Our arrival and initial impressions...

This is an e-mail that I sent to friends and family about a week after arriving in Bangalore. It was while we were still living in the serviced apartment, just before we moved into our apartment (around Novemeber 9).



Things here are moving right along, we have rented a three-bedroom apartment, it is the second floor of a home in a nice (and quiet) neighborhood here in Banglalore. The place is completely furnished so we don't have to get anything (except a microwave, not everyone here has one) which a a relief. After going out and about for the past week, I really did not want to have to arrange to furnish an apartment, as there is no such thing as a one stop shop here. Every shop sells just a few things and stores the like of Target, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc. are unheard of here. Also to complicate things, when one rents an unfurnished apt. or house, it means that there is no refrigerator, no cook-top (people do not use ovens here, so I guess
that I won't be doing any baking), or washing machines. As most people still wash their clothes the very old fashioned way with a stick of detergent, a stone, and a brush, laundromats are not readily available so if you don't want to was your own clothes by that method or hire someone to do it, you have to buy the washing machine. It seems that drying clothes is almost always done outside so I have yet to see a dryer. And everything is so blessed small, the fridges, the washers only hold about half the amount of clothes as a standard washer in the US. Where we are staying now (since we are having an internet connection installed in our apartment and will likely not move in until this weekend as we can not bear to be without internet access) is also said to be nice (I have found that this a relative term depending on your standards) as the house that we are in is fine, but it is just off of a main road and it is quite noisy all through the day with dogs (there are a lot of dogs in the street) as well as nearly continuous honking, and the occasional train. I believe it must be a genetic trait of the Indian people to honk, toot, and blow whatever horn, bell, or whistle their particular mode of transportation is equipped with. I have honestly noticed people honking for no reason at all. It must be a consequence of the suicidal and homicidal way in which driving is approached in this city. There are absolutely no rules of the road besides survival of the fittest and looking out only for one's self. The result is that lanes are meaningless, street lights mean nothing, and the road is a very dangerous place to be. Added to this are the dogs, cows, oxen, and people (there are often either no sidewalks or they are crowded with people browsing at the shops that line them or they are a muddied mess) crossing and walking in the streets, and you have a recipe for impending disaster. In fact, I have been told that there are (not surprisingly) many accidents and due to the number of autorickshaws (auto for short here), motocycles, and bicycles, many of these are fatal. We have not been involved in an accident per say yet, though an auto we were in scraped a city bus that it was trying to squeeze past and on two other occasions were nearly hit in one case a dog, an in the other a motorcyclist. So getting around is exciting, to say the least.



Reading the previous section you may have got the impression that I do not like it here, but that could not be more untrue. There are so many nice things about Bangalore. The first is that there are some of the most helpful people (probably in the world) here. One of Eric's acquaintances has been so kind to us, she spent her entire weekend taking us around the city to look for a home and she even took part of Monday off to help us negotiate the contract. She has been invaluable to our adjustment here. Also the owner of the serviced apartments that we are staying at has been a wonderful source of information. Another nice thing about the city is also the cost of things. An auto ride into work for Eric is about $2 and a ride to MG road (like the Mag mile I guess) is also just $2. Food is also inexpensive, even at the Western restaurants (we have been to a KFC and Pizza Hut, we needed a break form curry and spices) where you would be hard-pressed to spend more than $10 altogether for three people to dine. Eric and I went to the NCBS to have lunch with Dr, Hasan and some of my other colleagues, and as it is subsidized there, the food is even cheaper. Eric and I spent $2 for both of our lunches with also included 2 1 liter bottle of water (we are trying to stay away from tap water). What a bargain. I think that after only a week we are doing quite well and I imagine that in another week's time we will be doing even better. We have been able begin the process of opening a banking account here, and as we have what is probably considered to be some money in the US, here we are treated like a different class, and at the bank we got the VIP treatment, which we would never have received back in the US. I still haven't decided about hiring servants, we of course have them at the serviced apartment, but I am not yet comfortable with the idea of someone doing my dishes or my laundry in my own home. Time will tell. Anyway, I have rambled on long enough about our lives in India, I could say so much more but I have probably bored you enough already, suffice it to say that it is DIFFERENT here, in almost every conceivable way, and in ways that are probably inconceivable as well.