July 19 - Bengaluru

I didn't do too much today.

My family and I were fairly exhausted after the North India tour so we decided to take it easy today. We have a departure for Hyderabad later on tonight.

Well now that I've seen North Indiaand I'm old enough to remember all the details I can start describing what South India is like. It's definitely different. The skin complexions are darker and the languages (telegu, karnataka, tamil, etc..) are more flowing where as Hindi is more structured and rigid.

My dad and I decided to see what the massages were like here so my uncle took us to a spa. In India, men usually go to spas more than women and it is more socially acceptable for them to get manicures, facials, and pedicures. We arrived at the spa not more than two blocks away from my uncle's place so it was a nice short walk. The spa was on the second floor of a small commercial building. It looked more like an office than an actual spa. The front lady greeted us and showed us their menu (I kid you not, a physical menu) of the various services offered. We flipped to the massages part. I chose the cheapest'; a coconut oil massage where as my dad went for the more exotic aroma therapy massage. My massage cost was 750 rupees which is equivalent to about 20 canadian dollars. My dad's was 1000 rupees which is about 25 canadian dollars.

So, I go into the massage room which is not more than 4 feet wide by 10 feet long with a very narrow massage table. There was a tiny hole in the table to put your face into and the table itself was about 5 foot 5 inches in length, so I couldn't lay down on it without my feet hanging off of the edge.

My massesseuse walked into the room, a young man named neru who is a native Bangalore. He couldn't speak a word of english and only some Hindi. So it was hard to communicate. He was about 5 foot 6 inches, so fairly small, clean shaven, and had a little ponch. He asked me to take my clothes off and lie down on the table. I asked whether I should strip down comletely or just to my boxers. He said boxers. He left the room and I did as instructed. When he came back in, I guess he didn't realize boxers covered a good chunk the thighs. He opened a drawer and pulled out a clean pair of tighty whities or briefs if you will and asked me to wear this instead, which I did.

He heated up some coconut oil in a small pot, but the transformer blew so he had to resort to using the oil as quickly as possible so that it didn't cool down too fast. Now, the massage was great. He massaged every joint and muscle in my body and even made me do stretches that I wouldn't normally do, but I must admit it was a little weird having a man massage me by rubbing hot oil all over my body and massaging my inner thighs as well as chest lol. We chatted a little bit and he asked me how much massages cost in Canada. I told him the equivalent is 3200 rupees (80 cad). He was astounded and said he should come to Canada to work as a massessue. I learnt that he never went onto further studies after grade 10 and decided he'd rather make money as soon as possible before continuing on with his studies.

After the massage was done he asked me to throw the underwear in a corner, towel off and put my clothes back on ,which I did. He asked if I would come back for a massage again, and I said yes probably.

And that was pretty much the day's activities. We went to the bus stop in the evening, which really is just waiting at some random point on the sidewalk wiating for the bus to come. The bus was an hour late and when it did show up it wasn't the best looking bus either... It looked likethe bus hadn't been changed in the last 10 years. Anyhow, we got on board and there was some guy sitting in the spots that were reserved for our family. We told him we had the spots and he refused to budge sayiun he needed five minutes. Five minutes came and went and we asked again and at this point my dad was starting to lose his temper as was I. Finally the ticket checker came around and kicked him out. We had our seats, which were cramped and small (Smaller than the greyhound busses in Canada).

Waiting at the Bus Stop watching Traffic Go By

The Country that never sleeps

People eat at any time of the day

Other people waiting at their bus stop across the street

Our bus looked something similar to this

The ride to Hyderbad was scary as the driver was already behind schedule and he was driving the bus like it was a volkswagen beetle. I chose to sleep as quickly as possible not wanting to see how the driver was heading directly into oncoming traffic. I woke up halfway in the night and lifted my legs up on to the seat in front of me to try and get more comfortable. I didn\t get much sleep after that.

We arrived in Hyderabad at about 10 in the morning; 2 hours behind schedule.(It's about a 12 hour drive for 600 km). All of us desperately needed to use the washroom and we were ecstatic that my cousin and uncle were waiting to pick us up. We made a mad dash to their apartment (3 bedroom/3 bathroom) apartment which was really nice.