Video: The Streets of Bangalore India

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Video: The Streets of Bangalore India

You'll never complain about the traffic in your town again! Driving in Bangalore, India is not for the faint hearted. Bangalore has undergone an extreme population explosion in the last decade with the growth of the IT Industry. In my experience, Bangalore has unparalleled traffic congestion and chaos compared to anywhere in North America or Europe.

The first 3 minutes of this video are the last stretch in our daily commute from the Leela Palace Hotel to the Adobe office on Bannerghatta Road along the IT corridor. Starting at 4 minutes into the video is a backseat view from a ride inside one of those yellow-capped auto rickshaws from the office to the nearby Forum Mall. It was as much fun as an amusement park!

This is my first visit to India and Bangalore, and although I didn't warm up to the unfamiliarity of the local culture at first, its definitely growing on me. The people here are very polite and friendly, much more so than New England I think. I had been warned of the food here and to eat at American food chains, but my Indian colleagues have helped introduce me to local dishes and I'm really enjoying them now.

My colleagues at the Adobe office here are absolutely fantastic to work with. They're all very highly trained and most have degrees in software engineering. I'm very impressed and proud to work with them. Although they are hardworking, the mood in the office seems to always be fun and good spirited with lots of interaction and cooperation, and some cricket playing thrown in too.

I'm fascinated with the traffic though. Whats most amazing is the ladies wearing saris riding crosslegged on the backseat of a motorbike, sometimes holding an infant, and sometimes with another child riding on the handlebars. Maybe we temporary expats will commute all on one motorbike next week! ummm, ok, no.

www.flickr.com

While in Bangalore I had the opportunity to visit the Bannerghatta National Park, containing a zoo and safari park in dubious states of repair, but fun nevertheless. I recently discovered another colleague from Adobe, Alan Musselman, posted his own video of the safari park bus tour (Think Jurassic Park)

posted on 30 March, 2007 at 1:51 PM.
Adobe, ColdFusion, Video, HiTech Industry, Travel | Comments (16)

Comments

i guess you've never been in bangkok during rush hour ;-) in your video, traffic seems to be zipping along pretty nicely & i didn't notice anybody driving the wrong way or parking in the middle of the road or doing a u-turn against traffic, etc. seems pretty orderly actually.

comment by PaulH, posted at 3/31/07 1:44 AM

True, this is the furthest I've been east of the US past Europe. To me, everything here is novel.

The video is just few clips when I happened to have my pocket camera out... There's lots going on in the streets that you (well, everyone else) would just have to see to believe.

comment by Steven Erat, posted at 3/31/07 2:00 AM

oh i believe you that's it's probably wild & wholly but my first taste of roads here was seeing body parts along the "friendship" highway from a motorcycle's passengers getting squashed by a 10-wheeled truck--that's my benchmark for road chaos. last couple of years i've gotten back into bike riding & i've come to think that it's even worse than my first impression. road chaos takes on a whole new perspective when viewed from a bicycle ;-)

comment by PaulH, posted at 3/31/07 7:00 AM

I've travelled to Mexico City and southern Mexico many times, as well as Spain and France, and my money is still on Bangalore having the worst traffic, save Thailand and Malaysia (Paul H must have been rolling his eyes at that ;-)

comment by Steven Erat, posted at 4/1/07 5:52 AM

I used to travel to Bangalore from Delhi quite often on work. That was about 13 years back. The traffic was much better than now! It was just before Bangalore boomed.

I don't know if you've been to Delhi or not. The way the traffic moves is... well... amazing. I love the fact that it is so "organic". It has a life of its own. (Though I wouldn't say this driving around in Delhi in peak of summers in a non-airconditioned car -- but right now it is a very beautiful morning here in Auckland, New Zealand, and I am feeling a little homesick.)

Will check your Flickr pictures as well. They look quite interesting.

comment by Indy Nagpal, posted at 4/1/07 4:41 PM

Ahhh this brings back my memories of Mumbai last year. Traveling in the back of one of those cabs for me was like being on a white knuckle ride - but fun none the less! I think what was really scary for me was actually crossing the road and trying to remember what direction the traffic came from!

comment by kola, posted at 4/2/07 8:15 AM

Well It has a some good aspects of it as well. This Bangalore traffic has certainly made me a skilled Biker :)

comment by Sandeep, posted at 4/6/07 5:45 AM

My observations here shouldn't be taken as a criticism of individual drivers. Bangalore traffic is in a chronic state of controlled chaos. The chaos is a function of the incredible volume that drivers must live with and contend with daily. But the control is derived from each driver's expertise to manage such difficult conditions with carefullness and fluidity. It seems to me that one must be an excellent driver in order to navigate and survive on these hazardous roads.

comment by Steven Erat, posted at 4/6/07 11:14 AM

Hey..Steve... :-) Nice work. With that hindi song traffic seems quite smooth.

comment by Jayesh, posted at 4/9/07 10:54 AM

The funny part is that a lot of these nice people come the US and still drive like they're back home.

comment by Claude, posted at 4/21/07 5:25 PM

Much of the world wide web is full of sarcasm & mocking of driving on Indian roads.
This blog: http://driving-india.blogspot.com/ has been created with the purpose of providing driver education and training rather than criticism.
The driver education is to be provided by way of a series of short videos focusing on concepts and principles most Indian drivers are unaware about. The goal is to move beyond the traditional clutch-accelerator training provided by the otherwise friendly neighbourhood driving instructor.

comment by A Joglekar, posted at 4/26/07 1:02 PM

All you can see is those yellow and black cabs, all you can hear is loud honking horn from vehicles. I know, been to Calcutta once, it's almost the same. People really struggle with their life their. Can you imagine going to your office every morning in this heavy traffic?

comment by Make Money From Blog, posted at 7/17/07 4:59 AM

I'm in India again for a couple weeks. True that this little video clip isn't all that bad. The worst traffic is when things are crawling at 0-5mph, but that doesn't make for very interesting video. The traffic in the movie clip is about 20-30mph most times.

comment by Steven Erat, posted at 7/24/07 6:51 AM

I have just returned from my first trip to Bangalore. I am delighted that you took the video. The only thing missing is the 5-15 minute dead-stops in high traffic areas--you are right; such makes for boring video. I also recall a bit more prolific use of horns. I appreciate your objective approach. I hope the comment above about sarcasm is directed towards some of the comments rather than your post.

Also, the folk who advised you to eat only at Western chains are giving bad advice. Some of the very worst food in Asia is made by American chains or is in "American" or western-style restaurants. I am happy to hear you experienced the local food which I believe is exquisite.

comment by Roger Nichols, posted at 8/10/07 7:15 PM

Roger, you're right, the horns are typically used constantly, but not so in the video. I like to say that Indians drive using all 5 senses, whereas Americans drive using only one or two.

I typically ate traditional Indian food during both trips to Bangalore, i.e. dosa masala, chicken tikki masala, or aloo paratha. Only twice do I recall eating an American dish (Pizza Hut and McD's).

comment by Steven Erat, posted at 8/10/07 7:37 PM

the music in your video is awsome. i really love this song, i've heard it only about 1 million times. sadly, i do not know the name of it or what it is about. probably it is about love. i have been in india and saw all this. my husband is an indian, and my child is now half indian :-) i really love it there, there is so much culture there. the first time i've sat into an indian car i screamed my lungs out. my father in law thought his son had married an insane girl. by the end of my stay there, it was like i was born there, traffic really did not bug me at all. i have not seen a single accident while i was there, people were somehow still respecting each other on the streets... in the US i have seen people yelling, screaming at each other and having really bad accidents even with having so much more space and so many less cars on the road. i was really surprised how this whole driving (in no lanes) works so well in india. i drank and ate everything as people there would eat, never really got sick from anything. the history which india represents is something which cannot be explained by words. i love their history, temples, dresses, food, artwork and especially their jewelery... they can make anything by hand, put truly hard work into what they are doing, and deliver it to you in shorter time than you can ever pick up something in regular US store. i had them make me jewelery, dresses which can actually fit me in one day. I cannot even describe how beautiful hand made rug you can get there for so much less money than you could ever get it here. Here, I shop for days and cannot find what I want and what could actually fit me because I am so small. Anyway, this year I am going back to visit again. Of course I listed mostly good things about India, but as any place it does have some issues mostly to do with overpopulation and luck of water in some areas... Thanks for the video, it made me really happy to watch it.

comment by Natasha, posted at 6/5/08 9:48 PM

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