B by Bicycle - what I did this weekend

Hah, I finally did it, I purchased Friday, May 20th 2011, a nice bicycle with 21 gears, aluminium frame and slender tires for about 10000 INR (about 150 EUR). Now, I can go to the city centre independently from the shuttle or public buses. The ride to the Indian Institute of Sciences takes about 20 min, and the old part of the city is about 30+ min away. I just realized this weekend, how large Bangalore is, when I met a polish friend near Forum Mall in the south of Bangalore (25 km from NCBS). The ride was ok, the traffic is a bit chaotic, but one can handle it well, because the speed is low (mean velocity 30 km/h). Sometimes the streets are so packed that even with a bike you have to wait.
When I entered the old city centre, I was positively surprised by the beauty of the Cubbon park, the red Karnataka high court building, the Raj Bhavan (residence of the gouvernor of Karnataka) or the Vikasa Soudha (seat of the state legislature of Karnataka). Going further to the south, I passed by the Lal Bagh botanical garden, and entered finally the Forum Mall, which is like the European or American temple of commerce. At the other side of the mall, I just saw a big building of the Robert Bosch GmbH. Fortunately we (my Polish friend Szymon and his French colleague Jihane)  did not stay in the mall, but went to a north-west Indian restaurant with very good food.The way back was easier to ride, because the streets were nearly empty at 10.30 pm, and I finished the evening with a late night round of 28 (a card game) with some friends at the Mandara hostel.

forum mall

On saturday, I was again in the city center to go to the Jaaga (see the particular post), and later, I headed back to the hostel to join a party of my lab-mates. It was great to see and hear them singing bollywood songs, to dance and to drink with them. On Sunday, we had a great dinner of Benghal food prepared by a colleague at the Mandara hostel. It was interesting to see, how the Daal, the fried fish or the Curry are prepared, and I hope that I will manage to learn some of this cooking. This time, I just prepared some Kaiserschmarren as a desert, and we ate it together with some Mango jam which came from another colleague. This combination was just delicious.