mysore

Right guys, so after nearly serering my foot and thumb off at a really cool party on a deserted beach we headed for a town called Mysore. It was going to be our first overnight bus and we were both really excited to see what it would be like. things didn't start out the best because when we reached the bus station we realised that we had forgotten our packages that we were sending home so we had to rush back to the beach on a tuc tuc and collect them. When we got back to the station we found out that there was a political rally going on and nobody could tell us where our bus was goping to be pulling in at. We decided to plonk ourselves on a wall and hope for the best. An hour lateer than expected our bus arrived, slowed down but didn't stop and myself and Colin had to jump on. I have to say it was fairly exciting but what followed certainly wasn't. Sleeper busses are and invention of Satan himself. THey expect you to sleep on these things but don't tell you that you wiill be thrown around in them like rag dolls. We didn't get a wink of sleep for the whole 10 hour journey. We eventually made it to Mysore and crashed in our hotel. It was realy nice and had a tv and everything. Far too posh for us. We were pretty lucky that we arrived on the Sunday because there is a palace in the city that is lit up by around 97,000 light bulbs every Sunday. We headed down to check it out and it was such an amazing sight. THe whole place was lit up. A real carnaval atmosphere around the place and it was there that I tried Jack Fruit for the first time. Its hard to describe it so I won't. Suffice to say it was very tasty and I shall be having it again soon. There isn't that much to do in Mysore so the next day we just walked around the town and met a few interesting locals. Christopher we met in spice market where he told us his life story about how he was in Kent for 14 years and thought all religion was a just bullshit (his words). We also met a guy called Max who was a proper dodgey character but in fairness to him he showed us some really cool places. He brought us to a cigerette making and packing sweat shop whhich was amazing. The speed at which the fags were being packed was incredible. we also went to a massive market where everything was being sold from frui and veg to flowers for the women to spices and dyes. The colours of the dyes were so brilliant. We must have stayed in the market for a few hours just taking in all the sights and sounds and chatting to a load of vendors. It was a great day. We were both wrecked and we had to get another dreaded sleeper bus down to Kochi. While waiting for the bus we got talking to a group of travellers who were going our way. They seemed a sound bunch and so myself and Col decided to stick with them when we arrived in Kochi. As expected the bus was horrid. Didn't sleep great at all. Oh well, thats India for you, highs and lows.