after reading on every india travel web site that it is illegal to bring rupees into the country, i decided the best plan of attack was to pick up some USD in Toronto and then exchange once i got here. the travel guide i was reading told me there was an exchange counter at the airport, but it also told me to avoid using any shady-looking currency exchange services. given this is my first time travelling to India, it was hard to immediately distinguish 'shady' from 'non-shady'... and I decided to forego the airport exchange service for this reason.
thus, i was left with a bunch of american dollars and no rupees - and i hadn't really known that i would have to pay for my meals here on campus in rupees (having lived in residence at Dal for many years, I naively assumed they would have a swipe card system in place). fortunately, for the past few days i've been allowed to run a tab at the cafeteria, but i was starting to feel guilty about asking for bottles of water and things when i couldn't actually pay.
hence, my first adventure: an excursion to downtown Bangalore on the shuttle bus to exchange currency at the Thomas Cook on IISc (Indian Institute of Sciences) campus. by myself. instructions from the grad students here were very clear - the Thomas Cook is located next the the shuttle bus stop (i.e., impossible to NOT find). so off I went.
first, the shuttle bus. it was Saturday afternoon, and quite a few of the students here were heading downtown to visit family or go shopping, so the bus was crowded. I didn't realize I'd have to push ahead to get a seat, so I ended up standing for most of the journey. after living in Toronto for over a year, I've honed my TTC-riding skills enough to not hold on to the dirty poles. this shuttle ride was a) nothing like the smooth-as-velvet TTC tracks and b) required clinging to (comparably) much dirtier poles. not only was the road out of campus incredibly rocky, but the driver took it at what felt like 80 or 90 km/h. then, traffic. I had no idea what Indian highways would actually be like. trucks, buses, cars, SUVs, auto-cabs (little half rickshaw-half car type things with a seat in the back for passengers), motorbikes, scooters. no lanes. very muddy red dirt roads. huge lines of people waiting on the shoulder of the highway for a passing bus to pause and allow a few to jump on. and HORNS. constant NOISE. I get fed up with Toronto drivers who use the horn unnecessarily, but after 5 minutes on the Indian highway, it's hard to imagine being annoyed by a few isolated beeps. the constant honking and blaring quickly fades into the background.
what amazed me most was the aggression/fearlessness of the motorbike drivers. imagine you have 4 lanes of traffic moving at a good clip in the same direction. then imagine you have 5 times as many motorbikes as you do cars in a given 5 vehicle by 5 vehicle area. then imagine these motorbikes not actually occupying positions in any given lane, but rather weaving in and out of traffic, speeding up erratically, and cutting around trucks on the shoulder. only a handful wear helmets. and i was highly impressed by the number of women dressed in impeccably clean saris who managed to keep up with the chaos on their own bikes.
the rest of the trip was less eventful/noteworthy. after arriving at Thomas Cook, I was told they only exchange currency at the M.G. Road (shopping district) location... but there are 2 banks on campus where I could get rupees. so I set out to find the banks, and was successful thanks to many helpful directions from passersby. unfortunately, both banks had closed before lunch, and by now it was about 2:45 pm. most businesses seem to only open for Saturday morning, then close down for the rest of the weekend. so I'll head back to IISc tomorrow, and hopefully return with enough rupees to cover meals for the remainder of my stay.
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