Recently, from the 2nd until the 7th August, I travelled to Bangalore to work with our supplier who hosts our IT customer service centre. It was the first time I'd been asked to travel for the British Council and I was both excited and bemused that they'd decided to send little me. I was to join my colleague Mandy, a hardworking, straight-talking Northener, and two colleagues from our New Delhi IT office there.The journey there began early on Monday morning and I flew to Bangalore via Paris, about eleven hours with a couple of hours wait in Paris. Air France do amazing in-flight food and have a really excellent 'lounge' in Paris. Thumbs up! Work have anyone flying long-haul travel business class so that we can arrive fresh and ready to begin work on arrival. I can't say the actual flying was much better but having a lounge with free drinks, snacks, PCs to use and shower facilities really makes a difference. The cost difference when the flight is that long is not a lot either so I didn't feel too guilty (I take after my Mum of course who abhors extravagance of any kind)
I arrived in the wee small hours, and was met immediately by one of what was to become a string of helpful and white-jacketed Indian men. One took me to the taxi waiting area, then one drove me to the hotel, then three met me at the hotel door and one took me to my room. This overwhelming politeness and desire to do everything for me did begin to unsettle me after a while, eg 'I can carry my own laptop for the love of..oh, you've taken it anyway' and was a forerunner for how our colleagues would treat Mandy and I for the rest of the week . Not that having drinks bought for one and being ferried around in a comfy SUV is a bad thing. They were all so super polite too.
My first morning had one of those 'wow, I'm in a foreign land' moments. Slept like a stone, awoke at seven, pulled back curtain, and
this shot doesn't really do justice to the sheer number of motorcycles and rickshaws there were, but you can get the idea. Accompanied by the persistent tooting of horns - the car horn is like the indicator in India and you get used to it as a constant background sound very quickly. The weather, which I am sure you are wondering about, was good. Bangalore has a relatively mild climate and we were there in rainy season - 25 degrees c both day and night.The work began to get very hard and the hours long. Most days we worked from 11am until 9pm and dined at 10. I won't bore you with the detail but here are some of my colleagues
:The office also had a little market in its canteen room, which was a good chance for Mandy and I to grab a few gifts and souvenirs, as we had precious little free time. We did get taken out for dinner by our obliging male colleagues, and had some fun rides in rickshaws.
On the last night we has what I think will remain in my mind as the strangest experience I've had in a while. Our colleague Kulwinder announced we'd be visiting the Maharajah's Palace. Not only that but the M. was a friend of his so we'd get to meet him. I had visions of being poured tea (or gin) in a lovely oasis garden by pleasant staff and engaging in sparkling conversation with the M. and his family. Nothing could have been further from the truth. We endured a 45 minute drive to the palace, arrived to find it in darkness, sat in the hallway (which looked just like a hallway of an English stately home) and were finally ushered into an untidy study by white-pyjama-ed servants, to meet a man of about 70 in a creased shirt, who had no interest in us or where we came from, and actually didn't know Kulwinder at all. Awkward conversation doesn't even begin to cover it. To make it worse, this was the night Mandy and I had promised ourselves an early return to the hotel to use the spa there. We missed it for this! ouch! We eventually got a 'tour' of the palace after Kulwinder's third time of asking, and it was pleasant, in a hybrid-of-English-and tropical kind of way. But I think I would have preferred a massage and a steam before my long flight home.
Here are a few more pictures which make it look as though I had loads of time to photograph culture and life in India but most are taken from the window of our taxi or in snatched moments of freedom. I did really enjoy the experience, and no matter how hard the work, I never forgot to appreciate that I was in India, miles from home, safe and healthy (yes! no Bangalore Belly!) and learning new things.
