Toy Train

An old friend of mine was in town this weekend. This is not to say that my friend. Just that I have known him for a long time and err.. well sometimes people use that phrase ok? We decided to behave like tourists and spend all of Saturday finding out what Bangalore has to offer tourists. Quite honestly, I was under the impression that Bangalore attracted visitors only for the free-flowing draught beer in every corner and steak. It appears I was mistaken. They have more than that in fact.
 
Bangalore has parks/gardens all over the city. No wonder its called the Garden City. I never really paid attention to that. Figured it was just the beer that got to the officials when they decided to call the Silicon Valley of India the City of Gardens. So we went to Cubbon Park where 15 minutes into our stroll we realised we were back where we started. Oddly, suddenly there was a ton of kids from where we began (which I had seemingly missed seeing just a while back). Upon investigating the scene, it was discovered that paying 5 rupees got you a toy train ride which lasted probably 6 minutes. Who was I kidding? I couldnt wait to take a ride and fortunately for me, neither could my friend. So we clambered on to the train which had a proper station and everything with all the rest of the 4 year olds there. Apart from going through junk-yards at an irritating 1 km per hour, it also had a wonderfully screeching whistle and went through a rusty tunnel as well.
 
We followed the train ride with a trip to the botnaical gardens where in search of a 200 year old banyan tree people kept pointing us to a tree stump. Closer inspection revealed it was a 20 million year old tree fossil and the display board next to it said it was there to "inspire people". Giant dinosuar fossils may inspire me to make a movie, whale fossil might inspire me to eat fish but tree fossil would inspire me to... err... eat more veggies? Anyway, the highlight of that trip was the world's worst aquarium. The little pond had so little water that the poor fish had to lie on one side and swim. The tanks had the little fish people tend to have at aquariums at home you know. Quite ridiculous. I supposed we should not have been surprised given the ridiculously small amount of money (2 rupees) they charge for entry. To be fair, they should pay people to go there!
 
I realise this is turning out to be a very long post and before you decide to NEVER visit this site again, I shall end. Watch out for more in my next post.