Bangalore: Severe Dust Pollution

Bangalore was known for parks, flowers and pollens and its ashthamatic effect. Now, nobody worries about pollens anymore; huge dust cover across the city has taken over. Certain areas in the city has become completely unlivable but life still goes on. People walk on roads with dust cover, eat street food, take their small kids and stay there. Not sure how much damage to their lungs have already happened.

Across entire Outer Ring Road, there is endless flyover and subway construction. These constructions are being carried by corrupt and unprofessional builders without any responsibility, credentials or sensitivity. Result, a six months project stretches to 3 years, endless traffic jams, huge dust creation and absolutely zero accountability. It becomes very painful to witness 1000 vehicles in jam under a flyover undergoing construction, and not more than 2 people working on building it. These builders just dont give a damn.

And people have patience to remain stuck in jam everyday for 2 hrs, suffer in extreme dust surroundings and see the debris created by construction; but not even a single voice raised. Surprising ! We have just come to accept that nothing will change and accepted it as destiny.

Unfortunately, people have bought expensive flats in such areas and simply dont know what to do. They have to live there with small kids inhaling dust filled air round the clock. Tragic !

Constructions are necessary and they do happen around the world but there is governance, method and process to it. It doesn't happen in haphazard, messy and endless way. In developed world, sometimes you wont even feel that construction is happening in the vicinity, such care is taken to avoid any impact on people and their quality of living.

Apartments, Flyovers, Metro construction and complete lack of governance has made this city heavily infected with alarming level of dust. Either find a secluded area or give this place a skip.

Wonder la Amusement Theme Park, Bangalore

** Checkout the six HD videos of Wonder la amusement park embedded in the blog **

Monsoon gave a skip to Bangalore this year, just clouds and wind but no trace of rains. I decided to try Wonder la amusement park, and play with water the whole day.

I took my car and a friend and in no time I was at toll gate of NICE (Bangalore-Mysore Expressway -Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd) road near Electronics city. Paid Rs 80/- toll (hefty) and started my journey towards Wonder la, which is around 30 kms. The expressway is wide and smooth but doesn't go all the way to Mysore yet. We covered the distance in 3/4 hr flat ( tested my car at 180 kmph on the expressway).

It was Saturday and I was aware that its going to be crowded. First glimpse of Wonder la was people everywhere and the demographic 10-25 yrs around 80%. There is ample parking space (no fee) and the surroundings are neat and clean. There is an ATM and a snacks restaurant outside - it was only 10.30 am, so we spent the time having snacks and strolling outside. [there is a restaurant inside as well and water bottles are allowed]

There are more than 1/2 a dozen ticket counters, well manned and managed. Took our tickets paying Rs 730/- per head and entered into the campus. At the ticket counter, do not forget to buy the Valet. Valet is a wrist-watch type electronic swipe-able  thing which can be wore on the wrist, substitute for cash to be used at various food counters.  So one doesn't need to carry purse and cash and ruin the trip with fear of losing it; it comes with various denominations with service charge of Rs 20/-. So pay Rs 500/-, they will give you the valet, use  it for various food items and in the end return back at the ticket counter, they will refund whatever is left deducting Rs 20/- as service charge.

There is a very big locker building near the entrance. One has to pay Rs 500/-to secure a big locker( three sizes). On returning the key, they will refund the amount deducting a service fee of Rs 50/-. The locker key has a band and can be wore on the wrist, no chance of losing in the water. Do remember to keep the Receipt in the locker itself, its required to get the refund (I lost mine but the lady at the counter was considerate).
                      Besides thousand of lockers, the building has toilets and showers in adjoining area. Women and Men have lockers on separate floors, men in the basement and women in the first floor. If the weather is good, keep your slippers/floaters as well in the locker, if its warm take it with you, as you need to walk on slabs and concrete path.

People generally approach the park with dry rides first, then wet rides and finally the wave pool. On weekend really long queues at each ride. I did the reverse to beat the crowd.

I have experienced the wave pools before in Water World Mumbai, it was really impressive. Wonder la has also architected the wave pool very well. Three different sections, really wide, lot of benches to sit and watch, plenty of surveillance guards and a lighthouse as well.
                   The intensity of wave is perfect, if one really wants to experience the aggression, he has to go near the start of the wave. Thats where I spent most of my time and it was amazing, around six feet and relentless, took every ounce of energy out of me.
   
The water looked clean with tolerable amount of chlorine and at comfortable temperature, advisable to keep your mouth above it and go to the pool early before it starts getting dirty. Pool was really crowed btw.

After spending over 1 hr in the pool, we went to rain Disco Dance building. Rain dance happens every 1hr and its really good. Good lighting, lasers and plenty of water showered. People really seem to be enjoying this artificial rain and were dancing like crazy. There is separate area for couples/families and singles.

After rain dance I decided to take the wet rides. There are over 1/2 a dozen wet rides for all kind of hearts- faint to strong. I tried quite a few, not all, Wavy Falls are really sick. Every time you slide down, one has to take the stairs again to reach the starting point. People also spend lot of time in Play Pools, just lazing around and playing with their small kids.

We had lunch at the open restaurant near the wave pool. One can get tandoori chicken items, south indian meal, biryani and some other stuff. Food is okay, fair priced and the place hygienic.

Next we moved towards the dry rides. Since we started in reverse, most of the rides were empty now. We started with the Wonder Splash and Hang Glider and moved on to some crazy high thrill rides. High thrill rides do all kinds of spinning- revolution, rotation, sideways- with varying speeds and height, not for the faint hearted.

After completing the dry rides, it was close to 4 pm in the evening and we said it was enough for the day. Yes, there are some items as well, like musical fountain and documentary, which we gave a skip.

We took our stuff from the locker and claimed the refund, same with valet and started our journey back.

About Wonder la: It is a very well managed park. Courteous and well trained staff, neat and clean surroundings, secure rides and every thing seemed to be in place. A must visit while in Bangalore even though its a bit far. It has everything for all age groups and the money spent is completely worth it.

The entire Wonder la amusement park tour in 20 minutes:

Royal Travels-Redbus.in-Madurai to Bangalore

First thing first : *******Do not travel on this bus***********

Booked a ticket from Madurai to Bangalore on Royal Travels through Redbus. Reached the Periyar bus stand in Madurai 1/2 an hour early to board the bus. At the travels office, I was sitting with ease knowing that I will be informed when the bus arrives and journey will be hassle free. I was completely wrong.

First Shocker:  Zero information. Once the time for departure came, I started to inquire about my bus at the counter. The guy looked at the Redbus ticket, then stared at me, asking me to wait. I took three rounds of entire bus stand looking out for Royal bus, sweating profusely, with no success. I saw couple of other woman looking concerned late at night trying to find the bus as well.

Somebody from the management announced that SHAM travels bus to Bangalore has arrived and people started to leave. I got suspicious and enquired at the counter again showing my eticket. The guy said yes this is your bus.


Second Shocker: Royal Travels did not have any bus for Bangalore. Yes, there was NO BUS named Royal Travels.  I took my luggage and went to SHAM travel bus, there I was informed that even this is not my bus and instructed to go to the next bus standing.


At the bus gate they guy confirmed that yes this is the bus that I need to board. This was the same guy whom I asked 10 times before and he chose not to answer. He was expecting me to miss the bus so that he can sell the ticket to other waiting passengers. Extreme mismanagement.


Third Shocker: The bus was poor quality very old bus for the fare of Volvo. The bus finally started to move an hour late and I thought maybe the ordeal for the day was over. I was wrong again.


There was a very loud sound coming from bottom of the bus ( I suspect it coming from faulty axle). It was like generator sound blown into your ears. Very loud. The sound remained for rest of the trip, next 9 hours.

I was surprised to see people refusing to protest, instead using earplugs and trying to sleep. What kind of country have we become. The only guy who protested was an elderly person. He went to cabin to protest.

Fourth Shocker: The staff at the cabin threatened the elderly person to keep quiet and asked him to go back to the seat. Yes, the bus is being run by illiterate goons.

Fifth Shocker: The bus driver with such low quality old bus was driving at over 120 kmph. The bus was overtaking Volvo's and SUVs. The more the driver hit the gas the more unbearable sound the bus produced.

The entire experience was an ordeal which I want to forget in a hurry. The bus business has become huge and the time has come to provide structure & professionalism by involving established corporates. The utter mismanagement and illiterate goons employed at these buses are giving everyone a nightmare.

Redbus.in: The management of Redbus do have the information of wrong doings but they chose to look the other way for sake of revenue and business and include them for online booking. Ethics and integrity are foundation of a great business, which seems to be lacking in Redbus. Forget about customer service & satisfaction - this is too big a word for these guys.

Mysore Trip Report

Decided to take Mysore trip by car, the popular historical places and short distance drive from Bangalore made it too tempting to resist.Two day weekend tour plan seemed liked the right way to approach.
 Saturday :

The drive : Bangalore to Mysore is about 140 kms. The old tour drive wisdoms says ' start early in the moring ' and thats what we did to beat the notorious traffic. At 5.30 am Saturday morning we embarked on our journey and reached the state highway in 20 mts time from Old airport road. The state highway to Mysore, SH-17, is 4-lane well made quality road, absolutely jerkless. One can drive at 100kmph on most part of the highway. Bangalore-Mysore has become an important corridor and I guess 4-lane is not enough, one can find good traffic along the entire 130 km stretch.Moreover villages and towns are present at every 10-15 kms with speed breakers and local traffic.Bangalore-Mysore needs a 6-lane expressway with uninterrupted traffic which I guess is currently underway, which will definitely reduce the travel time on highway from 2 hrs to 1 hr.

One can find lot of descend food joints starting wth ' kamat lokaruchi ' to cafe day, though I feel break in 100 km drive is a waste of time.Bidadi, Ramanagaram (Sholay was shot here), Channapatna (famous for wodden toys) ,Maddur ( maddur vada), Mandya ( sugar factory town), Srirangapatna ( Tipu's den) are the towns enroute.

Somnathpur : 10 kms before Srirangapatna there is a diversion to Somnathpur temple.We decided to take it, milestone said 32 kms. This route passes through complete village road ( drivable condition) and some of the scenes that you see enroute is really beautiful. Lush green paddy fields, water canals, unending lines of coconut trees and absolutely no traffic - a perfect getaway for a traffic tormented Bangalorean like me. Green,green & more green for the next 20 kms, felt like I have breathed pure air after decades.

Took 1 hr to reach the temple, bought Rs 5/- ticket and entered. The ticket looked like boarding pass absolutely unneccessary expenditure.I even asked the guy at the counter, why to print such expensive ticket when the fee is only Rs5/-, unfortunately he only understood kannada language.
                                  The temple made in 13th century is really good architecture, worth seeing.Every inch of space has some image sculpted and the modification of temple went on for 300 years. The images does say a lot about the lives and people at those times.
 This temple is worth seeing, only drawback is the distance, 60 kms to and fro.So if you are really pressed for time, can keep this for later. As far as I am concerned I enjoyed the drive through the fields and drinking real good coconut water ( upto 1 liter in each ) and seeing a very good architecture temple 700 yrs old at the end of it all was very satisfying.
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Mayura Yatri Niwas- Kstdc : By around 1 pm we reached Mysore city railway station and checked-in to our ultra cheap hotel nearby (50 meters from rly stn) run by Kstdc ( state tourism) - Mayura Yatri Niwas. The room was double bed without AC @ Rs 650/- per day with check-in time of 12 noon.The moment we opened the door of our room a deep strong stench greeted us.We opened the doors & window for 20 mts which reduced the effect somewhat but stench persisted for rest of our stay.

The hotel had no room-service (not even tea) and I felt that at this price demanding one would be a crime.The blanket looked liked being used since world war II, even beggars use better ones.
I strongly feel that govt should get out of this hospitality sector, sell all its hotels and may be regulate the tariffs from getting it sky rocketted. The hotel next to it, in the same compound, is also a govt run hotel with a restarant & bar.One can always hear tourist fighting with hotel staff for service.One guy waited at the table for 2 hrs for his breakfast, and then launched his attack at the manager, who seemed to be least bothered ( no one gets fired at govt enterprises). Rude & lazy staff in these hotels dont deserve their job even for single day.

If somebody is hell bent on saving money or is a born miser, then he should'nt look further, for everyone else discourage & dissmiss govt run hotels with unprofessional, unruly & lazy staff and stinking rooms.
Mysore Palace : At around 2 pm we headed to Mysore palace which is located in the heart of city, few kms from rly stn.Joined the queue for Rs 20/- ticket along with hundreds, the crowd was pretty good ( in thousands), but the palace is big enough to accomodate huge crowds.Only one ticket counter for such a crowd, took more than half an hour standing in sun to get tickets. Govt again is living in past, while tourist has multiplied ticket counters hasnt, poor mgt.

The palace is built by Wodiyars in 1897 so its comparatively new historical place.Wodiyars ruled the state of Mysore since 1200s with a brief interruption of 40 yrs by Haider & Tipu sultan in eighteenth century.Wodiyars have known to be good administrators which shows in the foundation of Mysore city.The palace has lots of paintings, photographs, huge rooms for different ceromonies with expensive chandeliers, collection of momentos & gifts recieved by wodiyars, arms collection, furnitures, clothes, etc.It gives an insight into lives of Wodiyar family and their extravagance.After the death of Tipu in 1799, wodiyars was given the kingdom back by British which used them as puppets.

The palace is must-see for any Mysore visitor.
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KRS Dam-Vrindavan garden : At around 5 PM we decided to go to Vrindavan garden at around 20 kms from the rly station. A decision we'll regret.

I remember visiting Vrindavan garden 20 yrs back with my family.The garden was really a treat to watch, with range of flowers, well cut hedges and fine carpet of grass. We were the only few people in the garden, a requirement to really appreciate the beauty of any garden.
Most of it has remained exactly the same except the number of visitors.More than ten thousand (conservative estimate) tourist were there on saturday evening to see the garden managed by state govt- people with small kids, old parents,foreigner, locals, outsiders.

The nasty experience started at the queue for ticket, hundreds in the queue with just two counters. People under scorching sun-pushing each other, jumping the queue,shouting- all for just an entrance ticket.There are food stalls just after the entrance with all kind of cold drinks and eatables on sale.No body enters the Vrindavan garden without the eatables - carrying drink bottles, fried items, polybags- they even allow people to sell eatable in the garden itself.The moment you enter the garden to see varieties of flowers you find that you cant see anything else except sea of people.There are people at each & every inch of the garden munching the eatables.I dont recall even a single flower that I saw there. Litters strewn all over the park and water in the fountains dirty as hell.I will never understand why they dont keep ' Waste bins' in these places, few bins for entire park and 10000 people.Disguisting !!

One of the highlights of Vrindavan garden is the musical fountain which happens everyday from 7-8 pm (weekends 7-9 pm).To go to musical fountain at the other end of the park one is supposed to cross a 50 meter long bridge.Saturday evening, 10000 people, 6 feet wide bridge and musical fountain about to start - all hell is about to loose. Hundreds of people on that narrow bridge , people going towards fountain and people coming from it, maddening crowd pushing against each other, women/children in extreme discomfort. We spend 1 hr on the bridge to-fro, an experience we would like to forget in a hurry.

The musical fountain played in session of three songs(hindi,kannada & patriotic) . Let me be honest, the musical fountain is no great shakes, and its small in size, hasnt changed in last 20 yrs. I have seen musical fountains three times in size played everyday in kolkata in front of victoria memorial and only few hundred people watches it.With all the pain taken its absolutely not worth it.

We watched a session and again passed through the ordeal on the bridge to go back to exit of garden.There awaited a bigger ordeal.Parking lot meant for 300 vehicles had atleast 1500 vehicles(four wheelers) parked. Volvo buses, cars, suvs, motor bikes everything was crammed-in.It was a utter chaos and complete traffic mess.People waiting on the roads for their buses to come out, people leaving on foot in dispair, childrens crying, buses meant for 40 people were carrying more than 200 people, horn honking, temper flaring and no qualified person to manage it all. It took 3 hrs to get my vehicle out of this mess.At one point I had given up and thought about sleeping in car whole night.Two lane road leading to garden had traffic coming as well as leaving.Hundreds of vehicle trying to leave on a single lane road created a big halting traffic mess. If they simply stop vehicles from coming-in after 7pm, only outgoing traffic will ease the congestion a lot, but who cares when the moolah is coming thick and fast ( Rs 30/- for car parking).

The country is in grip of population explosion and our infrastructure is failing miserably.Lot of people have moved into middle-class and started to travel. A place like vrindavan garden having over 10000 visitor on a single evening is unthinkable.One cant just manage these huge crowd like they did 20 yrs ago.It requires professional expertise with qualified people having project management expertise. Its high time govt starts doling out tenders to asset mgt companies to manage both the site as well as burgeoning visitors.
                                 On the positive side, its a very good sign for travel,fun and leisure industry. People are willing to lap whatever little is available and they are spending like anything.I saw poor family spending 200 Rs on just cold drinks.Time has come to really start planning to capitalize on it. Increase the musical fountain size by three time, may be create an indoor fountain show auditorium so that it can be played at all times of the day and accomodate 5000 people at one go, create a big world class aquarium in the vicinity, etc.Oppurtunity is just endless.

Advice : Dont even think of visiting this place on saturdays/sundays evening.Dont bother about musical fountains, you wont miss a thing.Visit during weekdays or before 4pm on weekends.
Day end : The forgettable experience at garden spoiled our mood and sapped all our energy. Went to a good restaurant, had couple of bottles of beer and good food and retired for the day.
Sunday :
We had a hectic last day so woke up late. AT 10 pm we started for Chamudeshwari temple on Chamundi hill, 12 kms from the city.The road to top of the hill was good, with beautiful view of city all around.Smarting from last day experience, I was expecting madding traffic here too, but compared to vrindavan it was nothing.It has atleast 4 parking lots so it was easy to find a space.Took Rs 100/- ticket for express darshan (normal darshan Rs 20/-) and we were done in 20 mts flat with sufficient time to see the deity. Saw the Nandi ,spent some time at various vantage points for city viewing and got down the hill.No descend breakfast joints there on the hill so come prepared.

Zoo : Next stop was zoo which was enroute to Chamundi Hills. Took Rs 30/- ticket and entered. The entire zoo tour takes 3 hrs approx.It starts with ziraffe and ends with crocodiles with their mouths open.It also houses several white bengal tigers.Being in cage they were really feeling restless, such pity being caged and then photographed by thousands.The highlight of the zoo was ' the only gorilla of India '. He stroke a pose and sit there, while people in hundreds clicked, as if trying to say ' you foolish humans thats all you do, cage us and click pics, go ahead I am striked a pose '.
                                  The zoo is not funded by state govt, one can own these pets. All the animals are being owned by people on a yearly basis, anil kumble supports a giraffe while chief minister a royal bengal tiger. One can really come foreward and support these animals to sustain this zoo.Again several thousand people were there in the zoo on sunday afternoon, but since zoo is several kms long, it didnt matter.
St.Philomena : At around 4.30 pm we came back to the hotel and took rest for an hour.We headed for St Philomena church, 4 kms from rly stn. Built in 1933, funded by wodiyars is around 40 meters tall with Gothic architecture.The architecture looks formiddable and imposing, stands out in the city.Attended an ongoing mass.Felt a lot peace and calm in there, there is something about these religious places that calms your nerves and makes you smile within.Spend sometime outside appreciating the height and left for our last stop.

Mysore palace lighting : Every sunday from 7-8 pm, the entire palace is lit by 96,000 bulbs.The illuminated palace is a major attraction of the city.We reached the palace gate at 6.30 pm, munched some snacks outside, strolled outside for sometime and then at 7 went inside the palace compounds ( no ticket required). 40,000 people were inside the compound to view the illumination, way beyond my expectation.I have only seen so many people in cricket stadium, but the palace compound is huge so it wasnt a problem. And you can bring your stuff inside, so people were seen muching eatables, people with complete luggage about to catch a bus/train, considerable amount of litter was being generated ( no dustbins again).
                                               Neverthless the sight is a treat to watch.Sitting with your family or friends in the lawns, with hugh illuminated palace in front, and chips & popcorns in plenty, is definetly time well spent relaxing.

At 8 pm the lights were switched off and this huge congregation of people started to rush out.This time I decided to wait till everyone has left instead of braving the crowd.There is a hundred year old temple in the campus, we decided to pay a visit.The feeling inside was divine, only 5-6 people inside and absolute silence.We sat there for half-an-hour and felt completely de-stressed and peaceful.100 yrs of continuous prayers being offered generates a kind of posiive vibration which stays in the place and has immediate effect on you once you enter.
Backward journey : From palace we headed to restaurant , had beer and food and back to hotel.Woke up monday morning at 4.30 am.did the checkout and hopped-on to car a 5 am. The highway was almost empty, did 100 kmph for most part of the highway, reached home at 8 am, slept for couple of hours and back to participate in rat race at office by 12.30am.
About Mysore : Mysore is definetly a clean city with proper infrastructure in place and good weather.The city still has its heritage charm and culture intact.City is fast becoming an economic hub but still has the charecteristic of small town living, easy going and simple.I loved the feel of Mysore which has lot of innocence still intact despite-of buzz in economic activities and commercialization in recent times.