Awoke and had breakfast at the hotel with Lynneth and Nikola at 7a. Sharing a car, arrived at the office quite early and did a little work before beginning knowledge transfer with Anshul.
Entrance to Magarpatta City
Ring road in Magarpatta City
Anshul, myself, and a co-worker named Omkar had lunch at the cafeteria — a yummy repast of chapati (a flat break torn and used as a scoop) and chicken curry accompanied by some excellent eggplant from Anshul’s home. For desert there was a pinkish ball of cake-y dough as well as a pastry with regular and white chocolate on top — basically a doughnut.
Omkar and I walked across the street to the park that sits within the ring road of Magarpatta City, called Aditi gardens. We strolled past an amphitheater where music groups practice and the Ganesh Festival is held annually. It was quiet now, however, save for groups of wild dogs that milled about minding their own business. Seriously, I think India’s wild dogs may be better behaved than the US’ domesticated ones!
Aditi gardens, Magarpatta City
Wild dogs relaxing in Aditi gardens
Tree with beautiful orange blossoms
In addition to many beautiful imported trees there was a very nice pond with lotus plants and some birds. We met Ravindra walking about the park as well and had a chat.
Omkar and I visiting Aditi gardens in Magarpatta City
Coconut palm in Aditi gardens
Pond in Aditi gardens
As we completed the circuit around the park we came upon Ganapati Temple, a small but really impressively carved temple made some kind of pinkish stone. Beautiful!
Ganapati Temple
Ganapati Temple
Ganapati Temple, Aditi gardens, Magarpatta City
Ganapati Temple carvings
After a few hours of work we went down to the cafeteria at 4p for some panipuri (also known as golgappa), a street food popular in this part of India. It is a crisp hollow ball of puri that has a hole poked in it and is filled with flavored water, chutney, chili, masala, potato, onion, and chickpeas. Once filled it is just popped into the mouth in one go, not nibbled on. I had five or so, mostly of the sweet variety as the other one was a bit spicy.
At 5:30p Nikola, Lynneth, and I took the car back to the hotel via a stop at the Bombay Store. I bought a couple of magnets but Nikola and Lynneth shopped for people back home. The way to, and the neighborhood near, the store was gorgeous — banyan trees (painted white – red – white to make them easy to see by vehicles) hugged close to the street. We passed several military installations along the way, including one with an old tank and jet on display. Near the store there was some begging but it wasn’t too bad — not nearly as bad as in Egypt.
Relaxed a bit in the room until past 7p then met Lynneth and Nikola at the hotel’s Italian restaurant named Prego. It was great! We had bread and marinara for starters and Nikola and Lynneth were treated to wine tasting by the owner. I had pepperoni pizza and a nut brownie and vanilla ice cream for desert — it was wonderful! Nikola had pork on a bed of mashed potatoes and amazingly thin an crispy bacon. We talked and relaxed until 11:45p when I wished them a farewell and good travels (both were leaving) in the coming day. Headed to bed shortly thereafter.