Playing at Lalbagh Gardens

The first two pictures show kids playing soccer (football) in a field that has not been mowed. I have seen no public soccer fields laid out for kids to use. I watched these kids kick the ball through the tall grass. The length of grass can be gauged by looking at their feet. It is hard to kick a ball smoothly and accurately under these conditions. But you don't miss what you never had.




There is not a lot of public money available for park amenities. Here kids make do with the natural slipperiness of this 3 billion year old rock formation. They were having as much fun as kids on a playground slide in the U.S.

Street Entertainers

There are a lot of street children in Bangalore. They wait for the traffic lights so they can run up to the cars with tinted windows, knowing that there are affluent people inside. The first picture shows a brother and sister. He plays a drum and she dances. The second group shows brothers doing "gymnastics.'

More work outside the house

Well, I seem to be fascinated by people working here. The man is clipping by hand, the grass "hair-plugs" I featured on an earlier post. Then he moved to trim the lawn in general. There are no power mowers, electric trimmers, gas leaf blowers. etc. Everything is done by hand. The women are sweeping up the "lawn" in front of our house.

More from Lalbagh Gardens

The ficus Mysore..a fig tree, also called a Mulberry tree









The Orchid tree, also known as a Bauhinia tree. The leaves have medicinal value

Bangalorewalks.com

This is our guide, Mr. Vijay Thiruvady. He started Bangalorewalks.com He is a very knowledgeable guide; giving us a background in Indian history and all the flora we viewed on our tour. The Lalbagh Gardens are the most biodiverse in the world. Rulers from the past, like Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan had their armies and ambassadors bring back plantings and seeds from the areas around the world. The British modified the gardens to look like England. In 1881, the Mysore Maharajah expanded the gardens, and had serial blossoming trees planted throughout the city. Once a Royal Garden, Lalbagh now belongs to the public.

This is a cedar tree from Lebanon. Bougainvilleas from South America
Silver Oaks from Australia
Indonesian Ficus tree

Things that make you go Hmmmm

This is truer than I first realized. The hot water tanks are tiny. They must only hold about 10 gallons. Supposedly the water reheats in 10 minutes and there are "35 minutes of hot water available." The BIG LIE.
I think this is India's answer to Kohler!!

Cows

Finally, I have a picture of some cows to show you. Notice how they are using the cross walk! On the way home, we had to swerve into another lane as 3 cows were lying down in our lane. I thought I would see cows everywhere. Not so. I don't see them in the central part of town. I see them more as we head to the outskirts of town. These cows belong to someone in that they are not strays. However, you do see cows eating garbage right along with the stray dogs, I have read that cows ingest plastic bags and other non-edibles. This can't do much for milk production!