First Impressions

Yesterday Morning at four o’clock I arrived in Bangalore, along with two other travellers that I had been moving around with for the last ten days. They crashed out in a hotel (which was hard to find) and I took to the city. Bangalore is a great deal more western than Chennai and after quite a while on the road now I kind of needed that. I drank coffee, wandered around western shops (which were still too expensive for me even here) and generally enjoyed myself, while still looking for a better hotel.

I ended up meeting the other travellers in a coffee place and we sat around sipping cappuccinos. A couple of tables away from us was a peculiar dressed fellow. His shirt was unbuttoned almost a couple of buttons too far, he was wearing aviator glasses on an overcast day and so forth. I remarked on him and the English bloke I was with (the couple were both English) remarked:

‘He looks like a twat’

I decided to find out if he was one. I went over, struck up a conversation and ended up chatting with him for a couple of hours about religion, psychology and other related topics. He turned out to be a genuinely nice guy. The reason he was dressed like that? He was a part time model and worked in marketing. One man’s twat is another man’s fashion icon.

In the evening he offered to take me clubbing and we ended up in some hidden trance/ house. Club dancing at about twice the energy level of the rest of the room (and the rest of the room wasn’t holding back, either). Another bloke joined us and we just danced. Barely any alcohol (he doesn’t drink as he’s a practicing Muslim and I couldn’t drink because the prices were just way out of my league) just cigarettes and positive energy. I haven’t done that in a while.

Now it’s just a question of how long I will stay in Bangalore. The other two travellers I was with have moved on. They couldn’t take the heckling out here and I do have to say that it can really get on your nerves, but then nobody ever said that India would be easy and I’ve already experienced that first hand.