From Bangalore with love

I know the title is very 'Bond' esque but I've always wanted to use it. It's been two and a half weeks since I went on vacation and I'm nearing the end of it. I've been meaning to put a few posts since I got here but I just haven't had the time. So much to tell and so little time. I guess I'll just have to save it for when I get back. In the mean time I thought I'd put something up. Though Bangalore has been developing at an incredible pace and I'm sure many of you have seen pictures of the fancy ritzy parts of B'lore, I thought I'd post a pic of the following showing some of the older times of Bangalore.



It's become a rarity to find cows walking about. You might be wondering why this is so great, but it just brings back some memories of old bangalore. The air was cleaner and there was a distinct fragrance in the air which was a combination of the clean air, flowers and nature. It's also quite sad because there was alot of land allocated for grazing but due to greediness and people illegally acquiring such lands, many animals that used to have a place to graze and left to wandering the roads. This was taken on the outer ring road by Nagarbhavi.

Brownsea Island

Well, two more days till we head away for three nice weeks to India via Dubai. I'm so looking forward to it, I can't wait. It's good incentive to work hard to try and wrap everything up before leaving. Anyways as promised earlier, here go some pictures from Brownsea Island. By the way for those Boy Scouts among you, this is where Lord Baden-Powell took his first set of 'scouts' and hence there is a scout stone to commemorate this. For more details about Brownsea, go here.




The scout stone commemorating the first scout camp

Lovely Easter weekend.

Well, it was a nice long easter weekend. Although we got Friday and Monday off giving us a total of four days, it still went by too fast. We ended up going down to Bournemouth again to visit my wife's cousin. This time we went to Brownsea Island which is a nature reserve and part of the National Trust. Unfortunately, I haven't downloaded all the pictures from my camera, but I shall do it soon and put them up. I'm actually looking forward to my vacation in a couple of days. I'm off to sunny, hot India via Dubai. Stay tuned for more pictures.

Windsor Castle

Although we had gone to see Windsor Castle towards the end of last year, I thought I should put up some pics of it now and describe how nice it was to see the place. I'm not a huge fan of visiting things associated to the 'monarchy' as it reflects (to me) the days of imperialism and subsequently plundering of the respective countries resources. I'm divulging here, so I'll stop my ranting.

On the upside, we got a chance to view some of the stately rooms inside and were able to find out the history behind it, which is what I found to be interesting. The rooms were beautifully done and I couldn't imagine how amazing it would be to live in such a place. Oh by the way, it's an official residence of the Queen and the largest occupied castle in the world. Apart from seeing the castle, we strolled around the high street and around Windsor castle. It's seemed like a nice town to live in, however I don't think I would ever want to live there. I'm a big city person and don't think I can do with such a small town feeling. On the upside, it is very close to London which kinda makes up for it. Anyways, I do recommend visiting this place as it does have alot of interesting history and you get to see where the Queen stays.

P.S. The views from the castle is amazing as you can see the remaining parts of Windsor and Eton College.

More southall pics

Almost forgot, am putting up a picture of the movie theater there called 'Himalaya Place'. It looks like it used to be some chinese restaurant but the owners never bothered changing the facade. Anyways I thought it was a bit confusing and interesting at the same time.

We also came across this store called 'Bhai Bhai Cash & Carry', which I found sooo amusing I decided it had to come up on my blog. When translated it literally means 'Brother Brother Cash & Carry'. Not sure what prompted the owners to name their store as such but it certainly gave us something to talk about for some time.

Southall

We recently visited Southall, the place where there is supposed to be a high concentration of punjabi folks. Good visit overall, we visited the Vishwa Hindu Temple there and decided to shop around and see how the place was. We ended up eating at a highly recommended place 'Chandni Chowk', which I would say was 'Decent'. I think it was over-rated as the food wasn't the 'BEST', but it was OK. The korma we ordered was stale, however the "chat's" were quite good. I'm sure there must be better places there and I'll make it a point to check out the other restaurants next time I'm there. I do recommend people to take the trip there as it is a completely different environment to those found elsewhere.

Merry christmas and a Happy New Year.

Well, it was that time of the year again. Christmas shopping, cold weather, lights all arounds, holiday food, .... and the list keeps going on. For this Christmas, I had my in laws over and we went over to my wife's cousin's place in Bournemouth. It was a better than expected get together as we had amazing food and on Christmas day decided to spontaneously pack seven adults and a child in a Ford Mondeo and go to a place on the Jurassic coast called Lulworth Cover. For those of you more interested in the details of location, history, go here.

Needless to say, it was beautiful. Driving was lovely as barely anyone was on the road. The most interesting part of the journey was passing through a military firing range. The signs gave me a good scare as I expected tanks and soldiers to come out of nowhere and start firing across the road. Fortunately or unfortunately, that didn't happen. We were also fortunate to reach the top by sunset, which gave us a fantastic view.

I highly recommend anyone going down to Bournemouth to take a drive to this place and check it out. The only problem was the hike upto the top of the hill. It's really not that bad but if you are pushing a pram with a 21 month old child in the cold, it's not the best experience. Fortunately since so many of us went, there were many helpful hands helping out. I can just imagine how beautiful and packed this place would be in the summer.

Missing good ol Bangalore

While I was busy working away, I suddenly felt nostalgic and started missing Bangalore and it's slow paced life (as it used to be). The warm sunny days, the tree lined streets, the markets filled with colorful flowers, fruits and vegetables. Here are a few snaps showing some parts of Bangalore.

Indiranagar

Basaveshwaranagar market

Rickshaw bumper stickers

While in Bangalore, it's common sight to see rickshaws or autorickshaws with ornate decorations, stickers, etc... However there are always a few of them that just catch your attention, even among the colorful streets of Bangalore. Here is one such rickshaw I saw, which had a picture of a well known movie star (in India) and two stickers which say 'OK' and '2005'. I wasn't sure if that meant the rickshaw was OK in 2005 or what. Just seemed silly to have an OK sticker but you do see sillier things here.

Back from vacation

Well after a nice break, finally back to the UK. I thought I'd put some pics of the Maldives which I took from the plane. Looks beautiful and I think I'll put it on my list of places to see.