SNAKES! (is no clickbait sir)
Stefan in Indiareis 2018 2018-05-13 21:42, laatste update 2020-09-30 13:00
This weekend was time off for all participants. Most of us spent the Saturday sightseeing in Bengaluru. About half of the group had to rush, as they would also visit Mysore on Sunday.
Together with Bart, Bartje, Inge, Jeremy, Mina, Alexander en Peter, I started Saturday morning in Cubbon Park. The shadows of the trees were very welcome after two weeks of exhausting heat and we decided that we would walk around a bit before looking for a place to lie down in the grass and relax. Unfortunately, apart from a place crowded with doves (hundreds of them), the park did not offer as much interesting things to see as expected. However, when we were about to leave the park, we saw a snake gliding just one meter behind Peter. We started yelling and pointing but luckily the snake did not seem to care about Peter that much and disappeared in a hole. A few minutes later, the snake reappeared and had brought a smaller friend. The smaller snake seemed more hostile, lifting its head off the ground with a weird twist in its neck. It started gliding with high speed, but we were glad to see that it did not come in our direction. Some Indians also noted the snake and started screaming "snack, snack!". It was hard to tell if they tried to pronounce the English word or really wanted to pierce it with a stick and hang over a fire. Quickly we abandoned our earlier plans to lie down in the grass.
After our encounter with the snake we headed off to see the impressive state office buildings and the 27-feet high bronze statue of a meditating Mahatama Gandhi in its gardens. On our way, four wild cows appeared from a busy road. They ran past us on their way to the park and started jumping around once they reached a small field. We have no idea were they came from, but they were the happiest cows we have seen in India this far.
Our next destination was Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace. Peter decided to go his own way and visit the HAL Heritage Centre and Aerospace Museum. Not that bad of a choice as the palace left us little impressed. We also had to say goodbye to Bart, because he did not feel that well.
The afternoon had started and it was time to find some place for lunch. Most restaurants seemed to be closed however, which might had something to do with the elections of the Bengaluru region taking place that day. After half an hour we found a sign that was one of the prettiest sights of the whole study trip. It had a red background and three large white letters: KFC. Some non-Indian food was very nice to have for a change. With our tummies full we visited the Big Bull temple. The name says it all, inside of the temple one will find a huge statue of a bull. It's big.
We already encountered doves, snakes, wild cows and a bull of stone... When it comes to wildlife India seems to be one big zoo. Another proof was when we found ourselves underneath trees crowded with large bats. The locals thought that our amazement was quite funny. They seldomly seem to shy away from laughing at our white-ass behaviour and by now we were used to it.
The last stop for Bartje, Inge, Alexander and me was Lalbagh Park. Jeremy and Mina also joined us, but they would visit the ISKCON temple afterwards as they also would visit Mysore the day after. We strolled around for two hours in this beautiful park. This park had some interesting wildlife as well. Aside from the monkeys we already had seen numerous times (but never get boring to watch), we also saw some centipedes and even three small iguanas fighting in a tree. The park was also home to one of the famous Bengaluru watchtowers from which there was an amazing view over the city.
My Sunday was even more laid-back. It started off at the ISKCON temple with Danny, Inge, Alex and Bart. ISKCON is an abbreviation of International Society for Krishna Consciousness. The interior of the temple was probably the nicest we had seen in all of India, with a large golden structure and amazing paintings in the ceiling. However, we found ourselves in some kind of Krishna Disneyworld, after visiting the temple, we had to walk through merchandise for what felt like half an hour. This turned out to be for the funding of the completion of the theme park by a yet-to-be-built Sky Temple, which would reach like forty meters high and even has a sky lounge for viewing the city.
Next stop was the Big Bazaar (supermarkt) where we bought lunch and enough masala spices for a year. Alex and I went to the Sancha Tea Boutique. We were in quite an expensive neighbourhood, as we walked past a Lamborghini shop and a pale-skinned woman taking her dog for a walk (you really don't see that often in India). Inside the store we found all kinds of expensive and less expensive teas as well as a wild Willie (it was just a normal Willie, but we did not expect him). Later on, I also encountered Danny. After trying and buying some nice Indian tea, which was weird enough sold by two Chinese ladies to mostly other Chinese visitors, I left to see the Industry and Technology Museum. The entry fee was only 50 rupees (60 eurocent) and inside it was really crowded. The whole museum was set up in an interactive way with a lot of little experiments aimed at starting interest in science in kids. It seemed to be very effective as kids were running all over the place pressing buttons and pulling levers. I found it really nice to see a place where people can get introduced to science for such a small price, but even more so that it really sparked the enthusiasm of the hundreds of visitors inside.
This seems like a good point to stop my writing, also I get the feeling that Willie wants to go to sleep. Tomorrow we have our last institute visit before we leave this exciting country for our beloved Nijmegen, which we are all looking forward to see again.
