Around Bangalore in 11 hours
A North Indian friend who has been posted here just a year ago called me today to ask me where she should take her relatives who were coming to Bangalore on a holiday. I started with Mysore, Srirangapatna, Savandurga, Mekedaatu when she stopped me and said “No, I mean places within Bangalore!”
I immediately said Lalbagh, Cubbon Park and Vidhan Soudha. Then I stopped and thought. And then I rattled the names of some temples. And after a little more reflection, I started on the shopping streets and shopping malls. Then I began to wonder: If your visitors are not much into shopping or temples where do you take them in Bangalore?
I checked what the BMTC city tour is offering.
The buses ( 3 fully airconditioned blue and white Curitiba buses ) start at 8:30 a.m from Majestic and take the passengers on the following route:
ISKCON
Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace
Bull Temple at Basavanagudi
Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple
Break for lunch at Pai Viceroy in Jayanagar
Lalbagh Botanical Gardens
Venkatappa Art Gallery, Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Cubbon Park
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium / Indira Gandhi Musical Fountain
Ulsoor Lake
Back to majestic at 7 P.m.
Each bus has a seating capacity of 35. Tickets are priced at Rs 200/head on weekdays; Rs 250/head for 32 seats on weekends; Rs 350 for three special seats on weekends (exclusive of entry tickets and lunch).
Services provided on board include a 500 ml bottle of water, a CCTV playing tourism promos for 30 minutes; Hindi film songs and newspapers
BMTC is planning for limited outsourcing of operations of Bangalore Rounds. While the corporation provides the bus and the driver, the private partner will have to take care of marketing and sale of tickets.
You can call 22952422/22952314 one day before the tour for registering your names, and also for information. Seat allocation on a first come first served basis.
I guess it must be fun to go around Bangalore in a bus – must be worth a try even for the locals. And it is not more expensive than an auto ride around city, is it? This could be a kind of overview and then you could go back again to spend more time in select places.
And then of course you have the National Park and Safari at Bannerghatta and Nandi Hills.
If you want to give them a different shopping experience take them to Avenue road or Majestic or Jayanagar or Gandhi Bazaar or Malleshwaram because shopping in the big malls is the same in all big cities in the country.
Sounds like a good itinerary, and very representative. My only grouse is the inclusion of ISKCON. What’s the point of including a restaurant whose business model is based on disguising itself as a temple, and inducing guilt trips to make people spend money? Doesn’t deserve to be on the destination list IMO.
What a horrible comment by Ambar. Judging by this and his other posts and comments that I’ve been unfortunately following on this site, I must say that he’s a terrible influence on Bangalore Metblog.
How can anyone say that ISKCON is not a place worth seeing in Bangalore. It is the Pride of Bangalore in the concrete jungle that it has become today. Even if one does not believe in God, It still is a must see place for its astounding architecture and cleanliness.
Thanks Usha, for the info about one day trip :)
And yeah, shopping in Avenue road and Majestic area – is a wonderful experience. Its been a long time since I visited Avenue road. That place was a regular visit during my engineering days…
Thanks for the info, Usha. Very informative for visitors to Bangalore with limited time on their hands.
AT AMBAR:
Jeez, is that a utterly stupid comment or what? Ever heard the truth about keeping your mouth shut if ignorant only to open it and remove all doubts? Your comment does gross injustice to the ideals & objectives of ISKCON. Since you seem to know their business model(s) ever heard of their Akshaya Patra scheme? Do ‘enlighten’ us about the billions they earn from that scheme.
I’m being considerate with you, mate unlike commenters in your blog page!
ABC/Krishna/Anonymous/WTF/GL: IP address. If you’re going to go about being a sock-puppet, have the brains not to use the same IP address everytime. And please stop spewing garbage on completely unrelated posts by others on the blog just to get back at me.
Usha: My regrets for having drawn this troll to your post.
Thanks for the information. Shopping at commercial street could be the perfect closure for such a trip.
I agree that Ambar’s comment was totally outta whack for this particular post. And Ambar – bear in mind, when it comes to religion and fake swamijis, there’ll always be people who follow them blindly.
That apart, Ambar is right! ISKCON sucks! They’ve done everything from child molestation to human racketeering to murder. Its shameful the way ISKCON has become the ambassador of Hinduism across the world! Why, even wikipedia itself describes the controversies in its ISKCON main page!!! Go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISKCON
and check out for yourself. Don’t forget to read the ‘Seven purposes of ISKCON’ and ‘The four regulative principles’ before you scroll down to ‘Scandal and controversy’. And what more, google ISKCON! Once you get past the millions of ISKCON sites worldwide, all you’ll find are scandals.
I’m sorry too Usha for bringing up something totally unrelated to your post. But couldn’t hold myself back. I hate ISKCON with passion! But very good info on the Bangalore Tour. :)
Since we’re on the topic of places to visit, and temples in particular, let me suggest another one. This one is in Mahalaxmi Layout (yes very near ISKCON!). Its the Prasanna Veeranjaneya Temple in Mahalakshmi Layout. Around 3 decades old IIRC, and its built on a hillside (like almost all of the surrounding area). The deity’s statue is huge, and carved from a monolith. Definitely worth a visit, even if you’re not particularly religious.
What about Chickpet? I’ve been told it’s a very colorful area and an older part of the city. As someone who’s never been to Bangalore, I might be interested in seeing that. Your thoughts?
I usually do not indulge in criticism amd counter criticism nor go on self-defense about every sigle point that is not acceptable to the readers. I think the purpose of a blogpost is to present some facts or opinion and then let others share their point of view on the issue or give additional information. This is not a court and there are no verdicts.
In an open platform like this everyone is entitled to air their opinion provided they do so in a civil manner. Let us not allow our personal prejudices to interfere with healthy discussions. Let us not indulge in provocative usage of language. let us attack the issue and not the persons bringing up an issue.
ISCKON, and Bangalore. About as related as McD and Bangalore. Probably the only reason it figures is for the foreign tourist? or maybe cos the ISCKON trust donates/sponsors (to) the Akshaya scheme?
no MTR in the itenary? strange.
Usha,
The BMTC had a couple of open-top double-deckers for tours – one named kaveri(the other I forget), are you referring to them, by any chance?
BangaloreGuy, its just not practical to have MTR in the itinerary I guess. Unless you go really early in the morning, you have to wait for a considerable amount of time.
Even if they do get inside, the entire day will be spent eating! :D
heck, they’re travelling all day but cant fit in a Bangalorean lunch/late afty snack in it? sounds more like poor organising to me.
A friend was telling me how amused his chinese-american colleague was, when he was taken to MTR (for lunch).
Iskcon – Yes, the reason could be the akshayapatra scheme and also the foreign tourists.
Toobeaut,chickpet area gets covered when you take them on shopping to avenue road, majestic area. It is not part of the scheduled itenary too. Krishnakumar, personally I find commercial street a little expensive but yes, I love the character of the place in the less crowded afternoons.
Bangaloreguy, I understand that the Cauvery bus has been withdrawn and more a/c buses included. I would have loved to go in an open bus around Bangalore too.
I suppose it is possible to include MTR in the itenary if they could give the time and exact number of people in advance. But I am not sure if lighter meals like dosa, idli are served during lunch hours.Pai Viceroy may have an a la carte facility too.
Considering MTR would get free advert from being included in the menu, I’d think they would be more than willing to reserve a few seats for the tour -more so since their foods have a significant export market.
My point is, if we’re advertising bangalore why not use the best to represent its food as well? And Pai Viceroy, IMO, doesnt score on any count. Dosa, idli are anyway not MTR specialities – its their Kharabath, Rava Idli and Poori that are specialities and great as well – they probably will be available post-lunch, not during lunch.
BangaloreGuy, you do have a point there about MTR.
And I’ve never heard of a Pai viceroy as a must-eat place or anything. Heck, the impression I got there was of an overpriced Shanti-Sagar style place.
But then again, buses need all kinds of lubrication. Maybe MTR didn’t really provide the kind of lubrication Pai viceroy did? ;-)
Ambar,
The impression’s correct. They don’t even serve liquor to make up for it! :-|
Oh and the lubrication, well, if MTR can survive for 70+ years, I am sure they know what to do! ;-)
(I should probably ask them to pay me for being an MTR lobbyist here!:-D)