After the huge metropolis of Bangalore, we were happy to get back to a small town and looking forward to seeing Mysore, India’s sandalwood capital. We fought our way through the auto-rickshaw drivers and walked a block away to our hotel...The Ritz! (We knew we’d get to stay there one day!) For the princely sum of 400 rupees (less than 5 pounds) we’ve got huge rooms, kitted out with old colonial furniture, our own living room and a restaurant and bar downstairs – excellent! Our first day in Mysore was Lisa’s last day with us before she headed back to Puttaparthi so we were feeling a bit sad about that – although we’ve accepted her invitation to come out to stay with her and her aunty, and to go and see Sai Baba (an Indian spiritual leader who has millions of followers world-wide, including Lisa’s aunty) in his Puttapthi ashram, so will be seeing her again in a few weeks. We’re feeling a bit exhausted from all the traveling plus all three of us are nursing delicate stomachs, so we decided to have an easy day, wandering the colourful spice markets and browsing through all the little craft shops on a mission to find a reasonably priced Ganesh (elephant-headed god) carving. One intriguing thing is the huge numbers of transvestites (or hijras, as they’re known) who seem to have made their home here – they seem to be quite a bit taller than the other people so presumably are not local. There’s also loads of Tibetan monks wandering around in their orange robes - they’ve been granted asylum by the Indian government and have a big settlement just outside of Mysore - it’s an interesting mixture! The touts here are fierce and, being off-season, there are slim-pickings for them, so almost every step has you fighting off taxi-drivers, beggars and people selling postcards, incense, wooden snakes, etc, etc. It’s a shame because it’s spoiling Mysore for us a bit – it’s very tiring! The next day we waved Lisa off at the bus-station and took a local bus up Chamundi hill to the spectacular Chamundeswari temple overlooking Mysore. Again, the experience was ruined by aggressive touts and we ended up having an argument with a guy who had forced a flower-head (for offerings) onto us before we went into the temple (“it’s not for money, it’s for God”)...well, I can tell you it wasn’t for God when we got out of there, obviously unable to give the flowers back, and the now aggressive guy was demanding a huge amount of money for them! I flat-out refused – we’d just been done over by a kid who had given us an involuntary (and entirely useless) ‘tour’ – and that was the final straw - I’m sorry to say that I completely lost my temper, telling him he was getting nothing from us and that he would have terrible karma for being so dishonest. Felt a bit guilty afterwards but I’m guessing he made a day’s worth of money on the next hapless tourist who dared to wander up the hill! We decided to walk down the hill, passing all the devotees who were boosting their karma by walking up the 1000 sacred steps, and hoping it didn’t work in reverse for us! At this stage, I must admit, we were both like throwing in the towel and heading out of India a month early, but decided we would try and cheer ourselves up and spoil ourselves with dinner at the Lalitha Mahal Palace (former Maharaja’s palace) about 7km out of town. The palace and surrounding grounds is nothing short of spectacular and it’s a fairly safe bet that this was the first time anyone had ever pulled up there in an auto-rickshaw - it amused the doormen no end! Being off-season, we pretty much had the whole palace to ourselves – it was an amazing experience! Waited on hand and foot, cocktails in the magnificent bar and then taken across to the dining room, with it’s domed ceiling and overlooked by ornate balconies and live Indian music being played up on a stage at the front! After the delicious meal, one of the guards asked if we’d like a tour, which we jumped at, and were taken up the sweeping staircase, through the patios and sitting rooms – he even showed us through the best suite which was quite incredible – complete with a gym and a ‘morning’ room! Nige loved the bats swooping through the high arched corridors! Needless to say, that night blew our budget completely out of the water but it got us back in a positive frame of mind so worth every penny!