The reason there is a question mark after the title of this blog is because I wasn’t sure it was possible to be a tourist. There aren’t any tourist sites in Bangalore. Someone I know who went on a gap year last year actually arrived and turned around almost instantly to head to the coast. So I tried my best to be Kieran’s guide who although having been in the city for 3 weeks had barely seen anything other than Brigade roads (pubs and shops) and the office.

So in the morning we went to the Indian coffee house…a true colonial experience. We were served by men wearing…I think turban is wrong but something similar, in front of some ancient pictures of an even more ancient looking Gandhi (I guess slightly post colonial then). Afterward we went to Commercial street. This I slightly prefer to Brigade road because it just feels slightly more authentically Indian than the westernized Brigade road…although there are a couple outlets of Nike and Levis.

This I think is when we became real tourists. In India there are three types of shops or restaurants. One is for the really poor (although of course not on the street). These you won’t find in the centre but further out and are really cheap. You could live in India for 2 months probably with 30 pounds if you wanted to. Then there are the shops designed for the middle class/rich Indians. This is where Kieran and I pretty much went all day. It’s still really cheap for a tourist…but you know you could get so much more elsewhere. Examples of this are McDonalds, Hotel restaurants, Fab India (which is designed for the ethnic aware tourist with bags of organic Darjeeling tea at ridiculous prices) and a couple of low end bars. Then there are the places for the rich…which just means that everything is exactly the same price as it would be in the west (sometimes more like with computers).

Anyway back to the point. From commercial street onwards, despite when I failed at haggling miserably, we were the middle class tourist. We went to Woody’s for lunch, then after a 2 hour walk through the Muslim dominated area, ended up at Infinitea. My highlight of Bangalore so far. There were more than 50 teas to choose from and I think I went for a whole pot of a tea called Red Thunder, an Oolong tea. I had no idea what I was doing but it was great. Then to cap it off we went to see the palace (the outside…too expensive to go in) which was meant to resemble Windsor palace. I would be a better judge at this but I’ve never been to Windsor palace.

One more interesting thing happened though. I was taking a rickshaw to cook town. We managed to get one for 20 ruppees (far too cheap) but then midway through we were dropped off at a shop on the way. We told the shopkeeper, supposedly the drivers friend, that we didn’t have any money for Asian antiques and then a look of understanding came over his face. What happens is the rickshaws give the tourists a good price but then later return to the shops they supposedly helped and demand money from them (or else they trash the windows). So basically like the mafia…but with terrible scooters.

Will xxxx