Bangalore is kinda wild. It’s a city best described by what it isn’t: quiet, slow, old.
Bangalore is a bit like Bangkok in that you’re constantly left wondering how it all works – like how does everything keep running? There are cables hanging loose off lampposts, cows meandering down the street.
The streets! Cars and motorbikes and trucks and scooters, ambulances, police cars, cows, bicycles, dogs, buses, all brightly decorated (okay – maybe not the dogs), all jostling for lane space. You can’t tell what’s a highway and what’s a regular road. It’s frenetic – mental, really – but it’s incredible and I love it.
The guy that drove me from the airport used the white lane markers as a guide for driving down, rather than between – like you’re in a massive scalextric car. It would have been terrifying if I wasn’t so distracted by the cars in our lane coming towards us.
We’ve got this taxi company on retainer to bring us to work every day. Sometimes the driver turns up, sometimes he doesn’t – it’s cool. The highway he uses on our drive to work has speedbumps.
Sure, it’s loud, and the traffic is pretty bad, and the power goes out all the time. But the food is to die for. The streets are wide, and tree-lined. The parks are beautiful, the people are friendly, the sunset is incredible. I love big cities, and Bangalore is a big city.