Bangalore, India

Tiger in Bangalore
Originally uploaded by SaurabhA.

Our trip to Bangalore got off to a good start even before we left Paris. The thought of almost ten hours stuck in a small seat en route to Bangalore wasn't too appealing, but luckily we got upgraded to business class on the Air France flight. What a treat that was; we arrived in Bangalore rested and relaxed. The non-international Bangalore airport was another story, but at least the flight was comfortable.

We spent the first day wandering around Brigade road, which is the main shopping stretch. We bought some Hindi movies and CDs and had some great Dosas for lunch.

On Sunday (my last free day before heading off to work on Monday), we spent the day at Bannerughatti Bio Park, which is a conservation park that allows lions, tigers and other animals to roam freely in a large forested area. The area is beautiful and seeing these animals in the wild is a completely different experience from seeing them in cages. The 35 tigers they have were playing, running and jumping; they seemed much more at peace then animals you see in zoos. We took a safari, which essentially is an enclosed vehicle tour amongst the tigers, bears and lions. While in one of the tiger areas, our bus broke down. Now this was a truly exciting experience; being trapped in a bus while tigers are roaming around just outside. They sent another bus to pick us up, but transferring from one bus to another isn't as easy as one might think; remember, there are tigers just feet away! In order to transfer from one bus to another, they had to line the vehicles up so that the doors we right up against one another. Then we were able to transfer without anyone being eaten by a tiger (which would have been a likely possibility if we had to transfer the traditional way).

London in Winter

London January '06
Originally uploaded by SaurabhA.

Dates: Jan 14th to 17th, 2006

This is one of my favorite shots from London. No monuments, no buildings, just a pretty girl in the Underground.

I actually had to go to London for work, but since I was going to miss Nadya's birthday the following week (I went to Poitiers for the PG Kickoff for four days), I thought this would be a good opportunity to extend the trip and have a nice time with Nadya for the weekend.

We stayed at the Millennium Gloucester in Kensington and spent the weekend eating, walking and touring with Navida. On Saturday, we went walking around central London and had dinner with Navida at a Chinese restaurant in China town. On Sunday, we all went to the British Museum (and saw the Rosetta stone), wandered around town and had fish and chips for lunch.

For the next two days, I had to work, but Nadya was able to see the British Library and do some great book shopping (we don't get a huge selection of English books in Paris).