We are in Mysore for the weekend and we visited with Jamie's friend Radha's parents at their home this morning. It was an amazing visit! Mr. Panini picked us up at our hotel (saving us from monkeys on our patio!) in his car and Mrs Panini served us homemade, hot off the grill dosas with chutney and fresh mangoes, juice, and coffee. We had a great conversation and then they called their driver who took us in a rickshaw wherever we wanted to go.
We visited the Mysore Palace where the Maharaja lived during a time of history not so very long ago in this part of India. While there we had a few, well, adventures shall we say? We try to be good, we really do, but sometimes, well, girls just gotta take charge!
Here's part of the story of our visit to Mysore Palace:
- Upon entering the grounds, the guards confiscated our cameras, but when we saw others taking photos we marched right back and got them out of the lock box and carried them around anyway.
- That is, until we entered the palace proper and had to go through additional security where of course we got caught again! But this guard asked blatantly for a "tip" to let us carry them anyway. It dawned on us slowly what he was asking for but we acted like we didn't understand, and we managed to sneak away when someone else diverted his attention.
- Another guard showed us inside a roped off area, answering all of our questions and showing us parts of the palace no one else gets to see. We thought this was so nice until he, surprise, surprise, asked us for a tip/bribe to take our picture! We once again found ourselves ducking under the rope and hightailing it along the tour.
- At this point Kathy said that it feels like we're in a Dan Brown novel, running from guards in an historic building!
- We began talking with a man who offered to take our picture in return for us taking his. As Kathy handed his camera back, a guard approached him and confiscated it. We didn't stick around to find out the end of that story since we had enough trouble with guards and cameras of our own!
- Out on the palace grounds again, we finally found a place to see elephants in India. Yes! And, we even paid rupees for a ride! The elephant was sweet, the ride was great, but the rupee/tip/bribe issue didn't go so well. Imagine that! A story for another day!
We spent a bit of the day negotiating Mysore streets on our own, looking for Mysore silk and sandalwood and incense, but it was exhausting with so many people, so many vehicles, so many curving roads to get lost on, so many street vendors, and so many hustlers trying to sell us stuff. We were the only Westerners on the street. Quite an experience! We had marveled at that scene from a rickshaw and a car before, but had never actually been a part of it. Check that one off our list!
Now we're back at our hotel luxuriating in thick mattresses, stand-up showers, toilets that flush, a huge room, a TV (!!), A/C (!!) and a hotel lobby with a BAR!!:)
We paid 200 rupees each for 24 hours of Internet at our hotel which has only worked for about 45 minutes and then only if we sit in the lobby. It keeps going off and the desk clerk makes a call and then tells us it will be back on in "5 minutes" and it's already on in our room. Which it's definitely not! So that explains why this wasn't posted while we were actually in Mysore!
