Around the Horns of India

eeeeee! .... Tootle, tootle, tootle ...... honk, honk - The sounds of Bangalore traffic! The horn in India seems like an additional appendage- drivers seem to drive with at least one finger poised to tap the horn or hold it down for a good long blast whenever another vehicle fails to move fast enough or move over. Of course, in dense traffic, the horns are honking, or tooting all around you as each driver tries to warn others of his presence nearby. Some horns sound a bit sickly, while others seem a bit too robust. Some seem like they were mean just to alert you to their presence, while others seem clearly aimed at asking you to get out of their way! Our driver says that the latter types are not legal, but no one ever gets fined for having them. Joseph is an aggressive driver. He is very good too. He has been driving in Bangalore for many years and knows most of the tricks. He uses the horn on our car less than many drivers, but more than some too. He flashes the headlights more than most drivers. He says that flashing headlights is the legal way for telling oncoming traffic that you want to take priority when passing a blocking vehicle. But, it seems to be ignored more than half the time.
We have been told that if we think the traffic is bad now, then we should have seen it about 5 years ago! Apparently, numerous experiments have been tried over the past 5 years to try to find a way for the traffic to move better. Most roads in the city center are now one-way traffic- or at least as one way as it ever gets in India. (It is not at all unusual to find vehicles going the wrong way.) This has helped ease the flow- apparently, but it is still pretty bad. The combination of bad roads AND heavy traffic is hard to beat.
There are some good things about the vehicles here. There are thousands of motorbikes on the roads and thousands of auto- rickshaws and thousands of small very light weight vehicles for carrying all sorts of things around the city. I say these are good because they are probably much more fuel efficient overall than what we would have back home. We have seen as many as 5 people on one motorbike and as many as 6 people in one auto- rickshaw. The former with a seat that normally holds 2 and the latter with seating for 3. But there are options- a wider variety than at home. So, you will see all of these vehicle of various sizes on the roads all day hauling all manner of things from food to TV's to plywood to bricks to huge granite stones. There seems to be a vehicle suited to every task... or ill- suited as is often observed. We often see trucks broken down which were clearly overloaded. You also see many cases, where the stone slabs used to make a sidewalk over the drainage ditches, are broken by an overloaded truck trying to drive over them. Still, I think the size range of the vehicles is more fuel efficient than at home. However, there are safety issues with the small vehicle. We have seen several accidents involving the small vehicles- fortunately, none appeared to be serious, but probably, that is the case only because they normally can't move very fast in the Bangalore traffic! In the US, there would all manner or lawsuits resulting from the accidents involving these vehicles. Here, however, the Indians have come up with a very efficient way to deal with those kinds of lawsuits- inefficiency! We are told that you can sue people if you want, but it may take 15 years for your case to be heard! So, this inefficiency keeps people from suing each other. In addition, it is quite possible that the person you sue will have little money, so it would be of little use. People tend to take more personal responsibility for their actions. They really do try hard NOT to have a serious accident. When they have "fender benders" there appears to be some shouting but violence is usually pretty minimal. Our car has a number of minor scrapes on it- mostly from kids leaning against the car while begging or, more often, from the mirrors of motorbikes passing too close. There is one very small dent in the plastic bumper- apparently this occurred just yesterday when an auto rickshaw bumped the rear of the car. Such is life in the fast lane!

Animal Kingdom

We have these really great sleeping places that our human companions got for us! They are just the right size and shape and verrry comfortable. We had them moved by the places where we can watch all the other creatures around our home. Every day we see things that fly around in the air or climb in the trees. It is fun to watch them and try to chase them, but we can't ever catch them because there are these hard things between us and them! Too bad! Some look like better food than we often get!
Our humans want to say something now. Too bad, but its time to sleep some more now anyway.
The Z's do spend a lot of time looking out the windows and there are crows, pigeons, squirrels, monkeys, kites and green parakeets regularly in view. One picture shows a green parakeet hanging from a mango tree out one side of the apartment. Another picture shows a large predator bird- we think a Kite- resting on top of a neighbor's water tank. They had us put two stools in front of a couple of the windows so they can watch in great comfort... and they sleep there a lot too!
The monkeys come by about once a week. They are very cute when young and swing all around in the trees. However, when they get older, they are not so cute and they could be a threat to the Z's, so we try to chase them away when they come on the balcony.
Ziggy likes to get inside any bags that come into the apartment. Today, our driver brought a carpenter to hang some pictures we bought and had framed very inexpensively. As is usual, the guy came ill prepared to do the task. He brought the right tools, which is a very good start, but he did not bring any hooks or wire or screws suitable to the task. He is also replacing glass in a kitchen cabinet that broke in a little accident about a month ago, but the new glass was much too small, even though he measured. We had to keep asking him to measure carefully and as the day proceeds, he seems to be doing better. It seems not to be a concern if things are "off" a little, and he seems not to mind if he has to do it over again. Time is cheap. This is a theme we see often among people doing tasks. If its not right, just do it over. This is very expensive at home, but not here. Ziggy climbed inside the carpenter's tool bag, and we got a nice picture of that, but for some reason the blog won't let us add it.

Somnathpur and Mysore

Note that you can double click on any of the images in the various postings and get a larger view.
Friday April 10 was "Good Friday" and it was also a Holiday here in Bangalore. We decided to make an overnight trip to the 3rd major Hoysala Temple in the region and also see a couple places in Mysore that we missed the last time (You can read about Halebid and Belur temples in our Feb. report and Mysore from December, 2008.)
We left Bangalore about as early as we could on Friday morning. We made one short stop along the Mysore road for some coffee and a bathroom. We noticed an awful lot of people stopping and suspected that Mysore might be crowded with tourists taking the long weekend off. We turned off the Mysore road to take some smaller and much poorer roads to end up at Somnathpur. It is a small town and the temple is protected by a wall and security people who try to prevent vandalism and theft. It was getting hot by the time we arrived around 11AM. We paid the large fee that foreigners pay compared to Indians, though some friends said that if we carry our registration papers with us we might get the low rate paid by Indians. Still, it was just $2 each. We paid for Joseph, our driver, too, as he has some interest in history. Once inside we were immediately approached by a very nice fellow who offered himself up as a guide. Having learned from our experience at Belur, and noticing that he had a sort of official looking badge, we agreed to his service. We should have asked the fee right away, but did not. At the end he told us it was 350 Rs (about $7), which we felt was worthwhile and we tipped him extra too.
The Guide's name was Ramakrishna, which he told us are two of the thousand or so names for Vishnu (Rama and Krishna)- and this temple was made for Vishnu. He said that the three major Hindu male Gods are Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and the three primary female ones are P...., Lakshmi and S.... - we may add the primary names later. They also each have many names and many incarnations.
We walked around the perimeter walls where we saw 64 small temples that are mostly empty because the statues were stolen or otherwise removed long ago. The temple was built in 1268. Since he said it took 64 years to build we don't know if that is the starting date or finishing date.
Next we walked around the outside of the temple. It was about 11:30 and quite hot in the sun. The outside is decorated with thousands of small and large sculptures- like Halebid and Belur. There are 6 rows of small sculptures all around the base of the temple that show elephants, stories from history, stories of gods and other things.
At last we went inside and were surprised to find it very hot and while we walked around outside a large group of young women had entered the temple. The inside was duller than the other temples- partly because it is much smaller. There are 3 shrines inside- each has a different incarnation of Vishnu. The main one was "Keshava", but this one was destroyed or damaged long ago and has been replaced. The guide said that when the main image has been damaged, then temple normally is "decommissioned" and no longer used for worship. Such is the case here. Photos are permitted, though we wonder why it is still necessary to take shoes off before entering. There are some very nice ceiling carvings inside, but it was so hot we did not stay long.
We took the rough road on to Mysore. We had Lunch at the Lalitha Palace Hotel- a grand old place but a bit expensive. We then to the Cauvery store- this is the government crafts emporium. It was a little disappointing. We then went to find a woodworking shop we heard about. We had spoken to the owner a couple weeks earlier about coming to visit and finally found the place. The owner is of European origin and he came to Mysore becase they have an industrial based for doing wood inlay work- marquetry. He showed us some spectaular work they were doing and gave us a short lesson in the history of the art. We were very tired and went to our hotel for the rest of the night.
On Saturday Morning we got a late start, but went to the Jaganmohan Palace that was used by the Maharaja as an auditorium or something. It is now a sort of art museum, which houses mainly art of more modern origin plus a lot of interesting and unusual objects like mechanical music devices, clocks , weapons, games, toys, dishes and musical instruments. Since it was a bit late, it was also hot inside. Janet left early while Jim prowled around a bit more. We left the place and considered leaving for home since it was hot. However, we went to a craft shop that is air conditioned instead. It is a place we visited the last time and has very nice things. They are generally reasonably priced, but maybe a bit more expensive than you might find if you searched hard. We had fun looking and they gave us soft drinks and some pizza for lunch.
We finally left Mysore about 4PM- perhaps an hour later than we might have wished. The ride back to Bangalore was ok until we go to the city limits, then it was awful for about 45 minutes. However, we arrived home safely and found Ziggy and Zoe in good spirits and happy to see us.
Overall we were disappointed in Somnathpur compared to Halebid and Belur. It is a more complete temple- with the tall "towers" on it that are missing from the other places, but the stone carving seemed a bit less intricate and in worse repair. It is also smaller. However, it was good to see this gem. It was also nice that there were few people there- except for the large group of young college or high school girls. The season is turning hot and this temple is a bit out of the way. So, those things probably helped keep it peaceful.

Dogs of Delhi

While we were in Delhi a few weeks ago we both were amused by the dogs that we saw around the public places we went. The dogs are almost certainly "strays" or "street dogs", but there generally seemed healthy, so they must have been getting a fair share of hand outs. While most people don't take ownership of these dogs, they also don't normally cause them harm either. Most of the dogs are sleeping with people walking all around, so it is clear that they feel no threat. We hear occasional stories of dogs being poisoned or rounded up when they seem to be causing problems, but mostly they roam free and live off whatever they can get.