by vagabond » Sun Jan 08, 2012 2:29 am
I was in Bangalore in Dec 08. It's a very hectic, busy place, and was very annoying as a backpacker on a budget looking for a place to stay that was affordable and not an absolute shithole. Other than that:
-You'll be able to find plenty of Western food, even good Western food that won't make you shit like a fire hydrant. I went to a nice Cuban (I think) restaurant there and there are plenty of other options (even Western style 'health') options. Given the amount of foreign companies w/ hqs there, I'm sure that, due to the expat community, these places will have slightly higher standards than many other places in India. So if you can't do curry and have to do only Western food, you'll probably be in good company w/ your other Western compatriots. With the company I used to work with, one of the guys lived on pizza and fish and chips from the hotel for two months in Mumbai. So, if the hotel is a decent international one, it also shouldn't be a problem if you always do room service (which hopefully your company picks up the tab for).
-Drinking. Plenty of bars and they even have a closed off pedestrian area. There's a lot of young hip places and it's one of the few I've seen where girls are actually out and about drinking as well so it's not one huge sausage fest.
-The rickshaw drivers are the worst, most cutthroat, and most idiotic in India. This will be your experience and is the experience of many Indians I've known that have had to deal with them. Most of the drivers, like in many cities, come from somewhere else in India, barely know their way around and try and overcharge more than any other drivers I've ran into in two trips to the country. Depending on where you are, and how the company handles you, it's entirely possible to walk, take a cab (not douche bags and w/ rate cards that are legit), or the company will provide a car and driver/van. I will assume the latter since that tends to be policy w/ big organizations there.
-Flying from LA. It's a bit of a haul. Where I worked, we flew Emirates through Dubai. There are two different flights and the newest one, that I got to take, was great. The plane from LAX - Dubai was barely full and everyone in my part of coach got to stretch out and sleep on a whole row. Dubai - Mumbai sucked. Not sure how you'd be getting to Bangalore from LA but there are flights via Cathay through Hong Kong and other decent airlines that take the Pacific route. The cool thing about the return flight from Dubai was flying over the North Pole.
Moving on from Banglore/India...
Where in LA is the company based? That could make a difference in your experience out here as well. Shoot me a PM if you don't want it on the forum of course. Swain would probably have some (better) advice too.
"If you were born near someplace called "The Erg of ____" you lost the lottery." - Kurt the Wise
"If you're stupid, the whole world is a dangerous place." - friendlyskies