Saturday, July 24th - City Tour/Rest Day

(Note: read the previous posts, below, if you want to hear about the trip in chronological order. Background: This day did not, in fact, involve much resting. But it did involve some relaxation. Read on.)

We didn't have anything particular planned for Saturday-- Jo stayed back to rest, and the rest of us loaded onto the bus for an informal tour of Bangalore. Raj's kids, Nica and Sammy, were going to join us for our adventures that day, and it was fun to have them along too. We agreed that most of us wanted to visit a Hindu temple, and while we were also interested in seeing the tech area of the city (Bangalore is the IT center of India), it turned out to be too far away to be convenient.

So our first stop was a temple. One of the guys later said that temples normally don't allow people to just come in to see, so it was somewhat unusual that this one did ok it. The priest (if that's what they're called, I don't recall their titles) even said it was ok to take a couple of snapshots, when someone asked about it. It was an interesting experience. There are so many different Hindu gods (like, really-- 330 million, give or take a few) and each has different specialties and different offerings to be bought or brought, different services or ceremonies that can be performed at the temple for a fee-- I cannot imagine how anyone would ever keep track. It is so comforting to know that we can have a personal relationship with the one God, and don't even have to keep track of which elaborate hoops we need to jump through to get things from him. He already gives us what we need.

After we left the temple, we went to a store where we could buy gifts and souvenirs. Raj initially said "15 minutes" and then we'd go to the next stop, but apparently the rest of the group was on "Indian time," because people shopped for much longer than that. After going through the entire store, I checked out with a couple small purchases and found myself the first one done. I waited outside with Reuben, Raj & Sammy for quite some time before the others came out, as well. From there we hit up a small grocery store so people could buy tea, spices, and any other snacks or items they wanted for the week & to take home with them. (I got me a good-sized package of coriander... and you all know-- or should-- how I feel about coriander!)

And from there... Hard Rock Bengaluru!* We were all excited for some American food-- not least of all me, who was eager for a solid meal (I'd begged James that morning, practically in tears, to make sure that wherever we ate out in the city, it'd be someplace where a solid vegetarian meal could be had-- who knew it'd actually be so hard to eat in India?), and Karrie, since it was her birthday and she got to have nachos (though she did claim they tasted a bit like curry). (On the way in, we even got to witness a few police officers trying to shake down the guys for money-- when Raj told them no, they apparently didn't want to press the issue in front of a bunch of Americans.) We also got to see Karrie's birthday celebrated, Indian-style. Definitely my favorite moment of the day.

*Bengaluru is the Indian name for Bangalore-- kind of like Mumbai vs. Bombay. But... I never did actually hear an Indian refer to it as Bengaluru, though it is on some of the signs and whatnot.