Bangalore, India

[Kilroy]

Bangalore, India Pierre Rochon Back in October 2003, I had to pleasure to travel to India, with some business colleagues, more specifically to Bangalore, in the Karnataka province, on business related matters. Getting to India can be quite an adventure of its own. We flew out of Montreal (after taking a bus from Ottawa) to Amsterdam, then to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and finally to Bangalore. Without counting time zone changes, the trip to India took over 25 hours and the trip back home took over 30 hours. The city of Bangalore is always extremely busy: day or night. With a population of approximately 5.5 million and an area of roughly 1/10 of the size of Ottawa, you can imagine how crowded it is. Rush hour traffic is pretty much 24/7. Buses, taxis and rickshaws are everywhere. Pretty much everybody that owns a car drives a small one. I could probably count on one hand the number of regular size sedans that I saw within two weeks, excluding taxis. There's also a lot of small motorcycles and mopeds. It's not uncommon to see three, four or even five persons on the same motorcycle. We took it easy during our first weekend there and mostly did some sightseeing and shopping. Since we worked from Monday to Friday from 9am to 9pm, our only free time was during the weekend. Not counting the last weekend that we spent traveling back home, we spent two other weekends in Bangalore and surroundings which gave us enough time to do visit major tourist attractions. We had the opportunity to do a lot of walking within the city. Pretty much everywhere you walk, you will see cows resting on the side of the road and sometimes even in the middle of the road! Also, cows can decide to cross the road at any time! Drivers must be on constant alert. Shopping in Bangalore can be a lot of fun if you bargain. Never go for the asking price except in Government stores where prices are fixed. Some stores will put up a sign about prices being fixed or being a Government store but not all of them are. When unsure, ask locals. Silk is a very popular commodity there as well as wooden elephants and jewellery. You can easily buy 3-4 pieces of clothing for the price of one in Canada. Quick tip: bring an empty piece of luggage if you are an avid shopper. You won't regret it! We also visited a local zoo and enjoyed a small safari expedition. Monkeys would walk around freely in the zoo and you could feed them. You could also have an elephant put his trump on you head for a religious blessing. During the safari ride, done inside a truck protected with steel bars, you would see tigers come up right next to you so you could take nice pictures of them. Quite an experience! We left Bangalore for a day trip to Mysore which is about 3 hours away by car. There, we visited many religious temples and other buildings that used to belong to the royal family including the Royal Palace. The architecture of the royal palace is nothing more than breathtaking. There's an elephant passageway with a large courtyard, a majestic dining room/danse floor. The old king's throne is made of 225 kilos of gold and is worth nearly 27 million $US. It is displayed in a room with an army of armed guards.
Golfing in Bangalore I also had the pleasure to play one round of golf at the Bangalore Golf Course during our second weekend there. There are three golf courses in Bangalore and I chose to play at the oldest one of them. Founded in 1876, it's the third oldest golf course in India (some website will say it's the second oldest). Although it is a private course and an handicap card is
required, they allowed me to play anyway. The round cost me $30 US for golf and rental equipment. A caddy is mandatory and the expected tip is about 200 Rupees (Rps) for the entire round, which is approximately $6 CAN. Built on only 60 acres of land, every hole is extremely narrow and a lot of mature trees help shape the character of the course. At 6113 yards from the back tees and a par 70, it can prove to be quite a challenge. (As a side note, most website incorrectly report the course to be 6700 yds long from the back tees and a par 71). In general, fairways are very flat and the rough is not too long. There aren't that many water hazards or bunkers either. The main difficulty of the course rests in its tight fairways and mature trees. When stepping on the first tee, you can tell right away that the golf course is very old. The 1st hole and 18th hole cross each other, the intersecting point being approximately where tee shots will land for both holes! A lot of holes will share the same fairway but the tee boxes and the greens will be completely separate. That's when the caddy gets in very handy: making sure you hit from the proper tee box and aim for the proper green.
I enjoyed my round on the Bangalore Golf Course very much. I shot 88 which isn't particularly good for me but I had a blast and that's what counts. If I have the chance to go back there, I will definitely try one of the two other courses in Bangalore. I heard from other tourists and some locals that they were more American-style golf courses.

[dH]

Great Review; I really like reading about golf in foreign places. Great description of the course as well; by the loks of that fairway ... my score would be quite ugly.