So, the last few days have been pretty crazy. There has been some flooding due to heavy rain; the roads leading to this town, which is where we should have been two days ago, have been closed because of it. As a result, we got to see the exciting city of Mysore. Alex definitely did a good job of explaining how we got to Mysore, so I would recommend reading his blog: http://www.statravelblogs.com/acho/blogs

and choose the one that is labeled "Mysore". I recommend reading that before continuing since it is a prelude of sorts to this blog.

Now that you have read the story of how we got to Mysore, let me clarify that the "nice man" Alex described was obviously just that. So, don't worry, Mom, Alex and I are not wondering off with every person that tries to get us to follow them. Just nice ones. Alright, I'm kidding, but seriously, we are being [relatively] safe.

Anyway, on to our adventures in Mysore. In Mysore, there is a very beautiful palace there that we had read about and wanted to see, but we did not think we would be able to find the time to make it to Mysore. As fate would have it, we were wrong and found the time. Our plan once we were in Mysore was to see the palace early in the morning and take a bus to Madikeri right after since there were direct buses from Mysore to Madikeri. Unfortunately, when we got to the palace in the morning, it did not open until 3:00 in the afternoon, so we were only able to see it from the outside. It was still incredible, and the next time I come to India, I will definitely make it a point to visit Mysore for a much longer period of time as well as its palace.

We then decided to get some food before we caught the bus since we were both pretty hungry. Strangely, we had a somewhat difficult time finding a place to eat until we met a young man who said his name was Jack. That was obviously not his name, but I think he knew that we would not know how to pronounce or remember it. After a short conversation with him, we asked him where he recommended grabbing a bite to eat. He said we could follow him, so we did (Mom and Dad, I know you probably think we follow everyone now, but as bad as it sounds, we don't). He led us directly to a very fascinating oil and incense shop instead of breakfast. "Perfect", we said, "Let's take a lesson on many different types of oil therapy and how to make incense." So, that is exactly what we did.

We learned everything two western males could ever hope to learn about oils. We learned everything from anti-mosquito oils, perfumes, stress oils, vapo rub type oils, massage oils, skin and hair treatment oils, and even massage oils. It was actually a lot of fun and really interesting.

After that, Jack introduced us to his older brother who is 23, and he taught me how to drive an auto-rickshaw. We also went with them to check out the government silk and carved furniture shop. That was an AWESOME place. It was unfortunate that we were able to spend such little time in Mysore; I can definitely see how one could easily spend weeks there.

After the rickshaw lesson, Alex and I managed to finally find our way to Madikeri. We had been told by a bunch of people that there would be a strike all over the state today since the government was not taking proper action towards certain health care issues and that we would have nowhere to eat or method of transportation other than walking anywhere in the state. If that is true, which it seemed like it was since everyone had the same facts and even a state officer told me it was true, there was no striking today in Madikeri. Everything is operating as normal, thankfully.

We did go on the hike we had originally planned to get done yesterday to the biggest waterfall in India, Abbi Falls. It was pretty sweet. It was an 8 km walk to the falls, and when we were about 85% of the way there, the heaviest rains we have seen so far hit. Fortunately, we had cracked just before we left on the hike and bought some umbrellas. These didn't do us a whole lot of good though since the rain was so incredibly heavy. We decided that it would be a good idea to camp out under a tree and eat a cliff bar to wait out the rain. In the past, these sorts of rains had passed nearly as quickly as they had come. It was not the case this time, and the tree provided no added coverage. Eventually, we got bored trying to wait out this endless rain and went the rest of the way to the falls. Abbi Falls was pretty impressive. We walked across a hanging bridge that was at the bottom of the falls, where it was blowing so hard that Alex's umbrella went inverted and I luckily caught my hat just as it blew off my head. I took a video of the falls, but with the internet speed here, it would take me 1.5-2 hours to load the video. There were many pictures we wanted to take on the way to the falls and while we were there, but it was simply raining too hard to take out our cameras. Even taking the video the one time, short video was probably pretty stupid.

Our hotel here has definitely been the worst one we have had. We were VERY cold last night and when we woke up this morning, the power rarely works, and there is a 1x4 foot gap above our windows that is permanently open to the outside. We went looking around the town for other available rooms, but the only ones we found were much more expensive and in terrible condition. So, we decided that it was worth it to have one more cold night. As long as we are sleeping in a dry place, I am happy.

In the morning, we will (hopefully!!) be on our way to Mangalore to continue our adventures. Take care, thank you for all the kind messages and e-mails, and I will hopefully post again shortly.