Shiva Statue

Bangalore Palace

Today is Saturday and I left the office after 3 in the morning but have the weekend off.  The plan for today is get a bit of sleep then go into Bangalore city center in the afternoon.

Got up around 10 and went for breakfast at the usual place around 10:30.  I was surprised by how busy it was in the hotel and restaurant today.  It seems during the week days the people in the hotel are mostly business people staying for work.  The weekend seems to have more local people coming in for a little treat for the weekend perhaps…more kids and more ladies, almost all indians except me and another gentleman.

The hotel has a travel desk that can provide a driver and car to take people for sightseeing trips for a fee.  I booked one for 8 hours today to see the city.  Two people from my company’s supplier are also in Bangalore helping me on the project.  It is their first time to Bangalore even though they are Indians and both from Mumbai.  I thought it would be nice to invite them on my trip.  Good for them to see the city and good for the company.

Frist we visited the Shiva Temple in the city center.  When we drove past the front entrance, I couldn’t tell that there was a temple anywhere.  All I saw was construction and building materials on some store front.  Then we went through a parking garage and paid a small fees to go inside.  Took off our shoes and walked through some narrow and dim tunnels.  We walked pass a lot of glass cases on the wall and small statue of various forms of Shiva.  Then we got to the outside and there it is…a very large statue of Shiva.  This is a very popular temple, especially on the weekends where people come for prayers and pray for their wishes to come true.  I can’t remember what I wished for.

After some fun shopping and nice lunch at the Tandor Restaurant, we headed to the Bangalore Palace.  It is 350 Rps to go inside the Palace but it’s free to see it from the outside.  I started to take some pictures but the security guard right away told us “no picture” unless we buy tickets to go inside the Palace.  Our guide and driver told us it is not worth it to go in as we will be going to Mysore where there is a much bigger and grander palace built by and for the same family with virtually the same architecture design.  We took his advice and settled to just sit and admired the palace from the outside.  I did take a couple of pictures before the guard stopped us.

Today is the best day of this trip so far.  I got to see the city of Bangalore, visited some nice places, and more importantly, I did some mandatory shopping and brought some very nice silk stuff for myself and the girl.