Finally got some rest after the hectic schedule of visiting three major cities in 10 days. All this while I had this guilt somewhere at the back of my mind of not working towards my research. The first thing that I did after getting back was to finish a fair bit of coding, and getting these red and black lined graphs as result!
The first set of results after a month!!
I've been meaning to write up my travel experiences, even before I started the journey. I was always trying to observe any noteworthy traits of the places that I happened to be. The itenary was mostly unplanned, calling up friends just before arrival and letting things flow from there. That sure caused some unexpected turns!
To put things in chronological order, I arrived in Bangalore on 7th December. Since it was a weekday, I had thought that everyone would be attending office, and I would be left to myself. But fortunately, the friend with whom I was staying, had taken leave on that day, and had come to the airport to pick me up. At my previous inquiry about the directions to his place, he had merely laughed at the proposition and had offered to pick me up. On the way to his home, I realized why. There is no call-taxi service that I am so familiar with in my city. Rather the autos are metered, and ply as taxis (In Kolkata, autos mostly ply on a shared basis at fixed rate on certain routes, much like the bus service). Most of them do not understand any non-local language, and it is near impossible to give them any complicated directions. Also, the roads there (atleast in that part of the city) are quite convoluted and confusing. My friend directed the auto driver with constant - righta, lefta, straighta and stop-mari. Fortunately his place wasn't far.
For my lunch, he offered to treat me to the authentic Andhra cuisine. He assured me that he has his regular lunch there. Before placing the order, he did warn me about the spice levels. But with me accustomed with ordering 8/9 and occasionally a 10 spice level at Indian restaurants in US, did not heed much to the warning. Oh, and how wrong I was! The dal itself had a spice level of 15 on my ordinary scale!! Not to mention about the spicy shrimp fry! Both of us had ordered thalis, and the yogurt gave me a little respite from this. Thus, I gained a newfound respect for the Andhra cuisine :)
To put things in chronological order, I arrived in Bangalore on 7th December. Since it was a weekday, I had thought that everyone would be attending office, and I would be left to myself. But fortunately, the friend with whom I was staying, had taken leave on that day, and had come to the airport to pick me up. At my previous inquiry about the directions to his place, he had merely laughed at the proposition and had offered to pick me up. On the way to his home, I realized why. There is no call-taxi service that I am so familiar with in my city. Rather the autos are metered, and ply as taxis (In Kolkata, autos mostly ply on a shared basis at fixed rate on certain routes, much like the bus service). Most of them do not understand any non-local language, and it is near impossible to give them any complicated directions. Also, the roads there (atleast in that part of the city) are quite convoluted and confusing. My friend directed the auto driver with constant - righta, lefta, straighta and stop-mari. Fortunately his place wasn't far.
For my lunch, he offered to treat me to the authentic Andhra cuisine. He assured me that he has his regular lunch there. Before placing the order, he did warn me about the spice levels. But with me accustomed with ordering 8/9 and occasionally a 10 spice level at Indian restaurants in US, did not heed much to the warning. Oh, and how wrong I was! The dal itself had a spice level of 15 on my ordinary scale!! Not to mention about the spicy shrimp fry! Both of us had ordered thalis, and the yogurt gave me a little respite from this. Thus, I gained a newfound respect for the Andhra cuisine :)
No comments:
Post a Comment