthems and I must say that the french national anthem made me feel a very special vibe this time. I decided to take bets with two of my friends, I bet on the french with Ulass for five straight shots and still on the same wining team with Vikas for a hundred push ups in series of 12.
At 11:37pm, I felt a little to confident after Zidane struck the first goal into the back of the net after a penalty shot, but my confidence was deceived 12 minutes later when they left a breach to in the defence which went straight to Materazzi's head. But in the second half, France had taken the lead again and everything was back in order.... no, not really. France was ruling the field but not reaching the back of the net, and this is the only detail in football which makes a difference. As everybody knows I ended up loosing both of my bets and didn't find energy to do more than 82 push ups, but just this already gave me cramps for the next few days. After the match, there was nothing much to do, so I just digested that alcohol around a table where we were all chatting together. After a while, I was asked why was I happy to go back home?
The first thing that came to my head was that I was happy to go back to what I consider as civilisation. This comment of mine was very badly interpreted by the people I was with. They were upset to hear my state such a thing, saying that in India you can do all you can do in Western countries and even much more and that it was because of people like me spreading a bad word on India, that India was considered abroad as an underdeveloped country. Waou, I didn't expect this at all, but it seemed like the people I was with were totally forgetting where they were coming from and couldn't see anymore just outside their own lawn.
On the next morning, I woke up and decided to hang out with the gardeners for a little while in the neighboring home, they welcomed me arms wide open as they were still carrying on with the same card game. I started speaking about my trip and as soon as I mentioned Dubai, they all became very excited and wanted to see some pictures of my journey. So one gardener took his computer out and I showed them all I had done in Dubai. They seemed really amazed by the cult of money there was in that city and the amount of ideas that they had come out with so far. They then hooked the computer to the wire-less network and showed me funny adverts gloaming around the internet.
Later on that day on our way back to Bangalore, we stopped to visit a Tibetan temple named Bylakuppe. This temple definitely was one of the most beautiful temples I had seen so far in India, first because it was very lively, a lot of monks were living around and in the temple, secondly because this sacred place was amazingly well entertained, thirdly because the architecture and the sculptures on and in the buildings were beautiful peaces of art and finally because there in the temple's campus it really felt like were living somewhere in Tibet, it's a little paradise in the middle of Karnataka.
After this visit I decided to stay in Mysore overnight to see the city of Palaces, so I called my friend I had met on in the Hookah club and told my other friend s that I was glad to have met them, but I am leaving now.
They dropped me on the road where I picked up a bus to Mysore. I had my huge backpacking bag and the bus was full, so I had to stay up for 30' minutes and sat down only for the last 15' minutes of drive inside the city. Dava, my new girlfriend came to pick me up at the train station. I quickly found a hostel to drop my bag, we had a fast diner together, and off we were together on her motorbike driving around the city, I visited a couple places including the Palace. We decided to go up on Chamundi hill look at the stars from closer. But because of little attitude up there it was a little foggy and very windy. So after a couple hours of talk and after I got my first proper kiss, we got back down the hill and travelled the city on her scooter looking for somewhere we could have a nice Indian tea. Unfortunately everything was closed and we ended up at the train station sipping our tea.Then, around 5am, Dava came over to my place to sleep as she could not get into her campus after 10pm. In the morning she woke up and went back to home to change and came back soon after with her friend Lobo who wanted to share the tourist attractions we had planned to attend.
We started with an in depth visit of the beautiful Palace, then the fruit market, the oil shops, the Mysore cathedral and the beautiful parks all around the city.
At night walked after a tyring day, we walked to a delicious Chinese restaurant for diner and then went for a good night sleep.
The next day we just went for a long walk around the city before I took my bus back to Bangalore.

Bangalore

On my birthday, I decided to leave Kottayam and continue my visits across Kerala, but this birthday had been so bad I decided to change my plans and I took a bus to Bangalore and rest for a wee while. At night of my 16hour trip in the bus, when most people were asleep, we had a bad accident with a lorry, the front of our bus was slightly smashed and several windows on the right side of the truck had broke.
In my bus there had been many injured by the glass, not the shock of the accident itself.
We had to step out of the truck walk away to the neighboring city and there our bus caught back up with us, they screwed a couple new windows back onto the bus and then we were ready to kick off the rest of the journey.
In Bangalore, for the first couple of days, I didn't do much apart form read, watch the news and all the world cup matches.
But then I decided it was time for a little change. I didn't want any more sight seeing, I was fed up with that instead I decided to go the animated areas of the city and meet up with people, share local people experiences and if possible find a girl friend. I quickly realized that even in Bangalore it was an impossible mission to just find a girlfriend. I had first to meet people to get introduced to girls. So I headed to the MG road and had dinner at Pizza Hut. There I met up with a girl called Veronica and her boyfriend Vikas. I got along quite well and quite quick with them, so as I told them I had to leave to go watch the football match Ecuador vs.England they offered me to come along with them and watch it in a hotel with a couple friends and on a big display. Appealing idea, so without hesitation I agreed. We went to some classy hotel where they had booked a table, met up with 3 others boy friends of this couple, and got drunk together while watching good football.
For the first time of my trip in India I had bacon for munchies, and I shouldn't of eaten any of that because me and Varjun who nearly split the whole portion for ourselves felt very bad food poisoning the next day.

So the next day I stayed locked in my hotel room praying for my stomach acke to leave ASAP, and it did within a day, lucky me.
So I bounced out again and met new people, amongst which Rojan. He was sitting in front of a hotel as I was lloking for a new place to stay, supposd he was looking for a job in Bangalore as he recently graduated with an Elec. and Tel. Eng. diploma. We had a good chat together and he seemed very willing to keep as a friend. So, I invited him for lunch on the next day and he advised me a steak house. First peace of beef I have had in India and even though it was not the best one I had ever eaten, but it just felt so delicious. I then have been looking alaround with my friend for some bookshop who would sell me an old book which I could add to my dad's collection, but it just was impossible to find.
In the evenning I met up with my other group of new friends for another football match, Ger-Ita. So, I had diner with two late 20s couple, we drunk a litlle for diner luckily because when we were finaly done with our meal there was no more alcohol serving in the beautiful hotel we were in, and in Bangalore the rules are very strict. So we watched the match with a cup of coffee because people with me were nackered by their work day and the idea of the next day at work. By the end of the match which ended after additional time, Vikas and Victoria took me back to my hotel. When I got from the car to the front door of my hotel to realize that they had loocked, Vikas and Victoria were already gone. So I decided to reed a book accross the road underneath a street lamp post. I know, I could have knocked on the door and make noise, but to be honest I didn't really mind being outside at night, not only because it was a first experience to stay up at night watch the street animation but also because I had to read more, my book was just too good, The Google Story.
Two hours later a policemen drove by on a motorbike, and stopped by me.
He started telling me that I was not allowed to stay out at night, so he wanted to see my ID which was in my bag, then he asked me what I was carrying in my bag. So I first took ou a couple books, my usual black hand bag which had nothing inside it but pens and paper, then I had my camera, so instead I told him "and my birthday present from my family, the camera I have been using for my trip in India". To that he replied " so I caanot ask you for your camera". Of course not, that was a stupid question. So he asked me what I was carrying in my purse. Luckily it was the end of the night and most people who know me will know that whatever the amount of money I leave with at night, I will come back home with empty pockets. Only IRN 237, which is about 5 dollars. He asked me if I was not carrying any currency from home, but I didn't or so did I let him believe, I just started to speak to him about the beautiful country he had and I started inventing stories, telling him that I had been wotking for 8 months in Calcutta to help the power distribution network develop, and I wxplained him how this was a very valuable cause for the country's prosperity. He directly changed approach and starting asking where was the place I was staying at, so I pointed him accross the road, he parked his bike in the middle of the road and brought me to my hotel and he made noise until someone finally came down to let me in.
The next next day, when I woke u, I met up with Rojan who was watching TV in his hotel and continued the book seek but no luck once again, but I saw something else of interest. There was a fight involving 5 teenagers in a street, the policemen came to intervien in the conflict not because they were fighting as such, but because they were fighting on his street so with a couple hits with his stick, he chassed them out his street to the neighboring street where they continued the fist fight.

Kottayam

I then went to Kottayam for Arun and Tanya's wedding, unfortunately for everyone but especially for me I got sick food poisoning and after dipping my lips in fermented coco milk, I vomited as soon as my first night with my friend Arjun, then bad soar throat followed by horrible fever. I used all my daily energy attending the wedding ceremonies.
The first one I attended was the "official public" ceremony that several hundreds of people attended. It was very beautiful, women were wearing beautiful dresses of all kinds OK colors, they were wearing very raffinated Indian jewelery by the pound, men were wearing the traditional mundus, just as I was.
The wedding was kind of surprising because although so many people had come to see Arjun and Tanya's wedding, you could only see the back of the photographers that were on stage nearly fighting to take the best possible picture from the new couple. Anyhow the little I could see was great cause it was beautiful in colors, rich in traditions and another new experience of mine in India.
The second ceremony was organized the same day in the evenning at home, under Arun's father's roof where I was as well staying. There was a small buffet and cocktail drinks where provided, unfortunately that day I felt so badly sick that I didn't even attend the ceremony, even though it only was behind my door room.