Holy Cow Toto, We're not in Kansas anymore, Bangalore to Mysore, 29 June 2008

I arrived in Bangalore right on time. The flight (Jet Airways) was surprisingly wonderful. Nice plane, great service and a vegetarian sandwich on the whitest of white bread along with some sort of yummy ginger spice bread. The Bangalore airport is a new one (opened last month) and is beautiful! Very clean and modern. Incredibly my luggage arrived right away. Even more incredibly my driver was right out front holding a sign with my name on it. That’s now 13 flights, 1 greyhound bus trip and one 4 hour car trip in the last month with out a hitch!

No hitch, but OMG!!! The car ride to get here. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. There are lines on the roads but no one seems to pay them any mind. Cars, trucks, busses and motorised rickshaws, motor scooters and pedestrians all sort of enter into this dance to compete for space. I say dance because it doesn’t seem aggressive. When you need to get some place you just go there and magically traffic parts to allow you access. There is a constant beeping of horns and flashing of lights at night and I’m not sure if that’s to signify where you want to go or signal your presence in one particular space. Anyway, it’s crazy to say the least. I just had to let go and trust that my driver knew what he was doing. I didn’t see any accidents.

What I did see amazed me though! People everywhere. Well, that’s to be expected. It’s India after all, one of the most populated countries on earth. But where these people turned up was mind boggling. I saw this young woman dressed in the most beautiful sari just walking down the motorway. I didn’t notice an exit or really any destination for at least a kilometre so God knows where she was going. And there were groups of men, presumably trying to hitchhike, that would just walk out onto the motorway and try to stop the cars.

And the motor bikes. Yikes!!! Everywhere, going all sorts of directions. Men driving, women riding behind them, side saddle in their saris hanging onto who knows what. Some were carrying babies in their laps and on more than one occasion I saw a family of 4!!! On one motor bike!!!!!! Dad driving, Mom in back sometimes perched on the metal rail at the back of the seat and the kids either on the gas tank or between Mom and Dad. Unbelievable. I was amazed, I just had to take it all in.

Then, of course, as if in a movie a cow walks across the road. Why did the cow cross the road? God knows, but in India they’re sacred so if a cow wants to cross the road traffic parts and lets them. It all got to be too much after a couple of hours when I saw the three camels. No wise men, just camels. It had gotten dark by then so I couldn’t see clearly but it looked as if they were carrying something. I think that put me into sensory overload and I couldn’t keep my eyes open so despite the traffic and the constant swerving in and out, despite the incessant honking of horns, despite the pollution (yes the driver had the windows open during the entire trip) I fell asleep! I woke up in Mysore.

On a tree lined, relatively quiet (I’m told exceptionally quiet for India) neighborhood. My driver picked up someone named Ganesh’s boy (I briefly met Ganesh, he runs the local Internet cafe and arranged for my driver) and they took me to Mr. Chez Joseph, my abode for the next month.

I have the rooftop bungalow. It sounds nicer and more romantic than it actually is. More on that tomorrow when I’m more awake.

Peter and Jude waited up for me and made me a cup of tea and shared some biscuits with me. That was incredibly sweet. They’ve been here for a few days but Peter has been sick and Jude is on “ladies holiday” so they haven’t started their practice yet. Tomorrow they will take me down to meet Guruji and hopefully I can begin the next day....

Wow, I’m here! I’m really here.