Maharajas and markets in Mysore

After our 2 day train extravaganza we ended up in Mysore in the state of Karnataka, South India. The mood was so different to the north. Chilled out by comparison and far less dirty. People seemed quite happy to ignore us too, which was a welcome break from the constant harassment, except for the rickshaw drivers that is who never cease to hassle you in the street, curbcrawl alongside you and offer you illegal substances if they fail to get a fare. What with avoiding Mumbai after the problems there, we were settling in for a week here with not a lot to do. It was a good place to relax as there is not a huge amount going on.

The frighteningly quiet streets in Mysore

Mysore market is pretty famous, especially for it's sandalwood and we spent some time wandering round taking the obligatory pics. Finally we started to eat good fruit too, considerably lacking in the north. Mysore is a city of banana-mania and they have a specially variety of sweet mini banana there. The sweets are also really good with insane amounts of sugar in them. If you want a sugar hit try some Barfi or Mysore Pak and you will be buzzing for hours. The food in general has taken a turn for the better in South India. It was surprisingly bad in the north at times.

Paan Wallah at the market

Gorgeous brightly coloured ceremonial powders

We never did quite figure out if the old market that we kept being invited to existed or not. 3 times (always at night on the seediest of streets by the seediest of Indian men) we were asked to go to see a beedie rolling competition in the old market. "Not for tourists, just locals". I am glad we didn't believe them as I think it may have been setting ourselves up to be mightily scammed at least.

Once you have hit the market, it is onto the Palace. The 20 Rupees for Indians and 200 Rupees for foreigners entry fee is starting to grate a little too much now. This is NOT us being tight backtwatters but is because there are loads of filthy rich middle class Indians visiting, all paying 20 each. Given that there is a large chunk of the population who would never even afford the 20 rupees it is fairly discriminatory and says a lot about India. I found the complaint box (which I am sure never gets emptied or looked at) and got it all off my chest. I had seen a security guard smack a kid (I shouted at him for doing so, forgetting I am of course invisible to Indian men unless they are having a good old perv) and we saw a guard accept money from someone to allow them to take pictures inside the palace, which is forbidden. Welcome to India! Rant over.....

The Palace is lit up with 100,000 light bulbs every Sunday night and it is bloody spectacular but as you can imagine a large waste of electricity in a country where power cuts are a daily occurrence!

Giggling schoolkids on a day out at the Palace

This command makes no difference to the Indians who think it is an invitation to go and touch it and sit their kids on top of it, blah blah blah.

One of our funniest experience so far happened in Mysore though. We left the palace to wander off for some food and found ourselves paying 10 rupees to go into a random locals area that looked like some kind of exhibition. Once inside we seemed to have paid 10 rupees to walk round a tacky market. This then developed into a funfair of the most unsafe kind I have ever seen. No way were we going to be covered on our travel insurance should we need to be so we avoided the offers to try out rickety old rides.
To add to the oddness, there was a huge shrine in the middle with flashing lights that you could pay 80 rupees to enter and I suppose, buy some religion for a few minutes. We have no idea what was going on inside and didn't want to go in but it looked like they were all walking up a huge tiered cake to a flashing swastika ( which is actually a Hindu symbol)
Ed got his astrological stars read to him in Hindi by a talking robot (why did we not think beforehand it would not be in English??) and I got weighed by a flashing machine. It was all very funny.

The other weird thing that we saw in Mysore was a load of locals queuing up to have their pic taken with a statue of some politician they all love. There is always something bizarre going on.

There are tons of cinemas in the south. Kollywood and Tollywood as it is called in the south, depending on the state, is huge. Even bigger than in the north and the cinemas go all out.

There are loads of temples and ancient important sites, of course, around Mysore. To be honest, our attitude towards this type of thing stinks now as we are on overkill, but we did agree that the Hoysala temple at Somnathapur was the best we had seen on the whole trip. The carvings were amazing. We did look at it seriously despite how the pics look. I can't help but be a bit bored by them these days and the best bit was laughing at all the boobs and rude sex scenes from the Ramayana that were carved into it.

I was not as bored as I looked, honest.

Ed has finally got what he was waiting for since we arrived in India, all you can eat banana leaf thalis. He is going to be the only person in the world who comes to India and puts on weight. He NEVER tires of curry. Admittedly the RRR Hotel on Ghandi square does a bloody good thali. 2 days in a row and I was sick of it ( and a bit sick too) Ed would have gone there every night. I do not know where he puts it all, it is just not fair. You have to eat with your hands, quite difficult for curry and rice but you soon get the hang of it. The waiters loved having a gora in who ate like the locals and of course fought over who would serve us so they could get the gora tip, far bigger than the locals! I think they just liked watching us eat too, to see if we could actually do it.

Banana leaf curry

South Indian breakfast, rice flour idili and lentil flour vada. Ed's idea of heaven, my biggest nightmare.

Giant pappad ( poppadom) and battered chili peppers. The south is chaat ( snack)

Instead of boring temples we have taken to photographing more and more silly stuff that makes us laugh, like what you can see below. It is a constant here.

There is a story from Mysore to tell and sorry but it is a little rude. We did a lot of updating the blog for hours on end so Ed invariably would need to go to pee a few times in each i-session. There was a public urinal nearby (a hold your breath stinky experience just to walk past) and each time he went he came back looking puzzled at the locals fascination with his willy. The locals just love to love his lingam. Maybe it was the obvious (cottaging) or maybe it was the ginger top and tails issue, or maybe they just wanted to see if a white man's penis was the same. Whatever it was it was weird. They were actually unashamedly leaning over the partitions whilst peeing to have a look, after Ed took to making them well aware that he was aware of their incessant glare, giving them a good look before he zipped up and left.