We had had mixed reviews from people who had visited Mysore but it was on our way to Hampi so we stopped here for a couple of nights and enjoyed it thoroughly. It´s a pretty modern feeling city although there are still all the Indian idiosyncracies that we have got used to we ate well here and we also shopped well, having a great time wandering through the bustling market and picking up some spices including some masala tea which we´ve become quite partial too. They even scam you with a bit of style here. We were looking for the mythical ´Friday market´which we were assured we were lucky to be able to go to (we later reaised there´s a whatever day of the week it is market) when without really realising it had happened we´d been led into the back room of a shop and bought some oil that we didn´t really want. We paid 4 quid when we should have paid two but it was worth it to see the smoothness of the scam.

Saturday morning started with Alison watching Pretty Woman in our room, although she says the best bits were cut, and demanding she be provided with breakfast in bed, which she was. We spent saturday night wandering around the palace which was lit up (this genuinely was only on weekends) and then returned on Sunday for a daytime visit, a pretty impressive building although it´s hard to take a lot of it in as you get bundled along by the crowds, pushing is an Indian art form. We then hopped on the train to Bangalore, hoping to make a connection to Hampi.