First post from Bangalore

I'm in a tiny internet access point (called a "cafe" but without a cafe) on the second floor of a building, accessible up a narrow set of stone steps. The only sign there's internet here is a sign that says ISD.

We're in the center of the city, geographically. The neighborhood is a mixture of fairly recent three and four story buildings and decrepit stone or concrete buildings which date, I'm guessing, from the 40s. There are large shade trees everywhere, though the sun is straight overhead at midday and it's not really possible to walk down the street in the shade.

As I'd seen from pictures, the sidewalks are quite a mixture. In most places they consist of a series of interlocking stones set over a culvert. In some places one or more of these stones is missing. There's a lot of stepping up and down, and a lot of times the whole sidewalk is blocked, either by garbage, or some wares set on the sidewalk, or a vendor having set up shop on the sidewalk, or a big elelctrical or telephone junction box -- you don't walk purposefully down the sidewalk, you meander slowly, watching for obstacles.

It's a little dirty and dusty but not as bad as I feared, partly because there was a thunderstorm a couple of days ago. It might rain again tonight, they say.

I just spent an hour sitting inside a small, dingy shop trying to get a SIM card for my phone. It took a long time because apparently Sunday is a day when lots of people do their shopping, including activating or putting more minutes on their phones, so the circuits used to activate cards were tied up. While we waited we chatted with an off-duty policeman who had come into the shop to get his Bluetooth headset working with his cell phone. He showed us a little phone video of his new baby daughter. When he saw the business card from Ogle of my host Charles, he said reverently that if there were anything he could do for an Ogle employee, please call him.

So this is my first post from Bangalore. I have actually written other posts but they are on my flash drive, which this computer can't seem to connect to. But eventually I will post them all in order.

It's about 2 pm local time. We're going to take a stroll to another internet cafe. Right now I totally need to be led by the hand, as I am not yet oriented.