The last day in India

I had a lie in be till after 9am. After a shower and a leisurely breakfast I set off at about 1o:40am for a walk. The planned route was about 15km. Hotel to Kempe Gowde Bus Station (KBS) and the railway station across the road. Then to Lalbarg Botanical Gardens via Bangalore Fort, up to Commercial St to buy some souvenirs as gifts for Simon & Ange and Glenn & Natalie to say thanks for looking after the dogs and then back to the hotel.

The first deviation was after about 10 minutes when I decided to wander through Cubbon Park. I only got lost once on the way to the Bus Station so that wasn't too bad. Took me 2 hours - looking at Google now I can see a shorter way that would have taken 1 hour. I then set out for Lalbargh. I manage to miss the fort on Mysore Rd somehow finding myself at the Mosque. The third person I asked understood enough to direct me to the fort about 100m away. I then set out for Lalbarg. I was following the directions give at the fort quite happily when the rain started. I put my coat on a carried on. I came to a subway station under construction and a bus shelter next to the construction site. As the rain was starting to get heavy I decided to wait in the bus shelter. This turned out to be a mistake because after 15 minutes the bus shelter was an island in the flood. After an hour waiting and the rain still heavy I decided to evacuate. I considered ringing Babu to pick me up but I wasn't 100% certain where I was. There was a water tank across the road and a flyover just down the road - fairly significant land marks. However I noticed the buses were going to KBS so I figured that I could take a bus there and then another bus to Hudson Circle to get back to the hotel.

The bus to KBS took nearly half an hour at a cost of 11 rupees. Pulling into the bus station I saw KFC. I needed a snack and figured that surely there terminals would be online and hopefully my credit card would work. Tough shit - pay cash again. Then came the fun of finding a bus to Hudson Circle, the bus route maps clearly show which buses go to the outer suburbs but the map doesn't show which bus uses which road within the inner city. The information counter guy was hopeless. Another guy showed me a map that was a bit more detailed than the large one on the wall but other than finding that E4 was where Hudson circle was (I could have worked that out) it didn't seem to help. When I declined to buy his map he told me the bus would leave from platform 21. I went to platform 21. There were a couple of soldiers there who spoke good English who assured me that bus did not go through Hudson Circle. Back to the information counter where at last I made myself understood enough to be told platform 17. Ask the bus driver and he doesn't know where Hudson Circle is (although there are big direction signs point the way and he probably rives through it a dozen times a day since buses appear to be permanently allocated to a route). Fortunately a passenger knew where it was an told the driver Commercial which meant nothing to me. Anyway for 10 rupees I was off on a brown pushpak bus. These are single operator buses - no conductor to take the fare. The driver had a remarkable system of placing notes folded length ways between his fingers. The tickets for this service seem to need the fare manually recorded on them. So the driver drives, handles the change and write the are on the ticket. Even at the Bus Station he seemed reluctant to stop at his actual designated platform to let passengers on. I had got on at platform 17A - this bus I think left from 17C. He had been forced to stop at 17A by the stationary buses ahead. As he went past 17C about 10 passengers had to run out and jump on because he wasn't stopping.

After about 20minutes of fearing I might be lost (the bus turned north out of the bus station and that worried me as I new I wanted to go south) we arrived at Hudson Circle which I fortunately recognised about the same time the bus driver started shouting in Kannada - I think for me to get off.

Since I had missed Commercial Rd it was then an auto rickshaw drive to get the souvenirs. More problems with credit cars. Both my personal cards were declined and the cost was more than the cash in my wallet. I'm now getting furious with the bank. I used my purchasing card to buy the souvenirs. That will need to be sorted out when I get back to Wellington. I also forgot to agree the price with the driver beforehand. He charged me 300 rupees - I suspect half that was enough.

I'm now all packed up. It is time to check out and head off to the airport.

Good bye India