Bangalore Traffic

In front of us we saw this; a truck loaded down with plastic

I spy with my little eye...a woman in a saree running across at least 6 lanes of traffic and ...a cow!

What's Bangalore without the never-ending road construction

The chaos of Bangalore traffic is enough to cause stress induced headaches. I don't leave the neighborhood much these days unless absolutely necessary.    It seems to have gotten worse in the last year since we've lived here.

I heard recently that Bangalore has the worst traffic in all of India.  This includes the big cities of Mumbai and Delhi and Kolkata.  The commutes are so long it would make commuters from Atlanta, Georgia cry.  This morning I was on my way into the city.  It was an hour drive to take the kids to their last day of Globetrippers kids camp.  We were almost there when we witnessed an accident. 

A guy driving an old motorcycle in an old helmet was up a couple of car lengths ahead of us. Traffic  was merging into a three point round about intersection when suddenly a large truck merges in between us and hits the motorcyclists.  He never even slowed down. Just a sudden brake light indicated what I knew was going to happen.  Like it was in slow motion I saw the bike, then saw the truck merge in too quickly.  I mentally calculated the consequences of the truck's speed to flow of traffic and... BAM!  There went the rider, flying off to the left side of the road and his bike nearly gets buried under the carriage of the truck.  It wasn't high impact or fast so that is the only reason the man got up and retrieved his bike.  He seemed a bit stunned but amazingly unharmed. 

Four passengers, but at least dad has a helmet

They have helmet laws for drivers but not for passengers.  There are plenty of speed bumps to keep the flow of traffic slow.  It could've been much worse.  But what was hard for me to swallow was that no one stopped.  The driver of the truck did pull over to check for damage. The stunned victim was in such a hurry to get up and move his bike out of traffic. No one else got out to assist him. My driver wouldn't stop. Cars barely slowed as they maneuvered around the mere inconvenience.  Everyone is in a push, shove, and hurry-up mentality.  I can't imagine if this happened in my little hometown of Huntersville.  This would've backed-up traffic for at least a couple of hours.

Three is a fairly common occupancy

Kid upfront, dad with helmet

This is just one of so many incidents that I've either seen or heard of.  Even last week the kids saw a man get taken away in an ambulance after being run over by a tuk tuk (rickshaw).  There were abrasions across his chest, revealed as he was haphazardly lifted into an ambulance.  The poor man was taking his chances running across the road.  It totally reminds me of the ancient video game of
Frogger.  Remember that one?  Just insert floating garbage instead of logs and turtles.

Jodhpur: 2nd time 'round

On the last leg of the trip we decided to focus on shopping and since we were returning back through Jodhpur the streets all felt familiar, we had scoped things out the first few days and now we could narrow down our search.

The shopping is extensive but we had to watch out for the tourist traps where drivers and guides are given commission for bringing tourists in. I've been told by the shop keepers that the drivers are sometimes given up to 40% of your purchase price and they are unionized so the shop keepers generally stick to a pricing gouge to compensate.  This can ruin your experience in India if you are not prepared for the sales tactics.

There were a few shops that refused to do this commission and gave us fair prices. We found out about them through the Internet then told our driver the addresses. Of course our driver came up with excuses why he couldn't take us to these shops. In the end, we eventually found our way there. These shops were smaller but had good quality items.  We had to look around for good deals.

We found a really unique item in a back corner of one of the shops but thought the price was too high at 1000 rupees (just over $20)  so we tried to negotiate, but he said they were fixed prices and he let us walk away.

We didn't need to haggle over a couple hundred rupees.  We really wanted it and deciding that it was worth it we went back the next day.  But this time there was a different guy there and he told us a different price with a 100 % mark up! My husband was clearly agitated, "But I thought everything here was a fixed price and yesterday it was 1000 and now it's 2000?"   He told us the other guy was not informed and gave us the wrong price. Well, we decided that now it wasn't worth it and walked away, he still didn't try to stop us.  And I still want that piece. Anyone heading to Rajasthan soon? I'll tell you where to go...

Another shopping annoyance was the experience we had in one of the textiles shops called the Maharani Art store. Our driver insisted on taking us to this place.  As we drove through Jodhpur we passed several nice looking shops with interesting antiques out front. "Ooo, I want to stop there," I would say. But he kept driving on until we got to the shop of his choosing.

As we parked I was immediately irritated. The shop wasn't as nice as the others we had passed, but regardless of my suspicions we decided we could just take a peek at what they had. We were immediately ushered into a huge basement that had shelves of junk (if you asked my opinion). The dust was awful and we started sneezing.

Everyone who knows me well knows that I am pretty open with my feelings.  My irritation was becoming obvious. The merchants started following me telling me that they design home goods for Pier One and Hermes, Donna Karan, Versache, bla blah blah. I finally said, "I really don't care about brand names.  It doesn't impress me."  

 "O.k. no problem. How about we show you some fine bed covers". 

So they escorted us into a "private room" covered floor to ceiling with textiles. Then told us again about these one of a kind blankets they make for various famous designers.  They pulled out a photo album to show me that Richard Gere and Sting were there and bought hundreds of pashmina shawls, (again blah, blah, blah).  I told them that these pictures don't prove they were here, but I was distracted for a few minutes anyway, staring at the faces of Richard and Sting. 

I quickly got bored and left my dear husband alone, trapped, patiently listening to their shenanigans.

It wasn't until I stepped out of the "room" that I realized what kind of operation they were running. There were multiple private rooms.   I watched as a bus load of tourists were escorted down into the basement.  They were being lulled in with the same bait. Curtains were being closed behind them so they could get the "one of a kind" story.

Suddenly the vampire stories I had recently read came to mind.  Remember the scene where the innocent tourists in Italy enter the castle and realize too late that they've entered the vampires' lair?  That's how I felt.  We were innocent tourists being baited and drawn into the lair so they could "feast" on our wallets.

We had enough and left with dust in our nose and a nasty taste in our mouth. 

I got the full picture of what we were dealing with the last day.  Our driver took us to lunch at a place called "On the Rocks".  Great place, good food, and it had some shops near by that I could walk to while we waited for our bill.  I was looking for a gift and wandered into a jewelry store.  As soon as I stepped foot in there I immediately realized I couldn't afford a thing in the store.  The shop keepers quickly assured me that I could find something to buy and the glint of gold was alluring, so I stayed a while. 

I found this amazing necklace. It was a one of a kind piece for sure.  The price was too steep but I was shocked when they gave me the discounted price.  They explained to me that because the drivers are unionized they demand a payout every time they bring in a customer, even if you don't buy anything.  Since I walked in without a driver they can take a big chunk right off the top and still leave room for negotiations.

Now the driver's insistence on taking us to his favorite shop made sense.  The bus load of tourists probably meant a higher payout for that driver.  What a racket! 

In the end we bought nothing significant, just more shawls.  But the kids were so patient through the shopping experience.  We allowed them to a treat of their choice. They picked out magnifying glasses and a leather coin pouch. I thought these were great choices.  Good job, kids!