Goodbye Delhi, Hello Bangalore

So Sunday was a day of sleeping in and air travel to Bangalore. I was exhausted from the entire trip to Agra and fighting some fun stomach problems so it was twice as nice. Around 3 pm our Minnesota contingent grabbed a bus and headed over to the Delhi airport to make our way to Bangalore.

I never posted pics of our hotel in Delhi, but it was pretty decent. Not the nicest place I've ever stayed and the price-points on all items from phone calls to expired sodas in the mini-bar were outrageous. I probably should have guessed considering there was a Rolls-Royce dealer in house, Mercedez-Benz CLK's for daily rental, and a night club on-site that was $60 just to walk in (and likely $30 top shelf vodka sodas). The Shangri-La Eros, besides the ridiculous pricing, was satisfactory though.  4 out 5 stars.

Yep, a Bentley Continental. Great use of $200k.

View from our room. Look out Times Square!

The room. My roommate Matt the engineer on the HP netbook. Notice the large rectangle in the center of the wall. That's a window....... into the shower. 

It was a pain to be packing up and leaving what was "home" for the past week. The truth was that I was scared shitless of losing the great breakfast buffet the Shangri-La served. Now I'm not knocking Indian food, but my stomach and the Indian cuisine are fighting a 12 round battle and my stomach has been visiting the cut man every round.

The Delhi Airport is a very modern international terminal and checking in and moving through security was effecient and painless. TSA back in the U.S. should really come over here and observe. I have no issues with fox holes and machines pointed at me as long as it saves me 30 minutes in line and a borderline sexual assault.

The good times indeed.

We flew Kingfisher Airlines to Bangalore and I have to say I had some apprehensions about an air carrier that also shares the name with the country's most popular beer. The flight was relatively smooth, seats spacious (even in economy, I really hope my future career consists of frequent travel so I can upgrade), and the 2 hour and change flight was done.

We loaded  a bus to our new hotel, The Chancery Pavilion in Bangalore and after about 35 minutes of driving we arrived. One thing that was quickly noticed was the infrastructure advancement from Delhi. I feel it's ironic that Delhi, the country capital with nearly unlimited government funds to spend, looks years behind where Bangalore is. Bangalore is no Chicago or Silicon Valley (as it's called here in India), but the living conditions are much improved. There aren't as many dogs running around, people aren't sleeping next to fires on the roadside every block, and begger's are less common. There is also a higher frequency of the West's finest food establishments, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Pizza Hut. Yum! is positioned very well over here and I'd be curious to see what their numbers look like. Pizza Hut is setup to be a fine dining experience which was a trip considering my American view of the chain.

So I just rambled a lot here and I still have to get one more quick post in and maybe I'll start uploading some videos before I push off to bed. Only 1 week left!

Oh yeah, the weather is awesome in Bangalore. How's the -25 Minneapolis?