"God has done a wrong thing"

I must apologise for the delay in updating my blog - we just couldn't be bothered to be honest; plus I couldn't work out the punctuation on Eva's computer. And you can't type a blog post without punctuation, it'd be akin to writing with a broken pencil.

I know I raved about Mysore in my last post - but I'm not quite done yet. So bear with me a bit, and I'll get to Bangalore eventually.

Mysore - the Last Supper before we headed onwards and upwards! We decided to go to a place called the Park Lane Hotel, which Lonely Planet raves about. When we arrived, we could see why - they were undergoing refurbishment at the time; but it was still spectacularly beautiful - wooden beams, twinkling lanterns, a band on the lower floor. We were sat on the top floor, with views of the bustling ground floor - waiters scurrying around, steaming plates of food and bottles of beer precariously balanced on glistening silver trays. The atmosphere was incredible, although they did tut-tut slightly when we ordered our third beer!

I should warn you, the food isn't that good - although the surroundings (and the beer) do more than make up for it. I ordered Hyberbadi chicken which the menu claimed was very spicy, but barely had us breaking a sweat. I suspect they might have "Westernised" it for us. Lydia ordered some kind of fruit curry which the waiter said was a house speciality. It was vile. It looked like someone had thrown up on a plate. Still, it was great fun - and we had the smoothest waiter in history. Some of his one-liners had us in tears and deserve to be immortalised forever on this blog.

Lydia: "We're deaf and we don't use our voices."
Waiter: "God has done a wrong thing."

Caroline: (after looking at the dessert menu) "No thanks, I'm full."
Waiter: "Your face itself is dessert, so for you no need of dessert."

Probably one of the worst chat up lines I've heard in my time, but points for originality!

Next stop, Bangalore - three hours on a train preoccupied with Sudoku. We've both finished our Sudoku books and are in a bit of a panic! Life is surely over.

Anyway. Bangalore. We were staying with Eva and Michal, friends of my family. They have a fantastic place within driving distance of Central Bangalore, a roof-top garden, balconies outside all the bedrooms, a gorgeous dog called Horac. I wouldn't half mind moving in with them! It was fantastic to have so much space too after all the cramped hotel rooms we'd stayed in - a certain expression about swinging cats come to mind. And no, not that kind of swinging.

Michal took Lydia and I out to a shopping mall. We were gobsmacked. We've barely seen any Western-style shops, let alone a shopping mall. Adidas, Apple, Reebok, Dockers, Levis, you name it... We were like kids in a sweet shop. Having said that, Lydia and I find it quite tricky to find clothes in India - the Western style clothes in India are not the kind of thing that we'd wear back home. We don't feel comfortable forking out money for something that we'll only wear a couple of times then throw away when we get home. Call us Scrooge, but that's how it is!

Went out to a party in Bangalore to celebrate someones birthday. Drank their house dry as usual, it seems to be becoming a habit with us. Party was great - some really lovely people there. Indian parties are different from ours - they did have alcohol, and served snacks all evening; but at 10-11pm they have a huge meal - then send everyone home! I actually think it's a great idea - how often do you invite someone over to your place and then fidget for hours after dinner waiting for them to leave so you can wash up and go to bed? I'm going to start doing that when I get home. "Here's your dinner, now eat up and clear off!"

What else did we do in Bangalore? We attended a proper Indian wedding, which was fantastic - all colour, light and smoke! It was quite funny for me, English weddings are very prim and proper, everything organised, all the i's dotted and t's crossed. At Indian weddings everyone in the pews chat with each other, ignoring the wedding, and there doesn't seem to be any logical process. Utter brilliance! We went to a couple of steakhouses - 8 weeks of Indian food - we're craving beefburgers. Our taste buds sated, we're now back on the curries for 2 more weeks.

We also went for a drive around Bangalore with Michal - we saw Vidhana Soudha (Government House), and nearly saw the President of India. His car went past, but he didn't stop - probably scared by our big camera. Cubban Park, where Michal was forced to buy two custard apples - which were hideously disgusting and we got snapped by about 2,000 Indians and finally Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. Lalbagh was quite cool, great views of Bangalore. However, by this point Michal was going insane. Too many Indian people were coming up to him and asking him his name, where he was from and other such questions. It's sweet that they're interested, but when you've been living in Bangalore for 3 months and had this everyday of your life, I'm sure it becomes quite tiresome. So he pinched our method of getting rid of people. He used the sign for, "I'm deaf, I don't use my voice." That sent them all packing! We showed Eva, and she reckons she is going to start using it too - watch out for a dramatic increase of white people in Bangalore who claim to be deaf and without speech!

Oh, we also met up with a fellow blogger - Vathsan - who has been commenting on this blog. I'll add a link to his blog eventually when I work out how to do so, as he has fantastic photographs. Loved his outlook on life, he's 22, and wants to have travelled all of India before he hits 28. It's a fantastic ambition to have - and he gave us a lot of useful advice - namely that we really should allow for more time in each place! And he's right. Anyway, lovely guy, excellent tattoo and hopefully we'll see him again someday.

Our time in Bangalore was fantastic - places to go include Millers, 1912, The Only Place, MG Road and Eva's (a big shopping mall catering specifically for women). There's one other big shopping mall which we went to, but for the life of me I can't recall the name. Big thanks to Eva and Michal for putting up with us for two nights and giving us a much-needed break from budget hotels.

Eva said one thing to me that really stuck in my mind. A lot of our communication is done via either pen and paper (we always have a notebook handy!) or gestures. With Eva and Michal we relied primarily on pen and paper. On the last day, Eva said to me that she really liked this form of communication as she could finally understand everything that is being said. To which I replied that I have the same sort of problem in the UK, people speak so fast it's hard to follow everything that is being said. Mum, take note!

In brief - night train to Hospet - and rickshaw to Hampi. I think we're leaving for Goa tomorrow as we're having issues with transport. I'll update as soon as I know if I can find a decent computer!

Oh, we're having network problems - so don't bother texting us.

13 more days left - it's going so fast...

Caroline xx