Last night I stayed in a really wacky hotel right at the top of Ooty. Everyone thought it was a 1930s hotel because of the style but in fact it s only 16 years old and owned by a Bollywood film star. It has a huge picture of Napoleon on the wall and has an enormous atrium as you enter. It also has a discotheque downstairs called 'Midnight Cowboy' which six of us discovered later in the evening. There were only three Indian guests but the DJ was playing all sorts of western dance music. So, there I was strutting out like Freddie Mercury to 'I want to break free', playing air guitar to Bruce Springsteen and singing along to my all time favourite song, 'Summer of 69' by Bryan Adams! Oh, and the bar chairs were cowboy horse saddles! A crazy spontaneous night. A five hour journey by public bus, part of it through two tiger reserves has brought us to Mysore this afternoon. A thief nearly made off with a bag of one of our group on the bus but a very vigilant fellow traveller confronted him just in time. The Maharaja's palace is wonderful and is lit up at night with 97,000 light bulbs. The paintings inside and trophies represent a time gone by of royalty hunting elephants and tigers and enjoying good relationships with British rulers of the Raj.