Maiden Trip to South India

I had my maiden trip to South India this weekend. The diwali vacation along with the weekend put me on an advantage to make such a trip. I went to the city of Bangalore, the capital of the Indian state Karnataka. I am sorry that I would stick to the older name of this city in my post, as changing names of cities don't make any sense to me at all. The new name of this city is perhaps Bengaluru if I am not wrong. Anyway, the trip to Bangalore from Bombay is 24 hour journey by train. The journey was very pleasant as the weather was cool all through. The train route was like a train route to a Hill station. There was no electric lines, the train had a diesel engine and it passed through forests, mountains etc. I really felt as if I am going home and not to Bangalore. There were hardly any famous or big stations on the way, the train was mostly passing through rural areas, forests, paddy fields etc. The altitude of most of the stations coming on the way were more than 500 meter from sea level and may be the that's the reason why the weather was pretty cool throughout. Even if there is rainfall, people don't feel the humidity. It was a different experience from Bombay, where rain means too much humidity and you sweat like hell.

The city of Bangalore was really nice, I found it quite clean and systematic compared to Bombay. I missed the Bombay local train there. The only mode of public transport was bus there. Although I did not have to take any bus, I could guess how difficult it would have been for me if I had to. The sign-boards in the shops, restaurants, buses were mostly in local language, neither in Hindi nor in English. I could just imagine how hard it would be for a new-comer to get adjust to the city life. I found it a bit weird, at least English should be used in the public notice boards if not Hindi. I did not have much time to explore the city, but these were my first sight experiences. I would love to go there once again, may be in March next year. This time I am thinking of visiting IISc for a week or so, so that getting leave from IITB will no longer be an issue. And at the same time will get an opportunity to explore Bangalore and its neighborhood (Mysore for example).