More biking

This afternoon was, again, a bit overcast and so cool enough to make biking enjoyable (where "cool enough" means "not insanely hot..."), so I once again roamed around, this time heading southeast.

I rode down toward Abids, where I've been doing my shopping for household goods, but never got close. I veered off northward to escape from traffic, and found myself looking at this little shop.



As I stood there fiddling with the camera, a gang of boys came by and insisted I take their picture. They were delighted when I enthusiastically agreed (what else was I going to do???) and then showed them the resulting picture.



After a stretch of pedaling along just hoping for the best, I found myself back on familiar territory - the shopping lane where I bought hangers and a crescent wrench for my bike. I followed the lane to its end, turned left and back toward Punjegutta. Eventually I popped out onto the road that passes the Taj Residency, er, Deccan, where I saw THIS sign:



My Cambridge neighbors would no doubt approve.

Rather than turn onto a known-to-be-busy road, I backtracked a bit and came out onto Road #1. Turning right, I finally scratched a curiosity itch and stopped at City Center. Yep - it is, in fact, a mall.



Complete with McDees!



The reminder of my trip was an adventure. I didn't really want to go back to Road #12, since that would have meant traveling on, and crossing, Road #1 twice, and going home via Road #10 is a LONG trip, so I tried a shortcut up Road #4, intending to cut over to Road #13. I missed my turn, though, and wound up traveling through a very crowded, very poor section of Banjara Hills. I really did not want to get lost, but I didn't want to stop and stare at a map a lot, either. By pure luck I wound up veering left and up a very steep hill, which came out incredibly close to home on Road #12. If I had not taken the turn I did, I would have wound up trapped at the head of the valley between roads #10 and #12, forcing me to backtrack. Let's hear it for intuition!