Bangalore Day 2

After a good sleep and a read of the Rough Guide I decided to make the most of my time here and see some of the sights. I had seen there was an excellent typical local restaurant and a large gardens to the south so I decided to make it my mission to go to the garden first and then have a meal. I walked in the general direction south picking up road signs to to the area I needed every now and again and was amazed by the traffic congestion in this city – some of the roads were horrendously choked, and even though it was blatantly obvious that nothing was moving at all people continued to blare their horns. Eventually I fell upon Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. Set in 240 acres they were an excellent place to get out of the heat and noise. For some reason most of the specialist gardens were closed, Bonsai, Cacti, Rose gardens to name but a few with no real explanation why. The Gardens were generally well looked after though and busy – lots of couples were here, 'courting' as the usual Indian rules of decorum seemed to be ignored.

After the park, I left and went back up the road to the Marvali Tiffin Rooms. On entry you pay a fixed fee for '1 meal' (Rs.120/ £1.80) then the man gives you a receipt you go up a flight of stairs and enter a room of bench seats a bit like a large bus waiting room. Suddenly a little man appears at a door and starts pointing at people and shouting something; by the time it gets to me I realise he asking 'how many people?' I hold up 1 finger and he seems satisfied, then he thinks for a moment and again points at various people including me, then disappears through the door again, every one starts to get up so I follow and we are taken into another room with lots of plastic tables and chairs. I grab one and sit down and wait. The waiters are all bare footed and wear lunghis (similar to a sarong) Initially you are given a steel tray and a steel cup of water, then over the course of the next 40 minutes or so over 12 different courses of food are brought out to you with out asking. Each is served from a stainless steel bucket and the waiters just go around dolloping more and more onto you until you say no! Finally a paan is left by your plate to 'enjoy' on the way out. To be hones I was stuffed at the end of the meal and the flavours were excellent, but I did pass on the paan (a concoction of floral and menthol 'things' wrapped in betel leaf; I've had one before and they're awful)After the meal I grabbed an auto back to the hotel – I was too stuffed to walk the 4km back! On the way back the auto rode up onto a flyover, which is quite normal however I noticed that we (and all the other traffic) were on the 'wrong side' of the road, Never mind I thought at least there's a central divider. Then suddenly all the traffic stopped, halfway along the flyover there was a gap in the divider and all the traffic was taking it in turns to swap to the other side. Only in India!

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