DAYS 91 AND 92 – BANGALORE
ay 91 – Saturday, 25th Jan 2014
Day 92 – Sunday, 26th Jan 2014
It’s Friday night 9:30 pm, our train from Mysore has pulled into Bangalore Cant railway station.
route to Bangalore
Karan and Jeenal – our friends have come to the station to receive us. We go to a nice restaurant on Cunnigham Road and after a heavy dinner, we head to their home by 11 pm.
We have quite a few friends and family in Bangalore and we specifically adjusted our trip in a way that we get to spend the weekend here.
For Saturday, we planned to visit all our friends and family. In the morning, we visit Lax Uncle and Sh. Liladhar Gada (Adha). It was really good to meet them and we consider ourselves lucky to know such eminent personalities of our Kutchi community. From there, we head to Khyati’s cousin’ house in Koramangala area.
with cousin’
We have lunch here and in the afternoon, we leave to visit Tipu Sultan’s palace and Bangalore Fort. Unlike what the name suggests, both these attractions are quite small in size. The palace is just a small building adjacent to a Vishnu temple (look at the irony – a Muslim ruler’s palace next to a temple built for a Hindu God).
Bangalore Fort
On our way back to Karan’s place, we walk by a huge construction site. As I manage a sneak peek, it turns out to be the Bangalore Metro… Look at the two underground tunnels being laid out in this part of the town. Work seems to be going in full swing.
Bangalore Metro sneak peek
In the evening, we meet one of our other close friend’ Bhavini and her family over dinner. We have been spoiled by the amount of good home cooked food we were served here. Bhavini had specially cooked a traditional Jain Malayali meal for us. The food was really yum!
We head back home around 11 pm and we are not in the mood to call it a night soon. Saturday night should be card night. All of us settle on the sofa bed and dish out card games. Karan taught us an interesting new game which we play for the next 3-4 hours. We almost lost track of time as the card game was so much fun. We finally call it a night around 2 am only to wake up in a few hours.
It’s 26th Jan – India’s Republic Day today and Karan has made elaborate plans for the morning. There is a beautiful flower show and flag hoisting ceremony at Lalbaug Gardens. We reach the gardens by 6 am Sunday morning and there is quite a lot of people given the early time. The garden is huge, set in many acres of land and we spend a good part of our morning here.
tree with innumerable branches
Flower show
It’s 8:30 am and we take part in the flag hoisting ceremony at Lalbaug.
MVI0068 from Paras Mamania on Vimeo.
It’s 11 am and we drive in Karan’s car to few other pockets of Bangalore. It was good to drive around the city and get a touristy view. Karan suggested that we try the traditional Kannadiga food at a local restaurant – MTR 1924 (Mavalli Tiffin Rooms). Legend has it that this restaurant was opened by 3 brothers in 1924 and the legacy has been continued by their family. The food was really good and from there we head home by 3 pm.
It’s 5:30 pm, Khyati and I are ready to bid good bye to Bangalore and we are on our way to Bangalore Yeshwantpur Junction for our overnight train journey to Karwar.
We really enjoyed our stay in Bangalore and cannot thank our hosts enough for the wonderful time we had.
with Karan and Jeenal
Hope you enjoyed our write-up for Bangalore. Please let us know by leaving a comment.
Our next destination – Goa.
Best wishes,
Paras