My bus ride home

I recently took the brave step of riding home by a bus. It may not sound daunting but travelling 20km across bangalore on a not so major route can be a pain as I discovered. This blog is not really a crib about how bad my journey was, its more of a empathetic note for all the other folk who have to travel across Blore by buses everyday.

• My journey started at NCBS, where I took bus 1, one of the shuttles into the city (they go to IISc). I got off at Mekhri circle and this ride was for free :)

• There I got onto BMTC bus 2, a 284 that took me the short distance of one bus-stop to Rajmahal-Guthalli, the ride cost me Rs. 3. So far so good, but this where things started to slow down.

• I had two options for buses at this point, one that took me straight home and others involving more bus-changes. The bus straight home never did turn-up. After waiting for nearly an hour, and watching a hundred buses going to KR Market and Majestic, I finally got a 101 to Shivajinagar, I had given up hope on a direct bus by now.

• From Shivajinagar, it was a 132B to CMH Road, I didnt have the patience to wait for a direct bus to Domlur.

• From CMH road, a final ride on a 201 to Domlur, where the conductor charged me a rupee less, didnt issue a ticket and pocketed the rest of the money (Rs. 4), and quick walk home :)

The whole journey involved 5 buses, cost me Rs. 25 and took 2 hrs. Had I taken a rick, this would have cost about Rs. 125 and would have taken less than an hour. Had I travelled by motorcycle (as I do everyday), it costs about Rs. 25 and takes about 45 minutes. The thing that surprised me was the following, I left NCBS armed with all the bus numbers and timings from the BMTC website, but it made no difference. While waiting at the different bus-stops, I got the impression that the timings were a sham. Given the trouble and time involved, why would anyone in Bangalore use public transport, unless you were poor/cheap and had enough time to kill? No wonder the city is choking with traffic...

Marrybrown - Dont Go There

We recently ate at a Marrybrown, its a McDonald clone from Malaysia that has sprung up in Blore. The only reason why I'm choosing to waste a blog on it is because of how irritated I am with the place.

The restaurant as such is okay in terms of ambience and it even has a kids play area :) but thats where the fun stops. The service was slow and poor, most importantly the quantities were atrocious, even a saharan desert ant would find it hard to fill its stomach on the portions they serve. To add insult to injury the food isnt great either. We spent a fair bit of money, and came away hungry and unhappy.

So to sum it up again, dont eat at Marrybrown ever, they are the biggest con job this side of the Arabian sea.