my short trip to Bangalore

I just got back from Bangalore where I met two of my friends: Sunil and Gosakan. It was quite nice to see them well settled with homes and kids. Their lives seem so much different from mine.

This was also my first experience with India's cheap airlines. I flew on Air Deccan.
The tickets were quite cheap (~ $60) and I was able to book through the net. However note that security at the airports require you to carry some kinda printout to show that you are a passenger. Their organization at the airport seemed a little confused but not too bad. In contrast to a US traveller, I was not asked to provide identification at any time in the airport. The flight was a ATR 42 and did go on time. However my return flight was delayed by about 2 hrs. This is because they operate on such tight schedules that they need an incoming flight to turn around.

The other cheap airline that impressed me was Air Sahara (which has recently been purchased by Jet Airways). Unfortunately they seemed to ask for some kinda indentification which I wasnt sure I could provide. Later it turned out that I could have given them a CA driver's license number (I thought I had to provide an indian issued ID).

I'll write in my next post about Bangalore...but before I sign off here is a plug for Gosax's company:Get excellent cost effective patents done at IP Procure. I act as their west coast rep.