Bangalore

They banged on my window and said "Bangalore!" to signal that we've arrived at my stop. It was 5:30 am and I was still half asleep when I got up gathered my things and stepped off the bus, somewhere on a dark street corner in Bangalore. I had no idea where I was nor where I was going to stay. The bus drove off, puffed some exhaust fumes n my face and left me standing there - half asleep,disoriented and dazed, with one other westerner. A male whose name I never got but found out he was headed out of Bangalore right away to another city 4 hours away. He asked if I'd like to join him but I declined. I was not going to follow. I had no choice but to get into a tuk tuk and asked for the closest hotel. The hotel was in shambles and it was expensive. The next 2 were the same.

The moment I stepped off the bus,I knew I wouldn't like Bangalore. At 5:30 in the morning you can tell the air was dirty, it was chaotic and it wasn't a place I wanted to be. It was only a transition city to get to Mysore but my friend Glenn had written to me to check it out since it's India's Silicon Valley. It was nothing like home. Maybe somewhere tucked away among all the stores, computer gadgets, and companies there was some similiarity to home but I didn't want to find out. So in the end, I decided to hop onto another bus and head directly to Mysore.