Welcome to Bengaluru

G'day all, or at least 'all' those keen to hear stories and some of the fun and games for my (and this time 'our') little jaunt OS. Whilst this probably won't be quite like the stories of Walksontour from a few years ago (and certainly not the blacklist!), hopefully we'll be able to keep in touch with great mates and family and share a little of our adventures.

For any of you that we didn't catch up with prior to leaving Oz, a quick little background...

After starting my new job in Melbourne in Sept 09, a number of chance circumstances combined to suddenly open up the opportunity for a long term secondment in Bangalore. Whilst I didn't really expect Clarky to be too keen, she was (obviously!) quite open to the concept on the whole. Whilst the idea was first 'mooted' around or just after xmas, by the time all the necessary 'corporate approvals' etc were taken care of and the green light was given, we literally had just on 4 weeks before the date we needed to be here...

So we went into the mad rush of packing up, renting out the house, getting organised etc to get everything ready to go in such a short space of time - thankfully my work helped a lot of course as part of the deal - not sure it would be possible to get so much organised (whilst working pretty crazily right up until leaving) quickly enough without all the agencies helping with freight, packing, visas, temporary accom etc.

We also had the 'help' of some of our best mates and family: Like seagulls on a chip at the beach, they managed to snaffle up my tele, motorbike, car (we sold Clarky's to another mate), Playstation, Lawnmower etc on 'long term loan' - thanks blokes... I think...hope they're all going well for you!

After a short stint staying in a serviced apartment downtown, just a block or so from the Mitre Tavern in fact (coincidence?), we had the pleasure of some of our nearest and dearest seeing us off from the airport on the morning of Monday 5th.

There is something really quite strange living in a hotel/serviced apartment right in the middle of your home city...even stranger when you're home of four years (freshly rented out) is less than 5km away...and even a little more when walking almost past the front door (literally within 50m) with a bunch of mates on a Pub Golf session in your home (previous home?) suburb. On the counter, it's pretty easy to then get over the little pang of nostalgia when aiming to win the aforementioned competition - jug skulls seemed a lot easier at Uni... Thanks to all involved though for one of the best and most memorable nights out for a long time.

I've got to say the flight to Singapore was fantastic - we'd been upgraded once previously to Business Class (during the whole 'Heathrow scare' a few years ago trying to get to Hong Kong from Nice) previously, but were probably too exhausted to appreciate it. I'm happy to plug Singapore Airlines here as the trip Melb - Sing was fantastic; great service, food, drinks, entertainment, huge space and the best 8 hour flight I've ever had. Sing - Bang was not a lot worse, and whilst smaller plane meant not quite the same level of luxury, it was a fairly quick 4 hours.

Arriving in Bangalore we eventually found our driver who was there to collect us and take us back to Oakwood Prestige in UB city (we're still here at present), which is also more than comfortable.

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, I've spent by far the majority of my time working some reasonably long hours and trying to get my head around everything with the teams, stakeholders, operations, issues, regulatory requirements, etc - I'm not too stressed about this as obviously that's what I'm here to do(!), but I'm also eager to get out a little more and immerse myself in the incredible diversity in cultures, cuisines, customs, languages, traditions, religions etc. Having said that we had the luxury and pleasure of having a good mate and work colleague (from Melbourne) to welcome me to the office day one and pave the way for a much quicker introduction and settling period. As a Bangalorian (I may have just made that word up) originally, I've worked with him since last Sept, and he's been doing a brilliant job acting in my new role here in Bang until I arrived. Even more valuable has been the intro to some of his family and contacts here, the opportunity to enjoy the Bangalore Club, and helping celebrate his birthday with local friends and family.

The well known Bangalore traffic can be crazy - whilst there are rules and laws, they seem to be often more just 'advisory' than anything to be taken too seriously...especially road lanes. Yet for all the pushing in, mixing, beeping, merging, beeping, swerving, cutting, creeping, beeping etc, it does work. There is no way somewhere like Melb would ever cope with anything like the volume - the 'Nanny state' would go into overload, the revenue collectors would have heart attacks with excitement and to be honest most of the drivers simply wouldn't move due to 'perpetual hesitation' or perhaps fear. But here it works - the beeping that is so famous is actually used to warn other road users where you are, or really that you're about to or are at least wanting or trying to barge up the inside/outside around them.


You have to love some of the rules and laws you encounter travelling/living overseas. I love to learn and try to understand 'why' and 'how' etc, but I'm happy to admit defeat or at least postpone my 'understanding' on occasions. One such classic is the (apparently new) helmet rule on bikes and scooters: the driver must now wear a helmet, although it doesn't seem to be policed too heavily and 'helmet' I've discovered can be a very loose term. However, your passenger is not required in the least to wear a helmet. Nor is your other passenger for that matter. Nor the next. Nor the next. In fact Dad can literally don a loose fitting inverted rusty colander, crank over the trusty 50cc two-stroke scooter, load up the missus and at least 3 kids and head off into the gridlock... Golden!

I'm sure I'm missing heaps but I'll endeavour to try to keep up with stuff a little closer to point of reference as well. In short, work is going well and yes there are cows on the road. Clarky is out and about meeting people, going to yoga, generally having a tough life. We've probably selected a place to move into in a couple of weeks (for at least a few months at least, will update when we get there), we've avoided trouble to date and are both pretty much enjoying the challenge and differences. Here are a couple more photos to at least make this a little interesting I hope for now.

OK, so clearly I can't work out the whole photo-placement thing...will try to improve on this also in 2nd instalment.