Bangalore, Karnataka, India – Bangalore is the total yuppie capital of India with everyone here just like they were in the 80s at home. Everyone is dressed really nice and this city just exudes new money and wealth. The first thing we did was upgrade from our cockroach-infested closet (that three of us had to sleep in the bed together because none of us wanted to be on the floor with the bags) to a nicer hotel with a bathroom, ceiling fanned, and color TV with MTV Asia and BBC Asia. We were so stoked when we found a room with a TV. We were splurging at 6 dollars a night for that luxury.
We went walking around the flower market. You have never seen this many flowers in your life. From there was the racetrack to bet on some horses. It sounded like a good idea at that time. We placed our bets, got our snacks, and headed out to the track. We sat in the stands, but were suddenly confused because there were not any horses in sight and the race was due to start any minute. We could hear the announcer listing of the horses over the loudspeaker, but where the hell were they. The man next to us explained that the race was up north in Hyderabad and the announcer from the track up there was piped into us. None of our horses won the race, so we got bored and went back to the hotel to get Kate’s stuff.
Kate who had been our traveling companion for two weeks was leaving to go north. She had a plane to London she needed to catch. We said our good byes and Rich took her to the train station while I sat mesmerized by MTV Asia. Now, the room did not actually come with MTV Asia when we checked in. So, I called downstairs and I asked the hotel clerk if it was possible for him to get MTV Asia on the satellite. So what they were required to do was actually reposition the satellite dish to pick up MTV Asia and they wiped off one of the Hindi speaking languages off of the entire hotel closed circuit system.