We leave in a taxi at 10am and head out of Bangalore. There is a lot of traffic, but other people’s traffic is so much more interesting than your own. We have rigged up the children’s car seats in the back of taxi man’s car, and soon the kids are entertaining everyone with rousing renditions of ‘Here we go round the Mulberry Bush’ and the oft mentioned ‘Wheels on the Bus’.
The journey takes about 3 hours, and we break in the middle to sample the delights of Coffee Day. Coffee Day is a chain of, unsurprisingly, coffee dispensing outlets. Air conditioning, toilets, everything. Beth picks a chocolate donut and, mysteriously, it appears minutes later heated. But it is surprisingly good, and everyone is happy until a lump of it hurtles down Beth’s dress. There are tears.
Coming into Mysore I am quite apprehensive. We have chosen to live for 4 months in a city that I have never seen. Everything before this (Dubai, Bangalore) has been a transit destination. Dispensable. But this is our ultimate destination and I start to worry about whether it will be suitable for Hannah and the kids. Whether there will be enough to do here.
The Maurya Residency hotel awaits and also seems to be expecting us. Clever old email. The room is quite nice and has aircon and many switches and dials by the bed. Indian TV bemoans the lack of awareness of how lethal packaged ice-creams can be.
We walk out into Mysore proper and it seems quite hectic and busy and unforgiving – like all Indian cities. But there is a good vibe and it is cleaner than most Indian cities I have been too. Rickshaws bobble about and the incessant beep-beep of their horns mixes in with the usual noises of wandering cows and people haggling and, less expectedly, a distant mosque.
We walk to the main Mysore market and walk through narrow alleys of dyes. People try and sell us various things, and we seek refuge amongst the banana sellers who seem altogether less insistent and have had the foresight to cover their alley from the sun. One of the dye salesman paints a flower on the back of Beth’s hand (pink of course) and there is a very real sense of otherness which is very welcome. When we hit the flower stalls, we buy a jasmine necklace for Beth and steal a few flowers for Isla.
In the evening we take a rickshaw to the South gate of Mysore Palace. At the weekends they light up the palace for an hour in the evening, and if you can get past the slightly Disney aspect of it all, it’s really beautiful.
There are millions of families wandering around, and we start to get mobbed again. This can take several forms: discrete pictures being taken secretly on camera phones, “please sir may I have a photo of your daughter”, “baby, baby what is your name baby?”, occasional grabbing of Isla without so much as a word and hoisting her up in the air towards an expectant cameraman. The kids start off happy enough but Beth soon develops understandable shyness and latterly Isla starts to dole out “No, man” and “No, photo” sentiments directly.
Beth finds relief from the still incessant heat in the fountains.
All in all, a very happy, successful first day.
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