"A Blogworthy Tale"

Oh Boy! Oh Boy! These people came back to our home today and Ziggy got to sneak out the door when they were not watching! They watch too much, so this was a real treat! He got out of the main door and then looked around. Then he went upstairs to see what was up there- it was great! But then when he was coming back down and about to go further down stairs to see what was there one of these people came along and grabbed him against his will and made him come back inside! Mean! Mean! Mean! They can try to explain it to you- we're not listening now!
Jim and Janet writing now. We got up early this morning and joined our neighbor to go on a "Bangalore Walk". They have a website. We were ther before the planned 7AM start and more people trickled in as we waited. There were about 18 or 20 total, which the leader later said was more than usual. The walk started at Holy Trinity Church which is at one end of MG Road (Mahatma Gandhi Rd- most cities have at least one road named after him.) The church dates from 1852 and is largely unchanged since then. It was primarily a church used by British Army officers while they were stationed here in Bangalore. The city was used heavily by the British as a base because it is centrally located in southern India and the weather is pretty good compared to much of the rest of India. (high temps today in the 70's F) We learned quite a bit on this walk. Winston Churchill was stationed here around 1898. We walked west along MG road and stopped to look at the outside of a couple old homes that still survive on this major road, but were told that most are gone. It seems that once they are 100 years old then it is more difficult to get permits to tear them down. So many are sold when they are about 95 and then torn down within the next few tears to build something else. We saw the Bible Society building, which apparently houses a free museum. As we walked we saw place after place where an old building once stood, but has been either replaced by a new building or is in the process of being replaced. As we walked along we saw the progress on the "Bangalore Metro". This is to be some sort of train on a set of raised concrete columns. We have heard nothing but complaints about how slowly this project has progressed, but we see MG road nearly every week and we have seen noticeable progress on this project, though it seems to have a long way to go yet too.
We were told that Bangalore was the first city to be electrified in Asia. This in 1904 -1906 depending on who you believe. We were told that this came about partly due to a need to to mine gold east of the city and partly because the Maharaja of Mysore was a far thinking kind of guy.
Our walk ended with words about another old building that was destroyed just a year ago, but also with words that another new building nearby was where a , now large, Indian Software and services company got its start. We then went to breakfast at "Ebony"- a well know restaurant on MG road that is famous for the views from the top of the building.
We later went to a somewhat more suburban area to get groceries at a good supermarket. The grocery stores vary a lot- from poor to almost as good as we have near our home. Our main complaints with the good ones are that they are crowded into too little space and that we can't seem to find all that we want at one such store, so we go to 2or 3 or 4 different places. For some places, like for breads and pastries, there are specialty shops that do a good job at these.
Sweets shops also specialize. So, it seems like a case where the big stores have not quite gotten to the point where these specialty shops lose business.
We had another interesting experience this past week. We needed to get Yellow Fever vaccinations. We did some checking and found that only a public health facility here in Bangalore could give the vaccine. Te alternative is to go to Chennai or Delhi or Mumbai. The web site gave fairly explicit instructions, but we know not to trust what they say. Our driver found the place and asked them how to make an appointment, and we found a time and he made the appointment. He had to buy 2 syringes as well. We went on the appointed day and were a little early. The building is a rather delapidated place. We went in and met the Doctor who checked our passports and agreed to give us the vaccinations. They wanted to know if we needed a receipt and they said that they are only supposed to give the shots if ten people are present because the bottle needs to be used once opened. We thought we understood what was going on and said that we did not need a receipt as long as we got the booklet stamped. It seemed clear that the money was not going to go into the public treasury. Our driver said someone else asked for some money "for the good of government employees" for helping to get us the vaccinations. We just hope that we got the real vaccine - or that we never encounter the illness!
Ziggy got out of the apartment when we came home from grocery shopping. Fortunately he went up the stairs that lead to the roof and that door is normally locked. On his way down, Jim caught him and brought him back inside- despite his vocal objections. He never bites or scratches. If he went down stairs he could go a lot further, but we might notice he is missing before he got all the way down to the ground floor.