Monday 21 Sept
Woke up much later than planned (oops). Today is a festival day so it's a holiday and the office is closed, though I have to work. I wrestle with the internet connection in my room - which seems to be on holiday too. The nice IT man comes to sort it out and we discover that a cable to this floor needs to be plugged in somewhere. Half an hour later it is sorted out and I am connected to the world again....for about 5 minutes.
It is deathly quiet with my balcony door shut and I find I need a bit of background noise.
Outside there is a huge cloud of dragonflies and a man having a shower on his roof.
Later, I'm delighted to find wireless access by the swimming pool - this is a really good hotel and it goes up even further in my eyes when they bring me a basket of very fat chips in their skins as a present.
This evening's sweets in my room are like undercooked homemade fudge - yummy. I also receive an orange and an apple to add to the grapes, bananas and pear, but I give the chocolates a miss for once.
I tried the South-East Asian restaurant in the hotel a couple of times this week and it was fantastic. I took half an hour to decide what to eat. They do the full range of sushi and sashimi, Thai, Chinese and Korean food - so it is difficult to select.
The papers are full of the fact that the probe from India was the first to discover water on the moon (in June) but the Americans made them keep quiet about it until their probe had done it too!.
Swine flu vaccinations are being given in the office.
We go to a different food court for lunch and I could have had KFC, Subway, Pizza slut, Baskin Robbins or proper food. I join the lengthy queue for North Indian food just as a change from
South Indian (as if I could make the distinction). The Biryiani and something is very nice whatever it is.
Saturday
Today I manage to eat exclusively Indian food for every meal - a milestone. All of it is delicious. I do not want to go home to having to make my own food and not being able to eat this stuff.
At dinner I read in the paper that Suiseki, a Japanese term for stone appreciation is becoming popular - they mean stones selected for aesthetic reasons and kept as object of contemplation, Well at last.
It's the middle of the 10 day long Dasara festivities that is closely associated with Mysore. Originally, the Maharajah of Mysore would come out of the Royal Palace riding on an elephant.
Now the Royal Elephant, beautifully decorated and dressed, carries a gold statue of the goddess Chamundhi in a golden howdah in procession though the streets of Mysore, except it wasn't going to do it whilst I was there. Now Dasara is run as a state festival and it's the only time of year when the royal palace is open and the gold throne displayed. In fact the state elephant, the state horse, the state cow accompanied by the Panchakalasha elephant chariot?, camel and gun carriages are all rolled out for the procession. The elephants are painted with patterns - even their bottoms are decorated. I arrange for my driver to take me to Mysore on Sunday in the hope of seeing an elephant.
Sunday
We left at 06:40 for the trip to Mysore. As we drove through the outskirts of Bangalore, apart from wonering what was the maximum number of people that could fit in a tuk-tuk, (10?) I started seeing piles of cut and trimmed banana plants for sale, plus enormous piles of watermelons. The road was lined with these stalls for miles, and it was the same in every town we passed through along the way. The stalls also sell a basket with three coconuts with yellow flowers tucked in amongst them. The driver explained that these are for Puja, which is a
Hindu religious ceremony meaning the giving of a gift or offering to a deity and receiving their blessing. This one is the Durga Puja and the theme of it is banana trees. Every bus, truck, tuk-tuk, water tanker, and motorbike, plus plenty of cars and a pink Mahindra tractor, is decorated with banana plants and garlands of yellow flowers. Everyone is carrying at least one
banana tree and wearing garlands of flowers. Many of the buses are already covered in paintings, and today they have their windscreens almost entirely covered in flowers, plus the banana plants tied on at each corner and across the bonnet, some add tinsel along the sides too. So it is all very flamboyant. (Sorry no photos).
Mysore is 170km from Bangalore and it takes about 2.5 hours by road. The drive is along a new dual carriageway - but they have put speed bumps in it before and after every village - there's no warning of these, so I imagine it must be a bit of a dangerous drive in the dark. The route is across a plain which is dotted with sudden tall outcrops of rock, and filled with everything agricultural. There were coconut palms, rice paddies, fruit trees, flowering trees, sugar cane etc. Everywhere black and white milk cows forage at the sides of the road or lie down on the grassy central reservation or just wander across the road. There were also long-horned, beige, delicate-footed draught cattle, water buffalo, one pig, then a herd of small black pigs, goats, sheep, white chickens in cages, dogs, monkeys, but not a single cat. There was also a dead body (at least I assumed he was dead) lying half on the central reservation and half in the fast lane. No-one paid it any attention. There were people pushing carts or carrying ludicrous loads on bicycles - usually pots and pans or plastic buckets.
Every village had several stalls selling peeled pineapples, papayas and cucumbers.
First we go to Chamundeshwari temple on the top of Chamundhi Hill on the edge of Mysore. This is 1000m up and has stunning views over the city and the plain.
The road passes through groves of yellow-flowered trees. I found out afterwards that there are 800 steps up and people climb these, or climb 600 of them and then run 2km down. We park near the top and walk the last stretch, past multi-coloured stalls selling all kinds of food, offerings and junk.
It is amazingly colourful. I buy a coconut to drink. Some cattle have been brought to the temple, but don't seem to making the most of it.
It is very crowded and people keep trying to sell me things. I am the only European there. Outside the temple are people selling more flower garlands. There's also a very large wooden carving which has been brought out on a wheeled scaffold to be decorated. The wheels are like the cart-wheels in an Asterix cartoon. A few people are burning pieces of coconut shell and small white cubes of something.
The temple itself is very dark inside but you can see the gold statues and carvings of elephants. It is packed with people paying their respects to the goddess.
After the temple, we drive back down into Mysore, to the Royal Palace. Outside the Royal Palace a tiny girl wearing a frilly red skirt and an evil-looking pair of shades is walking a tightrope to the beat of drums banged by her parents. The Palace is not open! it is closed for another 4 hours! the website had said it would be open. The ground in front of it is clearly laid out for a major event, there are flags and rows cordoned off and lots of police, but no-one is allowed in. I am so disappointed. The Royal Elephant is also presumably still in his stall and not coming out to meet the public without being properly-dresed. I peer through the gates and take a few pictures of the outside of one side of the Palace, but there is not much to see.
The driver suggests I could go shopping for 4 hours, I give him a LOOK. I am here for culture, not retail. I suggest a beer whilst we decide whether to stay or go, it's his turn to give me a LOOK.
Instead, he takes me to the (really ugly) Catholic Church, which is fake Gothic with fake stained glass windows. I am amused by the strings of red lights around the paintings inside, whilst the driver has a go on a friend's motorbike.
I decide to cut my losses and go back to Bangalore rather than hang around for 4 hours until the Palace opens. It is only 11:30. I enjoy the journey though, as there is an endless supply of things to look at on the way. After 2 hours the driver was falling asleep, so we stop for coffee in a dimly-lit old farmhouse. I decline to have any food, though I am starving, as the place is really filthy. Coconut water and a black coffee has to do until we get back to the safety of the lovely Leela. It is very hot and suddenly I long to be in the swimming pool, however, although we aren't far from the city, it takes an hour to crawl through the traffic to the Eastern side. I have seen enough lorries and banana trees for one day.
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