The first and longest day

 Last year when we went to Thailand we recalled that on the first day after landing the jet lag would mean that Ethan would be up at about 7:30am… Sydney time, which is about 3am in Bangalore. And that’s exactly what happened. But we’d planned for it, so it wasn’t as excruciating as you’d think. We watched tv and played iPad & games until about 6am and then took a walk through the hotel grounds to eat up some time. The pink palace is a huge U shape built around lush green trees and a bright blue pool. The gentle hum of car horns and traffic can be heard, even in the early hours of the morning. 

We headed down for breakfast, because we love a hotel breakfast, and sampled dishes from around the world. But little Ethan just had waffles and pancakes with chocolate sauce and chocolate dots because why not! Afterwards we went straight to the pool and had a swim, but it was a little chilly both in & out so we didn’t stay long. We decided to go to the Museum of Art and Photograpy so ordered an Uber and braved the traffic into our first adventure.

The museum wasn’t overly big, but had some great art. Usually when you travel, the Indian art seems to be a lot of historical artefacts or pictures of Ganesh rather than much of anything else. And first, that IS what we saw, but it was a holographic display in a darkened room of the ancient artefacts they hold in the museum. Then followed by 3D renderings of important artworks that you take a journey through whilst wearing 3D glasses. A really great way to be introduced to the art in the museum. Then we followed the trail up 5 floors and saw an exhibition of metallic prints, and another of burned wood. We also saw a collection of art depicting how women are portrayed through art in India. It was just such a refreshing gallery to visit and learn about modern Indian art.

We took a taxi (tuk-tuk) to Commercial Street, which is the well known shopping district. It is a long road filled with shop after shop of sari’s, silks, kurtas and trinkets with cars, bikes and cows interweaving through the pedestrians. We didn’t find too much to buy but enjoyed the warm air before taking another Uber back to our hotel room for a planned afternoon nap. See, we know what to do on day one! 

After nap time someone was a bit cranky because they couldn’t get to sleep. Me, it was me. And then it was also Ethan when he woke up. We are both the babies. So we went down to the pool as the weather had warmed up, but by the time we popped in, ordered a beer and fries, an afternoon shower appeared. What a shame! So back to the hotel room for an hour or so until we could go downstairs to library bar for a drink. However Ethan can’t go into that bar, so back to the hotel room for an hour or so. By this time, all three of us babies were ready to tantrum.

At 6:30 every night they have a diya lighting ceremony, which was quite nice and I lit a candle with Ethan on my hip. Lucky he didn’t touch it as I got wax all over my finger! We then had a drink at the bar outside (after it had been fumigated for mosquitos) and then to dinner at the hotel Indian restaurant Jamavar. The staff were so attentive to us and the food was delicious, but we cut the night pretty short as we’re all still pretty tired due to jet lag, and we know we’re coming back to this hotel in a couple of days so we can do it all again soon