Mysore Monday

Another of my favourite Indian friends casually strolling the wrong way up a busy road.

Random street shot in Mysore

Girls from Hampi.

Didn't sleep too well last night. For some reason rats were on my mind and I just couldn't get comfortable. Oh well, being knackered will help me sleep on the bus tonight. Nothing really planned for today. Could have gone to the tea plantations at Ooty, which is also the home of old men who roll beedis, the thin Indian cigarettes but I wouldn't have been back in time for the bus. Seen most of Mysore now and spent ages in the market this morning which is amazing but I got hassled by peddlars and gypsies and people with limbs missing and my patience was at the end of its tether. (Nothing pisses me off more than a stumpy limb being waggled in my face, I s'pose I should feel sympathy or disgust, but I feel nothing but annoyed. Does that make me really heartless?) Little boys kept asking me where I was from and to go with them to some shop and I just had to ignore them and then it just came too much for me and I had to leave the market lanes. Plus my camera wasn't working so I couldn't take any photos. I took it to a repair shop and 10 minutes later it was fixed. I'm sure in England I would have had to throw it out.

Indian cities are just PACKED with people, it's surprising that everything functions as well as it does. 70 million people just live in this state of Karnataka and all speak the Kannada language.WHich is beautiful and reminds me of Thai. Hindi, the national language is not in evidence at all but most people speak English. Questions from locals are pretty standard and go along these lines, with slight variations:

• From where you come from, madam?
• What is your good name, madam?
  
• Did you like Blair or is it the Brown better, madam?
• Are you here for business or the travel, madam?
• How many members are in it, your party, madam?
• Alone, where is your husband, madam?
• Do you have a profession madam?
• Ahh, teaching, it is a fine upstanding profession, madam.
• How much do you earn per calendar month minus the tax and other sundries, madam?

The querky formality is quite endearing and I'll miss it when I return home.

Shit, I'm having trouble with my camera it's not loading properly onto the computer and I can't see the pictures. I've got loads of pictures on it now and I have moved some to disk but not all of them. I'll be well pissed off if technology lets me down. I never have any luck with cameras. Oh well, maybe someone has an idea what's wrong or maybe it's just the water from the massive rains yesterday. A guy is helping me out now What a nightmare if I've lost them.

As you can probably tell, (if you are still reading and have got this far) I haven't got much to do and at least here I get some peace and quiet. You can't really sit and relax in restaurants in Mysore because the seats are in demand and they just put the bill under your nose. Service is super efficient here. Tourist hotels have roof gardens but they are all closed at the moment due to the rain yesterday (Which caught everyone off guard) and the inside restaurants of tourist places are dark and depressing and incredibly empty. My rule for eating is only consume 'eatables' where there are loads of other people doing the same. Plus walking around in the incredible heat and humidity at the moment is awful!

Right, computer man has fixed my camara, I'd picked up a virus from yesterday's computer. So I'll try and put on some more pictures.

Boys on the way to school in Hampi.

Let loose in the zoo, Mysore.