A moment of peace

Here's why the Creative Commons license is a wonderful thing: a photograph of mine on Flickr showing a Bangalore street with a Hindu temple and Muslim mosque in close proximity was used to illustrate a post on Indian Muslims Blog calling for peaceful dialogue between Hindus and Muslims.

Triumph of the Bourgeoisie: a sturdy railing between you and the jungle

I was struck by this banner ad, which I saw on the site of the San Jose Mercury News:

Nice clean white people separated from the jungle by a sturdy wooden railing. They aren't sweating. They aren't in the sun. Their L.L. Bean sportswear is still perfectly pressed, dry and free of stains from grease, sunscreen or bug repellent. In fact, they might as well be watching a DVD of the Panamanian jungle from their condominium -- and why didn't they, instead of contributing to global warming by flying down there just so they can stay as far away from the jungle as possible?

Yes, I went to India two years ago -- and I stayed in the city, as opposed to a friend of mine who went a year later. He was never in the city, he boasted, but always out in the countryside, seeing the sites, whatever they are. I did not say: and every step of the way, your whole presence was an insult to the bitterly poor populace (and they are much poorer in the country than in the city), reminding them of the hopelessness of their lives.

I can't imagine traveling to a third world country just to lord it over the locals, who would be able to size me up at a glimpse and tell that my annual income is 10000% of theirs. So I don't understand the appeal of such trips to the American bourgeoisie (of which I am definitely a member; make no mistake, it's not like I'm trying to say that I'm not). What is it that they're going for? Scenery they can't see in the US? Cheap prices? To practice their language skills? I really don't get it. I hate the fucking jungle, I hate getting hot and sunburned, I hate sweating, I understand completely. My point is, why go at all?

So I won't be going to Panama (or anywhere else where the standard of living is below that of, say, Argentina) anytime if I can help it.

technorati: travel, third world

Coming home

Now that I'm home, I was finally able to post a few posts I wrote en route to Bangalore and just after arriving: here and the two posts following chronologically. I have also written two additional posts about my last day in Bangalore: here and following (chronologically).

I have also posted all my photos from Bangalore now.

San Francisco is so wonderfully cool! Right now at 11:05 pm -- 52 degrees F. (11 C.).

Escape from Bangalore

Writing from the Frankfurt airport on Sunday morning German time and Sunday night Bangalore time.

I will go back and blog about my last afternoon and evening in Bangalore but I want to describe the truly third-world conditions at the Bangalore departure terminal.

Like most international airports, the departure scene in Bangalore was somewhat of a clusterfuck, with a United Nations of thousands of departing passengers all being forced through the same bottlenecks. Narita in Tokyo is no better, so I have no complaint there. And I had already known that the departure waiting area was bare-bones. Passengers are fortunate to have a coffee stand that stays open, as nearly as I could determine, all night.

No, what was truly bizzare was that when a heavy cloudburst hit the airport, the ceiling started leaking. Streams of water poured down onto the floor and then into some strategically placed buckets, right among the seats where people were exhaustedly waiting. Because flights were delayed due to the weather, all we could do was stand and watch the filthy water filling up the buckets as mosquitoes buzzed us. One of the buckets was nearly full -- it was at least 7 gallons -- before we were allowed to board our flight, about 90 minutes late, so I never got to find out what the staff´s response would be to the overflow.

Someone with a European accent who was watching the leak said to me philosophically, "Well, it rains all over the world."

"Yes," I said, "but usually not inside the airport terminal."

Update: Read this news story on the rain that night and its effects.

The final afternoon and evening

As I wrote in my last post, we spent my last day driving around doing some errands. We visited a large, well-stocked (albeit somewhat disorganized) bookstore on M.G. Road where I got a couple of souvenirs, had coffee at a place called 92 degrees, and got pulled over by a traffic cop. (Our fault: we had told the driver to drive down what turned out to be a one-day street. We got out and handled the matter in a manner you might guess.)

Then we drove through a neighborhood called Chickpete. This is the oldest part of Bangalore, so it is a highly intense, extremely crowded commercial area. Take everything I've said about the traffic, congestion, noise, pollution and general ruckus, and square it -- that's Chickpete. We merely had our driver drive up the main drag. It was late in the day and I decided I did not want to experience it on foot, so I took photos only from the car, and most of them didn't turn out so hot. This is the best one. For better and more varied photos, look on Flickr for photos tagged Chickpet (which seems to be the preferred local spelling, through it says Chickpete on my map). Here is a good one.

Finally we went to a restaurant on C.H.M Road called Shiok which had a mix of Asian cuisines. A couple of my host's co-workers from Ogle, who had joined us on Thursday, also came. Charles had met the restaurant owner in an online foodie discussion forum, and had visited many times, so we got VIP treatment. Very nice ambiance with high quality food -- a great place to relax from the pressured and bustling experience of Bangalore.

And after that it was off to the airport.

One last round of thanks to my wonderful hosts Charles and Debbie.

Cars and drivers

After I got home from brunch with Ravi, I finished packing and my hosts called a taxi -- a real taxicab, not an autocab. This is a good time to explain the whole thing, which I have alluded to before during the week, of having a car and driver. Most Americans who are here with an American company are given, as a perk, a dedicated car and driver. My hosts' arrangement may be typical: they have use of the car and driver 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and they can shift the guy's schedule according to their needs. For example, when they picked me up from the airport*, they had arranged for the guy to work late on Saturday night (and it was really late -- after midnight -- when his day finally ended.) The driver is on call throughout his workday, which usually starts when he picks you up in the morning to take you to work. In the case of my hosts, the guy gives Charles a ride to work in the morning, then is on call throughout the day for him or his partner Debbie for errands and shopping. That's how, for example, we got to Malleswaram the first two times I went.

You can also get a taxi to perform the same function. Besides taking me to the airport late in the evening, there were several errands my hosts wanted to do, including going to a place called the Cash Pharmacy, where you can buy more than you might expect over the counter. Here's me and Debbie waiting outside while they fill the order.

Having a car (air-conditioned!) and driver is extremely convenient, even posh. And it may strike an American as being somewhat ostentatious. But you get over that pretty quickly.

How can companies afford it? I don't know the economics, but as my host pointed out, in countries like India with large pools of poor people, there is a bias toward choosing the more labor-intensive solution from the available options. (The opposite is true of many developed countries, which is why almost everyone who does menial labor in the U.S. is an illegal laborer from another country.) As for the taxi, it cost something like 2200 Rs. for 8 hours -- that's like $57. And as with the dedicated driver (who had the day off), when we went into a shop or restaurant, the guys just waits for you around the corner or across the street.

What do the drivers do when waiting? Charles' photo shows them playing an improvised game of chance.

* If you've been following my posts, you might not have seen that one, which I wrote after I arrived but did not get a chance to post until last night.

Metblogger brunch with Ravi

Metblogger RaviKumar met me at a restaurant out on Airport Road, near the Domlur bus stop, called Shanthi Sagar Hotel. (As I've written before, "hotels" are often just restaurants.) There he treated me to what he called a traditional Indian breakfast. Imitating my host Charles, I did take a picture of the food. We had something like an idly, and we also had dosas. Really good! He also informed me that local coffee comes from Karnataka state and that I really should take some home, though he added that it requires a certain kind of coffeemaking equipment that I don't have.

I had a fun conversation with Ravi, who was curious about my book and about the impressions I've posted here. He explained that the cow-blessing scene I encountered in Malleswaram yesterday was a new house blessing. According to him, they actually do lead the cow into the house as part of the ceremony.

Then we went to a huge hotel/mall called the Leela Palace. This is a so-called 7-star hotel that is truly on the scale of a hotel on the Las Vegas strip. We didn't even get into the hotel part, since the photo exhibit was in the mall. I was amused that when we entered the mall and asked the security guard where the photo exhibit was, he had absolutely no idea what we were talking about, and then I walked twenty feet over to a railing and saw the exhibit directly below us on a lower floor. Security guards are not reliable sources of information in general here, I think.

Also in the mall was the first really nice bookstore I've encountered yet -- the others have been dusty and poorly stocked. And the bookstore had several browsers. I was able to get a map of the city, not that I need it now on my last day here, but for reference purposes as I go back to work on my book.

As a crowning gesture, Ravi led me to one more new experience: a bus ride. This was one of the new Volvo buses that are air-conditioned and very comfortable and modern; they are also, according to my research, a symbol of the new middle class of IT and BPO workers, and have been attacked in the past. (News story from Oct. 2006.) And in fact, one of the windows of the bus was cracked, as if a stone had been thrown at it.

I appreciated Ravi's time and conversation so much. Thanks Ravi! (Update: Ravi later interviewed me by email.)

Tout

On Saturday morning I walked down to Brigade Road, the center of the tourist district, to cash some travellers checks. I had to wait about 40 minutes before the Thomas Cook office opened, and an Indian guy started talking to me. At first I thought he was just being friendly, but then he began telling me he had an auto nearby and would love to take me to a handicrafts shop for souveniers. I resisted this ploy and finally walked off, telling the guy I was going to get some coffee. But I had to wait outside the Cafe Coffee Day, which was just opening, and before I knew it, there he was again, this time driving his auto. He pulled up and motioned to me with a big grin.

Sighing, I went over to him and said, "Friend, thanks for talking to me, but I'm not getting into your auto." Then I walked off up Brigade Road where, as it happens, autocabs are forbidden.

I cashed my travellers checks and walked up to M.G. Road to get an auto to my next destination, brunch with metblogger Ravi. I had no sooner crossed the road than the guy showed up again. I was supposed to call Ravi so he could give the driver directions to the restaurant on Airport Road where we were to meet. As I was standing trying to give the phone to the driver of the auto I had chosen, the tout sprang up and took it out of my hands and started talking to Ravi. Then he translated the directions at length to the driver whose auto I was going to take.

For this service, I decided to give him 10 rupees (25 cents). But he refused to take it (though he did give me the phone back, of course). "Later we go shopping!" he cried, as I climbed into the other guy's conveyance and puttered away.

Socializing through eating

The dinner on Thursday was only the first of a series of celebratory meals. Friday night I took my hosts Debbie and Charles out to dinner at a restaurant of their choice -- the Karavalli seafood restaurant at the Taj Gateway Hotel on Residency Road.

All three of us piled into an auto for what should be a short 2 km ride, but due to the one-way streets, the trip was actually about three times that distance. That's probably the maximum I would like to ride in an auto with two other people no matter who they are. Two passengers are no problem, three is definitely pushing it.

The meal was super good, but as I am not a gourmet I will leave it to Charles to describe the meal on his blog -- I have the feeling he's going to, as he took pictures of the food.

Charles and Debbie's hospitality was so important to me this trip. Not only did they save me a ton of money on hotels, but they provided me with invaluable local knowledge. Without them, I might never have had the courage to take an auto on my own.

As we were seated and the maitre d' was handing out menus, the power failed. Total darkness for about seven seconds. No one moved or spoke. Then all the lights came back on, whether from a generator or from the main current I don't know. The maitre d' resumed handing us the menus with an unflappable smile, as if it happens every night. Come to think of it, there are probably seasons when it does.

Back to Malleswaram, this time with batteries

Early this morning I took an auto back to Malleswaram, this time with sufficient batteries for my camera, and I had the best walk. I explored down 8th Cross Road toward the east and then down Link Road toward (I think) the southeast, although it could have been the southwest... I got a little turned around.

I found a wonderful area of small modern houses that were just great. I went up and down the side streets taking pictures of them. Each one had a design drawn in chalk at the front door, and eventually I happened upon a woman (perhaps a housemaid) making one of these designs. I'll explain how she did it. She had a little metal bowl full of powdered chalk, and she expertly sprinkled it on the pavement, making first a grid of little dots, and then connecting some of the dots with intricate diamond shapes. The designs in front of each house are different, and as far as I can tell, reflect the creativity of whoever is doing it. I think I read somewhere that these designs are like good luck talismans, and are redone every day.

She allowed me to take pictures while she was making the design. Unfortunately it was right up against the bumper of a car parked next to the gate, but I was able to take the pictures anyway. I will post them later today my time.

A little later in my walk, I saw a canopy set up in a narrow lane and walked down to investigate. There was a cow in there, and a priest was drawing a design on the forehead of the cow and doing other ritualistic things with, among other objects, a bowl of fire in which I think he was burning incense. A small crowd of onlookers was there, including a photographer who was snapping pictures. I tried to get some pictures but I couldn't really get very close. Then, to my surprise, they coaxed the cow up some steps and onto the narrow walkway leading to the house itself. The cow and the people disappeared back there.

I had a great time walking around the neighborhood, getting slightly lost and then finding Sampige Road, which I had used as an orientation point on my previous visits. There I bought a couple of calendars to give as souvenirs. With these and a bottle of water in my hands I decided I better head home, so I had another entertaining auto ride back to the neighborhood where I'm staying.

Mango rain

Last night Metblogger Anita arranged a meetup at an impressive top-of-office-tower restaurant on M.G. Road. The restaurant, Ebony, has a terrace outside, and it was nice and cool up there. While my hosts and I waited for Anita and the other metbloggers to show up, several co-workers of my host Charles showed up -- they're all visiting from the Ogle headquarters in California. They took seats at the table to have drinks with us until the metbloggers showed up. Then it began to rain, and while the awning kept the rain off for a while, the rain grew heavier and we moved inside.

Anita IMed Charles saying she was stuck in traffic on account of the rain. And the Ogle people decided to stay put for the same reason. So we started having dinner. I told the Ogle people about my book and its working title, "Dear Prudence." The rain began falling harder and harder, and there were flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder. Someone said something about the rain and I explained that this wasn't the monsoon but the normal mid-summer rains called the "mango rains."

"Mango Rain," said one of the Ogle people. "That's a better title for your book."

"Hmm," I said dubiously. "It makes it sound kind of like a chick book."

"Well, it's about an American girl, you said, so why not?"

"I like 'Mango Rain' too," said everyone else.

Finally Anita showed up, rather drenched. We had a very nice conversation; I wish it could have been longer, but she had a dinner date elsewhere. So out into the rain she went.

We spent several hours there, leaving at about 11:00 pm. The rain was still falling. Before we left, there was a conversation about dickering with auto drivers. As I've said in previous posts, the auto drivers will sometimes try to overcharge foreigners. So we all agreed 30 rupees* was a fair price for a ride to our neighborhood at this time of night and in this weather.

When we got downstairs it was raining steadily, and there were about 5 autos waiting for fares. The party split up into several groups, as the auto can take only two passengers (especially large Americans, though I've seen more than two Indians in them). I wound up climbing into an auto alone. I told the driver my destination and he said "60 rupees."

"No way," I said, "30." *

"No," he said.

"Okay then," I said, calling his bluff and climbing out. But he wasn't bluffing. So I gave the last auto to the last two Ogle people and just started walking.

I was quickly drenched, but it wasn't uncomfortable. The air was quite warm and the rain wasn't cold. The only real problem was that I'm wearing glasses on this trip and they were covered with water. This is great for my book, I told myself. But after a hundred yards, I flagged down another auto. This time I told the driver my destination and he didn't say anything, nor did he engage the meter. Not sure what I would be expected to pay, I directed him to my corner and got out -- the rain had now slacked off a lot. He still didn't say anything, so I gave him 30 rupees and said thanks and went home.

* Keep in mind what small change we're talking about here. Thirty rupees is like 75 cents.

Much quieter day

Today, for the first time, I did not make a long, sweaty walk a large part of the day. In fact, if I had been better able to direct the auto driver to the intersection of Residency Road and Brigade Road, I would hardly have to walk at all. As it was, I walked about ten minutes in the morning heat, and that was enough. I was grateful for the air conditioning, and the wireless connection, of Cafe Coffee Day. I uploaded all the photos I took yesterday, including a set consisting of about 45 pictures along a half mile of Infantry Road around the corner from where I'm staying. I chose it because the combination of buildings in various states of construction, use, and destruction, illustrates better than I have been able to do in words the seeming anarchy of the cityscape. I tried to take a picture of every building in a three or four block stretch, from Main Guard Road to Central Street.

Seeing these, Cris wrote to me: Bangalore looks a lot less frantic than you make it out to be. That's because I took these photos at dawn!

Also, don't miss the pictures of the little procession I happened upon in a neighborhood... the name of which is too complicated for me to quite remember. It's directly east of Malleswaram proper.

Today I have done no exploring. In fact, after my trip to the internet, I got home a little after noon and took a three-hour nap, because I'm going out tonight with some local bloggers. Since I've been crapping out at about 8:00 pm the last few mights, I wanted to be able to stay up later. The side benefit was that when I woke up I had a clear head and was able to work very productively on my book for a couple of hours.

Then the power went out again, so I wasn't able to recharge my laptop battery. So I came back to the little internet place.

Current problems

Today the power (in local parlance, the "current") went out in mid-afternoon for the third day in a row. That's three out of three weekdays. It stays out for an hour or two and then comes back on -- so far. I expected this when I came; it's all part of the infrastructure challenge. You'd think that a place with a reputation as the tech capital of India would have the power thing figured out by now. Not.

Mid-afternoon is, of course, the hottest part of the day. All you can do is find some shade and hopefully a little breeze and wait it out. All things considered, I'm just glad the power does come back on each time.

Malleswaram the second time

Today I was finally was able to confront Malleswaram, where my main character (supposedly) lives, live and on foot. I was dropped on Sampige Road and 8th Cross, and in about 90 minutes did a circuit of the neighborhood. Starting down 8th Cross, which turned into Guttahalli Main Road, I encountered a small procession complete with band, fireworks, and flower-bedecked ... uh, I don't know what you would call them. Sort of like parade floats, only I think they have some religious significance and I don't want to be disrespectful. Anyway, there was a wonderful bit of raucous carrying on.

Right around then the batteries in my camera wore out. I brought a bunch of batteries with me, but I have been dumb about remembering to take them with me. But there were all these little bitty shops and stands around, and I managed to buy two AA batteries from an old man. Unfortunately they had almost no juice; I think I might have got one picture with them. A little farther on I tried again, from another shop -- after all, what are the chances that both sets of batteries would be dead? A hundred percent, as it turned out.

So I didn't have a working camera for most of my circumnavigation of Malleswaram, a neighborhood I had originally chosen because it was treesy and was supposed to be traditional. I went through a neighborhood that looked very working class, with lots of Hindu orange banners and red-and-yellow Karnataka* flags. Imagine walking through a Communist neighborhood in Barcelona and you'll get the idea -- little flags and pennants everywhere.

I turned north and walked up the hill, then finally turned west on 15th Cross. There I encountered an amazing site -- a laundry. This was so awesome I made the driver go home by way of the laundry after I had gotten batteries, so I could take some pix (later: here they are). Basically it was a kind of natural bowl, the size of a baseball stadium, filled with hanging wash, and beneath the wash were long tubs of soapy, dirty water with men standing in them beating clothes. There were dozens of people down there working in the heat.

Finally I got back into Malleswaram proper, and at a main street bought a bottle of Coke from one of those little shops. I started to walk off with it, and the guy behind the counter called me back. My 10 rupees did not entitle me to take the bottle with me. So I stood there and drank it. A cold Coke on a hot sweaty day still works.

East of Sampige Road I was finally able to find the Malleswaram I had seen in the pictures two years ago on the internet -- more or less. Nice middle-class houses on either side of peaceful, tree-lined lanes. In many cases the houses dating from, I'm guessing, the 50s onward, showed real architectural talent and imagination; for the most part they weren't ostentatious monstrosities, which is one way I knew they hadn't been built in the last ten years. Sorry my camera didn't work!

The main purpose of this jaunt was to find the apartment building where my main character "lives." And I think I have a good candidate. I want to go back there and evaluate the setting. I did manage to take a picture of it before the batteries ran out. The thing about the building is that it has to be modern and large enough to house all of the 15 Americans that have come over to open the call center for their employer. It has to look suitably modern for that -- and also be in a low spot which can flood in an unexpected downpour.

Waiting for the car to pick me up, I had to deal with three little child beggars. I didn't take their picture, nor did I give them money. They didn't seem to be unhappy about it, though, nor did they seem to be truly frightened of the security guard who shooed them away from time to time. It seemed a little like a game to all of them.

* Karnataka is the Indian state of which Bangalore is the capital. Yeah, a lot of its residents never heard of California either.

Field trip to supermarket, Goethe Institut, power failure

We took the car and driver to another area of the city, which I don't quite know the name of but it's out on this long street called C.M.H. Road. The road goes past a "tank" or reservoir and then immediately skirts this low area where there's some serious third-world poverty. Gradually the land rises and as it does so, the affluence of the surroundings grows, until a couple of miles down the road we were once again in a middle-class area. The Goethe Institut was out there, and it had an exhibition by the people behind the Blank Noise Project.

Then we went to a supermarket across the way -- a very modern supermarket, it had every modern product and decor. I noticed some other western people there, so the neighborhood must be fairly cosmopolitan, what with the Goethe place and all.

On the way back a few drops of rain fell. I was very excited by this, because rain and floods figure large in my novel. Unfortunately (from my selfish perspective), the rain barely got the windshield wet.

When we got back to the apartment, the power was out. Debbie had told me it had gone out the day before, too, when I was out on Brigade Road eating pizza. (The power flickered at the pizza place, too, but came on in five seconds. I hadn't even been sure it was a power failure until I went out and saw that every single shop had a generator blasting away outside its door -- making the sidewalk even more hot and polluted than it was, something I wasn't sure was possible.) After the rain shower, it was actually a little cooler outside, so we opened the doors to the balcony and sat near them, reading. That was really pleasant.

In early evening I went out again to the little internet place to blog. After the fairly big breakfast and the fairly big lunch I had no desire to eat dinner so after blogging I just walked around some more, and then I finally realized I was really, really tired, so I went to bed about 8:00 pm. I knew this was, more or less, giving in to jet lag and would mean that I would wake up long before dawn. But I felt too sleepy, and after showering I fell right into bed and slept deeply.

I haven't said anything about the shower here. There's no automatic hot water; you have to turn on a little heater on the wall if you want some. But it's so hot outside and the bathroom itself is not air-conditioned, so I have just been showering with the "cold" water (which is cool but not that cold, definitely not as cold as the cold water in SF).

Wireless at last, and photos!

Finally found a place with wireless, so I have uploaded a few dozen photos. Enjoy.

The unknown California

Since I went to bed at 8 p.m. the night before (see last entry), of course I woke up at 4:00 a.m. But I definitely felt well rested. I decided to get up and work on my book a little.

When I started this book two and a half years ago, I thought it would go fast. And I guess it would have, if I didn't take it seriously. But while I'm capable of doing something at a pretty-good level, I can't consciously do something mediocre. It's taken me this long to get it to a pretty-good level. And then I thought, well I really ought to go to Bangalore, since most of my book is set there.

I was afraid that coming here would just complicate things, that I would realize that so much of what I have written about the city is just wrong. And that has happened to a certain degree. I really will have to do another rewrite when I get home. But some of what I wrote is accurate. SO it's not like I have to throw everything out.

Of course, the book is mainly about the characters and what they do, their feelings and actions, and these do not depend, in large part, on whether or not the roads here are filled with potholes (they aren't, as it turns out). Other things will be fairly easy to fix. My character's assignations had been set at the Meridien Hotel; once I found out that the Meridien is out of the way, I'm changing it to the Oberoi. Other things are more difficult, the things that really depend upon geography, but that's what I came here to find out.

After working on my book some, I went out about 6:30 and took some more pictures, and then I went back to the nearby Catholic Church where there was a mass going on in the local language (I assume). I had already missed the English-language service, which starts at 6:00. Maybe tomorrow, if I'm still on this jet-lagged schedule.

Then I went to breakfast at the Jet Set Cafe (see this entry) which is, as I said, very close to the apartment. The breakfast was not on par with the Oberoi, which is like saying comparing a Day's Inn with the St. Francis Hotel.

I had a surprising interaction with the waiter. He asked where I was from, and I said San Francisco. Everybody knows San Francisco, right? But he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Finally I said, "San Francisco, California." This evoked a glimmer of recognition. "California..." he said tentatively. "It's in America, right?"

That's not to say he wasn't a really good waiter. He was.

The only trouble was that the bill for breakfast used up all my small bills. And without small bills you can't take an auto -- the drivers don't even have change for a 100 rupee bill, much less a 500 which was all I was left with. So I ended up walking up to the tourist zone on Brigade Road. I was shlepping my laptop so I wound up at a Cafe Coffee Day with -- ta-da! -- wi-fi access. And hopefully they will be able to deal with the 500 rupee bill I am about to give them.

Bangalore's surface

What's so interesting about this place, on the surface, is the total architectural anarchy. A modern office building next to an older building that is almost entirely obscured by signage, next to a colonial-era house that looks like it is ready to fall down, next to a huge mall, next to a tiny little "milk" stand. (These are little bitty third-world style food shops, barely more than a counter in front of a trailer-sized room full of wares.) And this is merely a description of the street frontage. Between buildings and through gates, you can glimpse other buildings, hovels, offices, yards, lots, houses, shrines, parked cars. You could pick any single block and, given enough access and courage, spend weeks or months exploring its labryinth.

Just to take a small example: in my search for a wireless access point, I found a listing in a restaurant guide of a "Jet Set Cafe" that was, according to the address, quite near. Since it was lunch time, Debbie and I set out to find it. And even though it was literally right around the corner, it turned out to be in a hotel that is behind an office building -- a four-story hotel she hadn't even known was there, and which doesn't even have a sign on the street.

So I could spend an hour or two, or all day, walking -- which means constantly switching from sidewalk to street, dodging vehicles both moving and parked, as well as other pedestrians, all the time trying to take in and grok my surroundings -- and just get the bare surface impression of what's here. In that sense, this trip to research my book is futile. (But it's also true that my main character is someone who spends months here and finally realizes she hasn't even scratched the surface.) Still, the sense of the city and the impressions I'm getting really are valuable. I can now identify so many mistakes I have made in my manuscript, mistakes even someone who (like me) has spent only 72 hours here can see. There's no way I could have known, for example, how out-of-the-way the Meridien Hotel is without trying to get there myself.

Oh, about that wireless access point in the "Jet Set Cafe." The signal was great. But after I logged on and began uploading pix to Flickr, my virus checking software started giving me messages about how it was defeating a certain virus. Finally it said it wanted to restart to complete the virus-defeating action. Clearly the hotel where the Jet Set Cafe is has a virus in its network. So scratch that idea. I was, however, able to upload a few pictures.

Military presence

I'm sure there's a historical explanation for the very visible presence in Bangalore of military installations. Right in the middle of town there is a "parade ground" consisting of a big rectangle of the red-orange dirt, and across the road there is a zone, taking up several city blocks, with a number of military offices. People in San Francisco might think of the Presidio -- if the Presidio took up the entire area between Mission and Bryant Streets between 3rd and 7th. And there are these military installations, buildings and grounds all over the city. You can't go a mile down the road without seeing one.

Once I am able to post photographs I will link to pictures I will take in a moment. I see that from the little balcony outside this little internet way station on the second floor of a building (without wi-fi, naturally -- haven't found it yet), I can see over the wall into one of these military compounds. It consists of a bunch of little stucco buildings that look more like the grounds of a disused California mission than a military base. On the plus side, there are a lot of trees, and I guess they are keeping their very large part of the city from being developed into the sprawling jumble that characterizes the part of the city they don't control.

The heat

A friend wanted to know how I'm coping with the heat here. Back in SF whenever it gets over 75, people just freak out. No one has air conditioning at home, for good reason, because there are only 5 days a year when it gets hot. As someone who used to live in the Midwest and in Texas, after 20 years in San Francisco I lost my ability to cope with heat, and I freak out just as badly as anyone.

But it hasn't been so bad here, perhaps because I expected it. Take this morning -- I took a long, hot 45 minute walk before breakfast, because the only place I can find that serves breakfast is a big luxe hotel. When I arrived I was hot and sweaty and had also just walked two miles without anything to eat. But no matter how luxe the hotel is, because I'm a white man they don't even look twice. The big luxe hotel was made for sweaty white men like me, and our business colleagues from around the world. So I had another expensive (for here) continental breakfast. And then, because it was so nice in the air conditioning, sat in the lobby for another hour and read.

But as I was saying, the heat is not killing me. St. Louis in the summer is much, much worse.