India Travelogue Part 2 - Bengaluru

Well… a year has gone by since the first part but I’m finally getting round to writing Part 2 of my India blog! It may be rather late but I’m happy to be getting these memories as it will be nice to look back on in the future. I was also kind to myself and had already made a lot of notes last year to use a template as otherwise I would have forgotten much of this.

Sunday (Day 4)

You rejoin me at Goa International Airport where Connor, Henry and I are about to fly to Bengaluru (formerly called Bangalore). After getting through airport security, I was extremely surprised to spot someone I know (orienteers). Of all places to bump into someone, the small domestic departure lounge of an airport in India was not what I was expecting – what a small world!!

It was a quick domestic flight so we were soon in Bengaluru. Despite being further inland, Bengaluru actually felt a bit cooler compared to Goa, we think probably due to the much lower humidity. I guess we had also acclimatised more by this point, so the rest of our trip was a pleasant 25-30 degrees, which felt fine for walking and conferencing (although still hot to exercise).

Now, the conference was originally meant to start the following day (Monday), but we received an email that weekend saying due to a Hindu festival, it was now only starting on Wednesday. Furthermore, due to some accommodation issues at the campus itself, we were to be placed in a further away guest house in Bengaluru until the weekend (campus was actually quite far out into the countryside).

Without too much idea of what to expect, we were driven to our first accommodation down a sketchy dirt road. The guest house was quite basic, and we also had to share rooms with a roommate also attending the conference. Annoyingly there was also no WiFi and pretty bad mobile connection (plus I was the only one who had bought mobile data and didn’t have much anyway). What were we going to do on Monday/ Tuesday when we wanted to work a bit? By this point it was early evening and we needed to pick up some snacks and other essentials (such as they hadn’t yet provided loo roll…) so at dusk we walked 15 mins (again, not very pedestrian friendly roads) to the nearest supermarket. Fortunately, we figured out we could use Uber now we were in the city, so we didn’t need to walk back in the dark with our shopping (although most taxis had different ideas of a safe ride with serving and no working seatbelts so I’m not sure if walking or driving was safer in this case…). Pretty tired at this point after a day of travelling, we came back to find that our meals would be delivered in plastic trays. Dinner was not very inspiring and we were a bit worried about the safety of the food. I ate bits and pieces of what I thought seemed ok and I had also bought some emergency snacks. Luckily we did not get ill from this. All in all, we were not very happy with this situation. But with the exhaustion of travel and not much else to do, we went straight to sleep, hoping to feel better the next day.

Arrival into Bengaluru

Hard beds...

ISKCON Temple

Monday & Tuesday (Day 5-6)

The trip to the supermarket the day prior also saved us eating a questionable breakfast with similar cold curry and rice to dinner. We then departed to visit Bengaluru city centre in search of an internet connection and to do some sightseeing to make the most of the delayed start of the conference. After a bit of brainstorming, we thought a shopping centre with a Starbucks café would be a likely place to find WiFi and get some work done. It turned out this didn’t open until 10am so we changed plans to visit the nearby ISKCON Hindu temple first. We had seen a small Hindu temple in Goa, but this one was on a whole other scale. Slightly warily, we had to leave our work bags (containing expensive work laptops…😬) at the bag deposit. I’ll save you the worry and say this was not a scam and we indeed got our bags safely returned at the end. We also had to leave our shoes and go barefoot (shoes were also safe thank goodness) and I had to pay to borrow a robe to cover my knees. The temple itself was an amazing experience. Again, no photos allowed inside, but it was truly mesmerising in the main temple room. I was surprised to hear an organ as I thought that was predominately a church thing. After that, we were guided through a sequence of rooms and outdoor areas with gift shops and food.

After that slight detour, the shopping centre was finally open and found Starbucks to buy some snacks and work. But of course, nothing is easy in India. It turned out you need an Indian number to get a verification code to access the WiFi ☹️ (our international numbers sadly did not work and the workers there were of no help).

After some more brainstorming, we decided to try the nearby Sheraton hotel for WiFi, which actually worked! We just asked for the password and sat in the lobby for an hour or to get some admin tasks done. We then left without even spending any money in there. Not sure if they didn’t care or just assumed we were guests. Regardless, it wasn’t really going to be realistic to do a full work day there. We had now abandoned any hope of proper work and just decided to spend the rest of the day sight-seeing.

I was surprised to find a Nando’s, and for a laugh we thought we’d try it for lunch. The menu was actually pretty different. I had a nice paneer curry which was pretty good, although quite expensive compared to local alternatives (still way cheaper than London).

Next, we took the surprisingly nice metro to the famous large park in Bengaluru called Cubbon Park to walk around. At this point in the afternoon, however, I suffered a major energy crash.

After a short sit down, we still had quite a bit of time to kill before dinner time (we had decided to abandon the hostel meals and just eat out). Bengaluru isn’t a huge tourist centre but we found a Science and Technology museum nearby so decided to head there for a look around. Good museum but energy levels were flagging by this point. We tried our luck one last time at another café chain for some WiFi but still no luck with our international phones. However, by this point I managed to buy some more data and worked out how to change settings on this new sim card to hotspot to the others.

I was feeling happy about this and also better energy after a rest so we continued to wander round the streets of Bengaluru in the cooler night time in search of dinner. We found a secluded rooftop restaurant with suspiciously few people. But this saag paneer curry turned out to be really good and I only paid £3 for my whole meal – crazy cheap!

With another Uber back to our accommodation down the dirt track, we got an early night on the hard beds with scratchy blankets…

Bengaluru Palace

Preparations for Dussehra

Funfair

The next day of our extended vacation, we decided to keep exploring and maybe sit down somewhere to work a little later. Today, we chose to visit the very centre of Bengaluru flower market which is known for its chaos and busyness. It certainly lived up to this – quite an overwhelming environment. After a walk round there wasn’t much else to do so soon got a cab out of there. In contrast, the nearby botanical garden was very peaceful and we enjoyed walking around.

Learning our lesson from yesterday, we decided to pace ourselves and have a break from the tourist-ing during the midday heat, and took a metro to a coffee shop to work with my newly acquired data and hotspot, as well as have lunch.

By 4pm, we set off for some more exploring. Even if it was just a short walk over to Bengaluru Palace from our café stop, the roads were horrendous to walk along and cross. Clearly we had not yet learnt our lesson that India is not a pedestrian friendly place. The Palace and gardens were quite pretty from the outside, but not really worth the queues and entry fee to visit the inside.

Now evening, we had found out that this Hindu festival was called Dussehra and that the main celebration was happening tonight. We continued walking on from the Palace towards a busier district called JC Nagar. On the walk there we found many cars and vans decorated with foliage and some big floats with decorations, which we assumed must be to do with the festival. We also happened across a carnival and markets. Continuing our explorations, our stomachs were hungry, eventually deciding on a small roadside shop selling Monos (dumplings) and noodles. This tasted nice but with so much fried food and grease, I was really craving some raw vegetables. Luckily I had at least stocked up on some fresh fruit from the supermarket so had some clementines for dessert. We got chatting to a girl in the shop who explained the festival to us and explained that the main parade and celebrations would be starting around 10 or 11pm until the early hours of the morning. We couldn’t quite face sticking around this long, especially with the first day of the workshop the next day. Tired, we took a taxi back for an early night.

Wednesday–Friday (Day 7-9)

On Day 7 in India, we finally started the research school that we had come here for in the first place. That morning a big bus appeared to collect us all from the city accommodation to drive us the campus. Slowly, everyone emerged from their rooms and we could finally meet and chat to the other workshop attendees who had been quite seclusive until now.

It was a bumpy 45 minute drive but we had a nice first day listening to talks and networking with the other attendees. There were several guest lecturers who had travelled from various places, including a few from Germany or the UK. However, one thing that soon became noticeable was that we were the only non-Indian attendees at this workshop….

We also had some time over lunch to explore the campus. It was crazy how idyllic and nicely presented the ICTS campus was compared to the other guest house and the busyness of the city centre. Plus they had WiFi!  After talking to one of the organisers and the administrator, we found out that our workshop had been displaced from the guest houses on-site due to another conference happening, and we would be able to move that weekend. To us, though, it didn’t seem like the on-site guest houses were that busy and saw no reason why we had been placed elsewhere. Of course, we couldn’t really complain too much as all the accommodation and food was being provided free of charge. However, with our foreign privilege, we negotiated being able to move early the following day!

The next day we packed up our suitcases and said goodbye to the old guest house. Everyone else was a bit confused why we were moving our suitcases early and I felt a bit bad that they had to stay longer… but it’s true that with our foreign phones, we didn’t have access to the internet there which isn’t great for a conference. After the second day of lectures and workshops, we checked into our rooms. And they were so nice!! Since just the three of us moved, the boys shared a room, but I now had a room all to myself. With air-conditioning and a nice shower ensuite! It turned out that I also got to keep this room to myself for the rest of the workshop, which I was grateful for! As nice as it was to get to know my roommate, about her culture and her life, it is quite nice to have your own space without sharing a room with a stranger on a work trip.

The canteen on this campus was also amazing. Fresh and delicious food was served free of charge for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and a lot of it too). Although by the end of the conference, I’d had enough curry for a whole year. I’ve just about recovered now 14 months later.

It was also the last Friday of the month this week so all three of us decided to uphold our group’s tradition of running the Hyde Park Last Friday 5k by running laps round the campus. However, the heat got to me, even at 7:30am, and I found it difficult to run fast here. Still nice to do some exercise!

Campus view while working

Standard conference lunch, yum

Last Friday 5k - India edition

Not a bad room view

Lecture hall

Picturesque poster session

Saturday & Sunday (Day 10-11)

After only three days of research school it was now the weekend – more time to explore! It was nice to sit back and relax on this campus, as I said, it did feel very tranquil. The campus also had many sports facilities such as a small gym, a large swimming pool and a sports hall. We had heard the campus also had some bikes to hire so we asked around and found them with the security at the front. We looked for the most safe looking bikes, signed our names and set off on an exploration of the (quite rural) local area. I found us a loop round the lake and we set off cautiously after the warning of snakes… It turned into quite an adventure lasting 2 hours round the lake and local villages. We got quite a few stares from the local who were surprised by the appearance of 3 white tourists cycling through their area. Was also fun to see lots of monkey on the route and no snakes! I cooled off after this with a much-needed dip in the swimming pool.

We still had the whole campus to ourselves as the previous conference had finished and the others at the conference were still at the other guest house. The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, working out the laundry machines, playing some very competitive badminton and heading to some bars in the evening. On Sunday afternoon the cricket was on with India playing England in the Cricket World Cup so we found a pub in the city centre to watch that. It was my first time watching cricket so I learnt a lot. India won so the locals were happy.

Weekend cycle ride

Swimming lengths in the pool

Watching the cricket

The cycle route!

Competitive table tennis

Relaxing in the sun

Mon-Fri (Days 12-16)

On Monday our “research school” resumed. We had 2 x 1.5 hour lectures every morning before a long lunch break. Every after a ‘discussion’ session was scheduled which we found to slightly pointless. With some speaker cancellations, it became clear that the organisers were running out of ideas sometimes. However, it become quite noticeable when the only white people didn’t show up…

Sometimes there was also another talk in the after or a poster session. I have to say this was probably the most atmospheric poster session I’ll go to in my PhD, being outdoors and palm trees in the background. However, I was a bit poster-ed out after having had many many hours of this by the end of the workshop. This culminated in a 60 second poster pitch we had to present on the spot with prizes for the winners. By the end of the week, we had also become quite friendly with some of the other workshop attendees – they were super friendly and inquisitive. It really was interesting to hear about their work and experiences of PhDs in India.

Outside of the work, I made sure to take advantage of the facilities and so some sport every morning or evening. Having disliked swimming and the gym previously, I actually started to enjoy some aspects of this, particularly the pool in the hot weather. A highlight was also competitive table tennis with the boys – guess who won?

One day week, we decided to spend a final evening in the city to celebrate Connor’s paper acceptance at a nice restaurant, plus a hectic tuk tuk ride in rush hour to get there – something we had to tick off the list before leaving India!

With my roommate

The three of us on our final day

Tuk tuk ride!!

Saturday (Day 17)

Before we knew it, Friday had arrived and gone. Time to say goodbye to India after 2.5 weeks. We had an early night ahead of our 3:30am (!) wake up for a 7am flight.

Bengaluru airport was incredibly grand. We enjoyed souvenir shopping in the fancy international departures lounge.

The flight was nice as I had no one sat next to me. It was just a bit long – a direct 11 hour flight all the way back to London.

Back to reality. Cold, rainy, dark November in the UK. The jet-lag seemed to have more of an effect on me going West (I thought it was meant to be easier this way around) as I continued waking up extremely early and going to bed early for a while.

But overall, here are some reflections on the trip:

• An amazing trip, definitely a once in a lifetime.

• I was very glad of the lovely company I had for the trip; they were both great travel buddies!

• We were all extremely happy that none of us got sick. Our carefulness with water and food seemed to have paid off. I did have a very short cold while in Bengaluru, but the nice weather seemed to help ward this off quickly.

• It was a far cry from London – definitely opened my eyes up to a different kind of world and life, but in a good way.

• Obviously we only saw a small part of this enormously diverse country but it was insightful to see what it’s like in the most populous country in the world.

• We probably didn’t scratch the surface of this too much, but there was still quite a bit of sexism present, especially with certain religious influences. Plus, the party scene in Goa. But actually, I was happy to see there were many females present at the conference so plenty of women in science!

• Overall, I felt the conference wasn’t that well organised and we should have known this from the lack of organisation before we had got there. The campus was great but I think they needed to have some more structure and speakers lined up. Felt much more like a normal / conference than a research school, in my opinion. Also research schools/ conferences are tiring!

• Even so, I don’t regret at all the decision to go. Definitely some great travel memories! And some inspiration to continue on with the PhD.