As most of you know, I accompanied my husband Mike on a business trip to India last week. I thought it would be fun to share with you my experience.

We arrived in Bangalore at about 3am in the morning and a beautiful new airline terminal welcomed us.

After going through customs we found ourselves outside looking for our driver who was lined up behind a barrier with about 200 other drivers.

Mike, my husband, just happened to see his colleagues name on one of the signs. We drove to the hotel, basically in the middle of the night, and saw many cars and people out and about. The four lane highway we drove on for about 45 minutes was really new, with lots of speed bumps. We saw many temples as they were lit up with bright colors.

We arrived at our hotel, the Bangalore Oberoi. As we turned from the road into the driveway (which had tank stoppers) we were stopped by guards that checked the car for bombs.

After they checked under the bottom of the car and the trunk, we were allowed to enter the driveway. Here is Mike watching our driver get our bags out of the back of his Toyota minivan.

The Oberoi is a beautiful hotel. As we got out of our car, we were met by some of the staff who greeted us with angeli mudra and bows of their heads.

They took our bags and backpacks and ran them through another security scanner (just like at the airport) before bringing them into the hotel and then to our rooms.

It was still dark when we got to our room, but we woke at 2pm to this view out our window.

The big tree right outside our window was a “rain tree”. It had a huge canopy and you might be able to not get as wet if you were to stand under it during a rain!

The rest of the grounds were just as beautiful and the property was quite large…it felt like we were on a tropical island.

Looking back up at our rooms, we could see the balcony’s covered by beautiful lavender flowers.

And of course there were statues everywhere, I don’t think I have ever seen so many elephants.

After we took a nap and waking about 2pm, we met up with my husband’s colleague Michael, and we decided to visit a new grocery (modern) store in a nearby mall within walking distance of the hotel. Once outside the walls of our hotel, a new and exciting experience began.

The local grocery store was like a mini Whole Foods. This picture is the spice collection; it had whole nutmeg, cloves, cardamom. Bangalore peppers
Peppers and peppers and peppers! Curries are a big part of the food in region of India.

If you are wondering why these pictures are blurry, you have never ridden in a rickshaw! My eyes were closed taking this picture!

Three-wheeled, green and black auto-rickshaws, referred to as autos, are a popular form of transport. We negotiated a short ride our first evening in Bangalore and I will have to say, when the driver pulled out in front of major traffic, I just closed my eyes! It was a crazy ride, but really fun.

First the amount of traffic was crazy, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and rickshaws. And there were people going everywhere! All the women either were wearing saris or Punjabi suits (tunics with loose pants that fit around the ankles and a scarf). I saw very few women in anything but Sari’s or Punjabi suits. Some of the school kids had on uniforms, but everyone else, whether they were at the temple or in the fields working harvest, they did not wear pants or jeans.

What? Manchester United in Bangalore!!! Well of course. Even though India did not have a team at the World Cup, all the televisions were showing the tournament.

Stay tuned for Day 2…