They're Dressed Better Than Me - Bangalore, Karnataka

With 7 million people roaming Bangalore, it has all the hazards you would expect: stifling traffic, choking smog, copious amounts of touts and expensive rooms. On the other hand it also offered many creature comforts we missed: real coffee, good restaurants, wide range of shops (including a Lacoste store, still expensive) and bowling.

Matt's friend Monique arrive in Bangalore to make our group four and the next night we embarked on a "regular" night out that included a nice dinner and two games of bowling. To make things more interesting we agreed that the person with the lowest bowling score had to dance in the middle of the bowling alley for twenty seconds. Amid the hectic lanes and thundering techno music Monique was true to her word and put on quite a show.

Monique wasn't the only one that stood out. To immerse ourselves into Indian culture Matt and I decided to grow mustaches, as is the style here (I'm pretty sure it was Matt's idea). The day before arriving in Bangalore we shaved our goatees and beards to reveal two glorious symbols of manhood. The agreement was to keep the mustaches for one week. To our disappointment we discovered that Bangalore men are much more modern in their style and opt to look good instead of ridiculous like the rest of India. Once again we stuck out from the crowd. Even westerners gave us funny looks. Most people dress quite nicely and that definitely enhanced my dirty backpacker look. The only thing I was missing was some patchouli oil.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha "

Jen Allen