#4 - Bangalore

I went to Bangalore two weekends ago. The pictures can be found here.
It wasn't a long trip, but it's the first time I've been outside of Mysore since the Bandipur/Mudumalai trip.
Bangalore is a much bigger city, about 6 million people as opposed to less than 1 million for Mysore. It's the Silicon Valley of India, where Infosys is headquartered, and where I'll be for most of November, December and January.
5 of us went: Jake, Peter, Mike, Alex, and me [pic]. We left at 2pm on Saturday. It takes about 3 and a half to 4 hours to get there. The Mysore-Bangalore highway [pic] is way better than any other road I've been on here, but that doesn't mean there aren't ox-drawn carts going the wrong way on them. We got into Bangalore and headed to TGI Friday's. The first thing about Bangalore I noticed is the air [pic]. The air quality is terrible. It's thick with fumes and smells and just makes your skin feel dirty. There are, of course, rickshaws everywhere.
So we got to TGI Friday's [pic], and it was a crazy little piece of America right there in India, except the waiters were all Indian. It was kinda funny to see them with all their little pieces of flair on [pic]. We got appetizers, onion rings and nachos [pic]. The onion rings were great, the nachos were a little different (they were made with lamb), but still were good. And then I had steak! Real, honest-to-goodness steak. I had my choice of steak [pic], and I chose the peppercorn steak [pic]. It was so tasty, big and juicy, I can't tell you how great it was.
Afterwards, we went to our hotel, the Nilgiris Nest, and checked in. It was a decent place. We hung around there for a while, then went to a club nearby for a few hours. Everything in Bangalore shuts down at 11:30, sharp. Lights go on, people are herded out the door.
So then, with nothing to do, we sat around in the hotel, watched some tennis and other TV, then went to bed. I got the worst sleep that night. I woke up several times, I couldn't get comfortable, and I ended up with a crick in my neck. But, when we finally did get up, we went to this mall called The Forum. It was a strange experience. It was like any mall in the US, pretty much. Everything was nice, everybody was westernized...very different from what I've seen so far, especially this difference between this and the slums. Even in Mysore's most expensive shops they aren't western at all.
After that, we went back to TGIF for burgers, and then headed home. It was a fun trip.